[time-nuts] Temperature sensors and bridge amps
Hal Murray
hmurray at megapathdsl.net
Fri Nov 12 09:15:32 UTC 2010
> One can easily buy 50 PPM/ degree metal film resistors.
You can do much better than that. I don't know how much it matters if the
bridge resistors are mounted near (temperature wise) the sensor.
I poked 10K into Digikey, scrolled down to Resistors, selected through-hole,
and picked 10K (there were a lot of false hits) and then 1, 2, and 5 ppm/C
1ppm/C, 0.01% is $18.
2ppm/C, 0.01% is $14.
5ppm/C, 0.05% is $2.75 ea, min qty is 10
5ppm/C, 0.1% is $1.41 ea, min qty is 10
I didn't find any 1 ppm/C in surface mount. For the ones I checked, prices
are in the same ballpark.
I'm not sure what values they already stock and/or which values they will
order if nobody has asked for that value yet. (I assume they order a whole
reel if somebody orders 10.)
> I donât know what a PID is but I agree about using a bridge circuit.
PID is Proportional/Integral/Derivative
It's the magic in a large class of feedback loops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller
> Letâs assume for example we want 80 C. for our oscillator.
> The Ni1000 is rated as 1482.5 ohms at 80C and 1489.1 ohms at 81C resulting
> in a change of about.0066 ohms per milli-degree.
> As stated earlier, the standard platinum 100 ohm sensor is a nominal 0.385
> ohm/°C. or .000385 ohms per milli-degree.
I assume you would pick handy values for 2 of the resistors, then adjust the
3rd resistor so the bridge is ballanced at the target temperature. By
"adjust" I was thinking of starting with a good guess and adding a
series/parallel resistor for the fine print.
The idea is that you are aiming for a null. You adjust the target
temperature by tweaking the resister balancing the sensor.
> The last unknown for me is what type of op-amp does one use?
Look up Instrumentation Amplifier. One of the classic applications is
reading a bridge.
The typical package is 3 op-amps, 2 unity gain buffers as isolation stages
feeding a 3rd op-amp that does the real work. Usually the package contains a
few well matched resistors. Sometimes you need to add one more resistor to
set the gain, sometimes you set the gain by tying a few pins high/low.
> Although the platinum sensor is superior can such a low value of change be
> used practically in a bridge circuit made by us time-nuts?
How much gain do you need?
Instrumentation amplifiers work fine when setup for gains like 1K.
Rick Karlquist and crew have written a wonderful paper on this area.
http://www.karlquist.com/oven.pdf
I think things will be a lot easier if you can use a lot of volume for
insulation.
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