ADC-11 Taking Temperature reading via K Thermocouple

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richiek67
Newbie
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:20 am

ADC-11 Taking Temperature reading via K Thermocouple

Post by richiek67 »

First of all, my god its hard to navigate this site in order to ask a question!!!
Secondly, i thought it was going to be a simple task to measure temperature with this ADC-11 usb device i bought. I dident think i was going to introduce more circuitry . I thought i could just add the Thermocouple. I'm not too happy.
Did i buy the wrong thing?

R

ziko
OneWave
OneWave
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:03 am
Location: St Neots

Re: ADC-11 Taking Temperature reading via K Thermocouple

Post by ziko »

Hi and thank you for your post. Sorry for the difficulty you are facing.

The ADC11 is a data logger (or more correctly an acquisition unit) that measures voltages from 0 -2.5V, it has multiple inputs. By using the terminal board you have the flexibility to do many things. Attenuating larger voltages, putting shunt resistors, or even creating some circuitry to measure temperature (thermocouples, thermistors or even an integrated circuit sensor). The terminal board guide gives you some instructions on how to do this:

http://www.picotech.com/document/pdf/ad ... ons-en.pdf

The reason why you just can plug in a thermocouple is you need to take into account cold junction compensation. This why you have to buy a CJC chip.

If you wanted a dedicate thermocouple device you would need to go for the USB-TC08 which can take 8 thermocouple inputs from all thermocouple types (it uses mini thermocouple connectors).

http://www.picotech.com/thermocouple.html

Kind regards
Ziko

Technical Specialist

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