Hello,
At my work we use thermocouple probes to monitor temperature of animals during surgery. There are several issues with our current setup. The thermocouple probes are very expensive ($350) for the sensor alone. Furthermore, the box that they are hooked up to only allows a single probe to be attached and does not record temperature. The probes do not measure the temperature precisely and there is no obvious way to calibrate them.
I've therefore decided to build my own setup. To lower the build price, I've opted for thermistors and I've built an Arduino-based setup with currently eight thermistors. The problem now is that these thermistors are very flexible. I'm therefore looking for any way to stiffen these without increasing the diameter significantly.
The dimensions of the thermistor is 2mm (diameter) x 25mm length of both legs. I would prefer not to exceed the diameter of the thermistor head.
I'm of course somewhat limited by the fact that I cannot short the two wires of the thermistor but would very much like your suggestions.
So far I've tried
1. shrink wrap: caused the diameter to grow to almost 4 mm
2. nail polish: the material was very brittle
3. locktite epoxy instant mix: thermistor remains flexible
4. homemade q-dope: thermistor remains flexible
Attached image of thermistor alone and thermistor wired up with q-dope applied
Thank you
Thomas
At my work we use thermocouple probes to monitor temperature of animals during surgery. There are several issues with our current setup. The thermocouple probes are very expensive ($350) for the sensor alone. Furthermore, the box that they are hooked up to only allows a single probe to be attached and does not record temperature. The probes do not measure the temperature precisely and there is no obvious way to calibrate them.
I've therefore decided to build my own setup. To lower the build price, I've opted for thermistors and I've built an Arduino-based setup with currently eight thermistors. The problem now is that these thermistors are very flexible. I'm therefore looking for any way to stiffen these without increasing the diameter significantly.
The dimensions of the thermistor is 2mm (diameter) x 25mm length of both legs. I would prefer not to exceed the diameter of the thermistor head.
I'm of course somewhat limited by the fact that I cannot short the two wires of the thermistor but would very much like your suggestions.
So far I've tried
1. shrink wrap: caused the diameter to grow to almost 4 mm
2. nail polish: the material was very brittle
3. locktite epoxy instant mix: thermistor remains flexible
4. homemade q-dope: thermistor remains flexible
Attached image of thermistor alone and thermistor wired up with q-dope applied
Thank you
Thomas
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