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Gentec PS-310WB Thermopile

Jerry - so Scientech doesn't use radial thermopiles in their units? Do you have a picture of one? I'd be curious to see what they look like.
EDIT - Nvm, found some online.

Laserbee TECs are just as custom designed as the ones used by Radiant Electronics
 
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MarioMaster said:
Laserbee TECs are just as custom designed as the ones used by Radiant Electronics ;)
Click to expand...

Just to clarify... the TECs that Radiant uses are mass produced and
anyone can buy them.
Ours are manufactured to our specs and are only available to
J.BAUER Electronics... That's why we need to pay a premium
price for our Wafer Thermopiles...;)


Jerry
 
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lasersbee said:
Just to clarify... the TECs that Radiant uses are mass produced and
anyone can buy them.
Ours are manufactured to our specs and are only available to
J.BAUER Electronics... That's why we need to pay a premium
price for our Wafer Thermopiles...;)


Jerry
Click to expand...

Because Jerry sure knows where I source my components from :)

The "wafer themopiles" used in the Radiant Alpha can only be found at Radiant Electronics.




Edit - it's all just marketing. Both meters are based upon the same technology. Both provide fairly accurate readings for hobbyists who can't afford to go buy a Coherent power meter for $2000
 
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Got the thermopile today. The sensor surface seems to be in great shape. No burns or pits. As for the sensor itself, it is very interesting ... the round surface seems to be a gray ceramic disc mounted to a TEC that has a high junction count. The heater coil is mounted on the TEC around the sensor disc. All of this is mounted to a solid chucnk of aluminum. This thing is not small. Diameter is 3" and length is 3.5".

4959-thermopile1.jpg


4960-thermopile2.jpg
 
Interesting design, very different than that of the Ophir thermopiles. All you gotta do now is trace the two wires coming off the junctions to the plug and feed that to your amplifier.

The read time on that thing has gotta be painfully slow. (without the meter's built in estimation system)
 
I posted the manual with the pinout, no need to trace wires. If the response is predicable an differentiating amplifier will shorten the rise time A LOT. It's probably what all power meters do.
 
Bluefan said:
I posted the manual with the pinout, no need to trace wires. If the response is predicable an differentiating amplifier will shorten the rise time A LOT. It's probably what all power meters do.
Click to expand...

Only some, mostly the Scientech units. The Ophir piles are so thin they react extremely quickly on their own.
 
I have a 10A head of ophir, but it's direct output response is slow. The ophir OEM heads have an intergrated amplifier, and I think those already have a differentiating circuit to speed up the response.
 
Yeah, 254-junctions TEC plate is sure not a commercial ebay design, LOL ..... yes, these units uses a disk of dark ceramic (not painted, usually is its own color) ..... ceramic surface is porous, and this help in catch light .....

This particular design is intended for mid-time readings, usually over 30 seconds to 1 minute exposition, but is very efficent ..... just take care in never touch the gray disk with the fingers, the oily part in the skin fingerprints can be easily adsorbed from the ceramic disk and alter the reflection/absorption index, changing the calibration (it does not ruin the disk, but it change the reading, and get it clean again requires high grade acetone and is a little pain you-know-where :p)
 
I made a small video of this head with my Arduino LPM. This is raw input, no zeroing or amplification. The "zero" reading starts at 162mV, my 1.3W(estimated) 445 settles around 191mV yielding a delta of 29mV.
Ill have to wait for my new amp PCB to show up before I can do a proper test.

LPM | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Edit: This version of the video on vimeo seems to have better quality: http://vimeo.com/21251165
 
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jib77 said:
I made a small video of this head with my Arduino LPM. This is raw input, no zeroing or amplification. The "zero" reading starts at 162mV, my 1.3W(estimated) 445 settles around 191mV yielding a delta of 29mV.
Ill have to wait for my new amp PCB to show up before I can do a proper test.

LPM | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Edit: This version of the video on vimeo seems to have better quality: Gentec LPM on Vimeo
Click to expand...

Nice work...
Don't forget that the Arduino only has a 10bit ADC...

Jerry
 
Building an amplifier to compensate the offset and to have the correct gain would be the first step. Considering the sensitivity of the head you can go for multiple ranges or a higher resolution ADC as mentioned.
 
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