Featured Product of The Month

The Accutech™ Line of Temperature Transmitters

Ttemperature transmitters, are amplifier-like devices connected to thermocouples and resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) that convert the relatively small and noise-prone temperature sensor signal into a two wire analog current signal. They are designed to work in a hot, dusty, wet and/or remote locations. These particular devices are not your $50 specials, as some are. These cost a little more, but are robust, ambient temperature insensitive, isolated, self-calibrating and more. Their common feature is alinearized dc milliamp signal output. In addition to all this magic, these devices can also be powered over the same two wires that are used to transmit the precision analog current. The AI-1500 and AI-2000 series, pictured in the center and right (above) are Smart. They both feature the Hart communications digital interface whereby the transmitter parameters can be set or changed remotely over the same two wire connection.

All the Accutech products are reknown for stability and accuracy. Features such as automatic self calibration, user-selectable, thermocouple or RTD input, digital ambient temperature correction, common mode noise rejection and signal isolation from ground are exceptional in most products and standard in these. The three series depicted above are:

• The AI-1000 Programmable Temperature Transmitter series, on the left, a high performance, 0.1% transmitter without a high price, perfect for applications that don't need Smart Communications,
• AI-1500 SMART Temperature Transmitter with HART communications is a 0.05% device carrying a 3 years stability guarantee, and,
• AI-2000 Smart Temperature Transmitter , a 0.04% unit with a 2 year NIST traceability guarantee, that set the industry standard for high performance and installation flexibility utilizeing Accutech Smart Communications

The AI-1000 and AI-1500 series are compact, can be DIN rail mounted or sensor-head mounted and all are available in the explosion proof enclosures as shown in the photos. All are NIST traceable. For more details vist the appropriate web link and contact Accutech via email at:" -->Accutech@adaptiveinstruments.com

Upcoming Meetings, CFPs etc.

CALL FOR PAPERS By March 31, 2003: and Meeting Announcement: For The 2nd International Seminar on Low Temperature Thermometry, 6¸7 October 2003, Wroclaw, POLAND e-mail: temperat@int.pan.wroc.pl (You can download a Word document here with the form for Abstract submission and Registration)

Thermosense XXV (Silver Anniversary Meeting)
April 21-24, 2003, Gaylord Palms Resort & Conference Center, Orlando, Florida, USA. Held as part of SPIE's Aerosense Meetings each Spring, this has become the premier infrared imaging and temperature measurement meeting in the world. In 2003, the ASTM's Sub-committee E20.02 on Radiation Thermometry and ASNT's Infrared Methods Committee will meet again (for the third year in a row-each) during the conference week. It is expected that the newly formed ISPoT, The International Society of Professional Thermographers,an organization "By Thermographers and For Thermographers" will have a presence at the meeting at least informally, if not a formal time & place, to continue their organizational activities.

NEW & Upgraded Web Site Pages on www.temperatures.com

Updated Standards Page (It is now an Index page to Standards)
Our standards page was getting too long and cluttered for easy access and use by visitors. It has been redesigned and all the actual standard references moved to pages related to the sensor type or use classification that you can see listed below in the set of additional new standards pages. These new pages hold the data for each temperature sensor type and have some of the common key standards, like terminology and calibration standards, repeated on each page so that visitors can access the pertinant and key information for one sensor type on one web page.

(New)Standards Related To Temperature & Calibration in General

(New)Liquid in Glass Thermometer Standards

(New)Thermocouple Standards

(New)Thermistor Standards

(New)Radiation Thermometer & Thermal Imager Standards

(New)Resistance Thermometer Devices (RTD & SPRT) Standards

(New)Phase Change and Liquid Crystal Thermometer Standards

(New)Clinical Thermometer Standards

(New)Electronic Thermometer Standards

New Downloadable Thermowell Software at www.tempsensor.net

Wellstr.exe is a free software program for the estimation of vibration effects in Thermowells by Dr. David Bartran, P.E..Presently it is limited to steam and condensate situations and available only to members at www.tempsensor.net. There is no cost for membership, but you are required to use a valid email address to join.

NEW Links of Interest -January 2003

Calibration Page

Advanced Sensing Products (USA)
A secondary standard PRT and precision RTD probe manufacturer. They make own RTD elements to completely control product quality. Provide NIST traceable calibration services with temperature ranging from -189 to 850°C. Customers are in metrology, instrumentation, power industry, turbine manufacturers, and the military.

Isotech Support CD
Cal NotePad Software, Isotech Technical Info, Evaluation Reports, Isocal-6 Video & Performance Information.

Sira Test & Certification Ltd
Operates its UKAS approved, traceable temperature calibration facilities approximately 12 miles south of London.

UKAS, The United Kingdom Accreditation Service
The UK service that accredits calibration laboratories for many variables and types of devices including all kinds of temperature sensors and calibrating equipment, e.g. black body sources, baths, lamps etc. The UKAS web site includes a search engine for all accredited calibration labs in the UK, and some outside the UK because UKAS accreditation is recognised worldwide.

CD-ROMs Page

Isotech Support CD
Cal NotePad Software, Isotech Technical Info, Evaluation Reports, Isocal-6 Video & Performance Information.

Links Page

Temperature Guard (USA)
Manufacture a variety of temperature monitoring equipment that includes cryogenic temperature monitoring.

Phase Change Thermometer Page

How the Poultry Pop-Up Thermometer Works
A special feature page from our friendly neighbor site TemperatureWorld about how the common plastic pop-up thermometer used in poultry, like turkey and chicken, actually works. It is a phase-change devices and surprisingly accurate according to the test run by Alan Parker!

Training For Infrared Thermographers Page

ThermaQuest, Inc. (Canada & USA)
A unique safety rating organization for commercial vehicles, provides vehicle safety IR Thermography training and more for Technicians to operate equipment and analyze data on commercial vehicles' Brakes, Wheel Bearings and Tires in Mobile Screening Vans. This training leads to a TQI Certified Commercial Vehicle Thermographer (TCCVT) designation for those successfully completing the course.

Thermography Resources: Organizations & Meetings Page

ThermaQuest, Inc. (Canada & USA)
A new, unique safety rating organization for commercial vehicles, provides vehicle safety rating on Brakes, Wheels and Tires through its own REDFLAG™ Vehicle Screening System made up of trained Technicians and their Mobile Screening Vans. the resulting analyzed data is compiled and available in the INFRAREAD™ database to Fleet Operators, Insurance Carriers and Manufacturers depending on just-in-time deliveries.

ISPoT, The International Society of Professional Thermographers,
A new organization "By Thermographers and For Thermographers" will have a presence at the National Manufacturering Show in McCormick Place in March and are expected to at least be seeking additional members at the forthcoming April SPIE Thermosense meeting and exhibition at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Orlando. An international Board of Directors has been elected and a website set up at www.professionalthermographer.org . The website has a sign up form for members and volunteers plus a new message board. You can also join their email forum by sending an email to ISPoT-subscribe@topica.com . The list is moderated by Jack Kleinfeld of Kleinfeld Technical Services, Inc..

Thermography Service Company Page

Chemical & Infrared INSPECTIONS, LLC
Professional Services Assisting Industrial, Commercial and Residential Customers locate potential problems through Infrared Thermography and Structural Drug Detection

Alain Tremblay, ing.INFRA SAGLAC, Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada.
Spécialiste Thermographique Infrarouge, Niveau II (Level II , Infrared Thermographic Specialist)
Tel.: 418-543-6358 Fax: 418-543-4503 Pagette: 418-696-6398

Bimet Thermometer & Thermostat Vendor Page

Texas Instrument's Sensors and Controls Group (Attleboro, MA, USA)
A world leader in thermostats for aerospace, commercial, HVAC, and small appliance applications.

RTD, PRT & SPRT Vendors Page

Advanced Sensing Products (USA)
A secondary standard PRT and precision RTD probe manufacturer. They make own RTD elements to completely control product quality. Provide NIST traceable calibration services with temperature ranging from -189 to 850°C. Customers are in metrology, instrumentation, power industry, turbine manufacturers, and the military.

Semiconductor Thermometer Vendors Page

Texas Instrument's Sensors and Controls Group(Attleboro, MA, USA)
With its acquisition of Power Trends, Benchmarq, and Burr-Brown, Texas Instruments now has the industry's most complete semiconductor product line. They also make the world's lowest power digital temperature sensors, TMP100 and TMP101. These last two links point to the pages for the units.

NEW SITE INFORMATION

The eNewsletter archive and subscribe/unsubscribe features, formerly part of this site, have been moved to a new website since it now is supporting a second different, but related, website. Also the archive is growing and a search engine has been added to it. You can visit the archive, subscribe or unsubscribe to the eNewsletter by visiting www.TemperatureSensorNews.com

The next issue promises to be exciting and interesing. New IR imaging products are coming to market , especially some that break low price barriers with very competitive imaging capability and features. We'll even have a excerpt from an ISA-Section meeting presentation by our Editor & Publisher entitled "What's New in IR Thermometery and Imaging" to complement the other news in the rapidly changing field of Infrared Radiation Thermometery.

COMMENTS and Alexa™ SITE RANKINGS

Notice to PR and Ad staffs in equipment and service companies:

Send us your new product, new staff, and related news releases, please and we'll get them into our queue for release on the site and/or the newsletter.

Listed below are the Alexa Web site rankings at the end of January and the preceeding two months. The rose color indicates that a site became less popular during the month, the green or aqua indicates more popular. The numbers provide a quantitative measure of the site popularity according to the Alexa ranking system. Needless to say, lower values mean more popular (like:"Yahoo is Number 1!").

Rose is again the dominant color this past month. That's not good news, but could still be related to seasonal trends. Omega Engineering is the only green cell this past month on the left side of the table below, halting a two month backwards slide. Even GlobalSpec slid by almost 12%. There is some real optimism indicated on the right side of the table, however, with the increase in the number of green cells for January. Several of the increases were huge: Indigo Systems+ 59%, Raytek + 54%, Mikron Instruments and SnellInfrared, both + 53% and Pyromation + 44%. The only significant negative notes are the drop of JMS-Southeast by 68% and the continued slide of Land Instruments for the third month in a row; 38% down in January.

According to www.netcraft.com there are 38,118,962 web sites accesible on the Internet. In context of a popularity rating, a position of 1 or 2 million doesn't seem so bad. However the rankings of sites of similar organizations competing for Web hits and exposure does seem to indicate at least relative success or lack thereof in attracting visitors.
Note, too, that the links indicated by the underline and color of the indivdual web site entriesin the table below now take one to the corresponding Alexa report page for each site.

We have also joined with Alexa as an Amazon Associate web site (Amazon owns Alexa) to offer an Alexa Toolbar for your IE web browser, if you wish to use Alexa on a regular basis yourself. See the small banner ad at the bottom of the page to access it. It is one small way that you can help support About Temperature Sensors.

Note from the above Alexa ratings that our Web site consistently achieves a lower ranking (meaning it is more popular) than nearly all the vendors of temperature sensors, with the major exceptions of GlobalSpec and Omega Engineering. Our site rebounded by +20% in January, passing ASNT, The American Society for Non-Destructive Testing, that gained +9% in the month.