In an effort to resume previous work [A, B, C, D] on developing a crystal oven for radio frequency transmitter / receiver stabilization purposes, the first step for me was to create a device to accurately measure and log temperature. I did this with common, cheap components, and the output is saved to the computer (over 1,000 readings a second). Briefly, I use a LM335 precision temperature sensor ($0.70 on mouser) which outputs voltage with respect to temperature.
It acts like a Zener diode where the breakdown voltage relates to temperature. 2.95V is 295K (Kelvin), which is 22ºC / 71ºF. Note that Kelvin is just ºC + 273.15 (the difference between freezing and absolute zero). My goal was to use the ADC of a microcontroller to measure the output. The problem is that my ADC (one of 6 built into the ATMEL ATMega8 microcontroller) has 10-bit resolution, reporting steps from 0-5V as values from 0-1024. Thus, each step represents 0.0049V (0.49ºC / 0.882ºF). While ~1ºF resolution might be acceptable for some temperature measurement or control applications, I want to see fractions of a degree because radio frequency crystal temperature stabilization is critical. Here’s a video overview.
This is the circuit came up with. My goal was to make it cheaply and what I had on hand. It could certainly be better (more stable, more precise, etc.) but this seems to be working nicely. The idea is that you set the gain (the ratio of R2/R1) to increase your desired resolution (so your 5V of ADC recording spans over just several ºF you’re interested in), then set your “base offset” temperature that will produce 0V. In my design, I adjusted so 0V was room temperature, and 5V (maximum) was body temperature.
This way when I touched the sensor, I’d watch temperature rise and fall when I let go. Component values are very non-critical. LM324 is powered 0V GND and +5V Vcc. I chose to keep things simple and use a single rail power supply. It is worth noting that I ended-up using a 3.5V Zener diode for the positive end of the potentiometer rather than 5V. If your power supply is well regulated 5V will be no problem, but as I was powering this with USB I decided to go for some extra stability by using a Zener reference.
On the microcontroller side, analog-to-digital measurement is summed-up pretty well in the datasheet. There is a lot of good documentation on the internet about how to get reliable, stable measurements. Decoupling capacitors, reference voltages, etc. That’s outside the scope of today’s topic. In my case, the output of the ADC went into the ATMega8 ADC5 (PC5, pin 28). Decoupling capacitors were placed at A Ref and AVcc, according to the datasheet. Microcontroller code is at the bottom of this post.
Read More: Precision Temperature Measurement