Homebrew PCBs

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Stefan Trethan"
<stefan_trethan@...> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:29:53 +0100, wbblair3 <wbblair3@...> wrote:
> > Just for the heck of it, I'm going to try turning the irons upside
> > down and placing a black-anodized 80486 low-profile heat sink 
> > along with some silcon heatsink compound in the center of their 
> >"hot sides" to try and get a better idea of their _actual_
> > temperatures without having it so skewed by emissivity error.
> >
> > Bill
> >
 
> Please go and get a _simple_ thermocouple thermometer. It's even
> cheaper than the optical ones. You will be much happier with 
> something that actually reads the temperature and not a random
> number.

I originally purchased the Raytek MiniTemp to measure the temperature
of RC aircraft and car engines.  I have compared it with a
thermocouple reading of the temperature of a gas RC engine and found
it to be within 5F.  It seems to be pretty accurate when used to
measure something _designed_ to radiate heat like an anodized RC
engine cylinder or an electric motor with a heat sink.  It evens gets
my home oven temperature correct if I aim it at the enamel surface and
it measured the copper surface of the PCBs in my oven at 390F, the
setting on my oven's digital temperature setting display.  Irons with
bright aluminum bottoms... not so accurate. ;-)

> Accept it, optical thermometers are just another useless but popular
> thing to sell to "the silly sheep" and no good for measuring a wide
> variety of surfaces.
>
> ST

I agree on its inability to measure temperature accurately on shiny
surfaces in particular, but that's not what I originally bought it
for, just what I later misused it for.

Bill