We just bought the least expensive one sold by Cole-Parmer. It's okay.
The more expensive ones allow you to set the emissivity of the surface
and the one we bought cannot do that. But we just wanted something to
demonstrate the principle. For what you want to do, the ability to set
the emissivity might be nice because it shows how you can correct for
different types of surfaces.
These modern gadgets are microprocessor controlled and give a digital
readout of the temperature on a liquid crystal display. A long time
ago I used a different type of device and I wish I had one of these
today, because it is an excellent educational tool. It was a telescope
that you looked through. Superimposed on the object you want to
measure was a tungsten filament. You adjusted the current through the
filament until its temperature matched the object you were viewing.
You knew the temperatures matched (or at least the radiated spectrums
matched) because the filament would seem to disappear. Too cold and
the filament appeared dark. Too hot and it appeared light. Just right
and it "disappeared." Pretty cool... er... hot?
It wouldn't be hard to make one of these with a couple lenses and a
light bulb... but the commercial version was calibrated to give the
temperature via the current needed to make the filament match the
object being viewed.
Does anyone know if this type of optical pyrometer is available
anywhere?
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817
-----Original Message-----
From: Dean Livelybrooks [SMTP:dlivelyb@HENDRIX.UOREGON.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 1999 5:13 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: optical pyrometers
Greetings,
I'm looking for an optical pyrometer for a black-body radiation lab.
Does anyone know any good sources?
Thanks,
_____________________________________________________
Dr. Dean Livelybrooks Department of Physics
(541)-346-5855 1274 University of
Oregon
(541)-346-5861-FAX Eugene, OR 97403-1274
USA
"God is subtle, but he is not malicious." Albert Einstein