OAK-D-Lite temperature tests

Testing was done in an environmental chamber to determine the upper temperature limit of OAK-D-Lite under full load.

Equipment used

• Modified oven with PID controller

• PicoTechnology TC-08 temperature logger

• OAK-D-Lite (Sunny camera modules)

Test results

Test	Ambient [°C]	VPU [°C]	HS-CPU [°C]	HS [°C]
Test 1	30	87	71.5	67
Test 2	35	94	77	73
Test 3	40	100	88	78
Test 4	50	/	/	/
Test 5	50	112	95	90

Legend:

• Ambient temperature means the temperature of the air around the device

• VPU is the temperature of the Robotics Vision Core 2 (RVC2) (as reported by depthai)

• HS-CPU is the temperature of the enclosure where VPU is located

• HS is the temperature of the enclosure on the opposite side of the VPU

Tests 1-4 were running all 3 cameras at 30FPS, stereo depth, NN (mobilenet), and video encoding, so the maximum workload possible. As test 4 resulted in a crash of the device (at 125°C VPU temperature), test 5 was done without video encoding (only NN, stereo depth, and 3 cameras at 30FPS).

Conclusion

Testing showed that the OAK-D-Lite can withstand 40°C ambient temperature under full load. However the camera images start to get noisy. The noise effect is more pronounced in the dark areas. Above 40°C under full load the unit reached a thermal shutdown point of 125°C.

Note

OAK-D-Lite has “Lite” (i.e. cheaper) version of cameras on-board (IMX214, 2x OV7251), which are more prone to thermal noise. See Test 5.

Note

DepthAI library will gracefully shut down when the chip reaches 105°C to prevent thermal damage.

Test 1

Test 2

Test 3

Test 4

Test 5

At such a high temp image quality degradation is significant. The image is noisy and the colors are off.