Development of Multichannel Electronic Thermometers Module with Thermocouple Sensor for Micro Climate Observations

Abstract

Instrumentation in meteorological sector is growing, particularly in the electronic base. Although it’s not as good as conventional equipment but the accuracy of electronic measurement can be better and the construction is more simple. Micro-climate is the climate conditions in a very limited space so the climate elements will experience a significant change in the scale of space or time. In micro-climate, especially in the air temperature observations, requires a fast response time and the output data must be avoid from the effects of thermal sensors (self heating) and can be monitored continuously. Thermocouple construction methods that have multiple channel temperature sensor with the same temperature reference and using the data logger will make temperature measurements at several observation point becomes more efficient, affordable, and can be monitored continuously. The sequence circuit and op-amp circuit are the main key in this research. T type thermocouple sensor is used because it has small form and can be connected easily, and also has affordable price and sensitivity to 40.6 μV/oC derived from the output thermoelectric effects. The use of oscillator block as a timer to send the temperature measurement data were considered not enough for fast response time observations. The use of the personal computer (PC) power supply makes the data interference (noise). The data output that resulted in sequential and follow the diurnal temperature change pattern proves the module can work well. The module still need a further research to improve the power supply to reduce noise (interference data) or by developing software to correct the data error.