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Raytek Corp's PhotoTemp™ MX6 (Scoops the market again!)

They've done it again, scooped the market. Raytek continues to lead the market with innovative yet cost effective noncontact measurement solutions. This time it's a portable infrared thermometer with integral digital photography that measures temperature and simultaneously captures a photo showing a date & time stamped image of the measured area & indicated temperature (and some surroundings)-Note-outlined in a bright ring of laser dots! Provides measurement and documentation in a low-cost, simple-to-use package.

Note: the picture to the left, taken by the fellow in the blue safety hat (above).

It shows-actual size (320 x 240) a clear picture of the obect and its immediate surroundings, the area measured outlined in bright laser dots, the date and time plus the indicated temperature and a notation identifying the location.

There's more. In typical Raytek fashion, you get more than expected! The standard offering includes an USB interface cable plus DataTemp MX software compatible with MS Windows 98, 2000 and XP for downloading measurement and photographic data to provide graphical and tabular summaries including full report presentations. We understand that the basic product with software is priced at about $1500 (USA). That means one can nearly match the performance of a thermal imaging camera and analysis software for less than 1/10th the price of the typical "low-cost imager".

The basic unit covers more than the usual maintenance man's temperature range of interest, -30 to 900° C (-25 to 1600 °F) with a claimed accuracy of ±0.75% of temperature, 60:1 distance to spot size ratio,and sufficient internal storage to hold 100 temperature values and 320 x 240 pixel images. Higher spatial resolution images reduces the storage somewhat.

Needless to say, the obvious uses are for those maintenance groups that can not quite justify expensive thermal imaging systems and report software. But how about the lonely process tech and engineer who have to figure out where and how they can put an onlinenon-contact temperature measurement system on the process? This unit not only provides a flexible and low cost way to collect and report information about potential locations, it provides a measure of apparent temperatures in the important 8 to 14 µm wavelength passband plus a view of the potential measurement location(s) in living color!

There's bound to be some repercussions in the market when the word really gets around. Anybody could have thought of this product, but no one did until Raytek produced it first. Look for copycats, but not too soon. This kind of product development takes time and cost s money.

Check with Raytek for the complete details, but here's the specs currently on the Raytek web site:

PhotoTemp MX6 Specifications

Thermometer Specs

Temperature Range:
-30° to 900°C (-25° to 1600°F)
-50º to 500ºC (-58 to 932ºF) SubZero option
Accuracy: (Assumes ambient operating temperature of 23ºC (73ºF)) ±0.75% of reading or ±1ºC (±2ºF) whichever is greater
Repeatability: less than ±0.5% of reading or less than ±1ºC (±2ºF), whichever is greater
Response Time: 250 mSec (95% of reading)
Spectral Response: 8 to 14µm, thermopile detector
Distance to Spot (D:S): 60:1 (50:1 with Close Focus Option)
Minimum Measurement Diameter: 19mm (.76") (6mm (0.24") with Close Focus Option)
Display Resolution: 0.1ºC of reading up to 900ºC (0.2ºF up to 999.8ºF)
Temperature Display: ºC or ºF selectable
Ambient Operating Temperature: 0 to 50ºC (32 to 120ºF )
Storage Temperature: -20 to 50ºC (-25º to 122ºF)
Tripod Mount: 1/4-20 UNC

Camera Specs

Maximum Number of 640x480 Pixel Photos (VGA): 26
Maximum Number of 320x240 Pixel Photos (1/4 VGA): 100
Recharge Time for Flash: <5 sec
Camera Lens: 6 mm (.24 in) approximately equal to 42mm lens on a 35mm camera
Close-up Distance Focal Point • Far Distance Focal Point: 200 mm (7.87 in) • Infinity
Light Sensitivity: 6 lux w/out flash
Variable Shutter Speed: < 1/15 sec (with flash at 1/15 sec fixed)
Data Interface: USB 1.1
Image File Format / Data Output Protocol: .jpg files • .dot files

Upcoming Meetings

IR/Info 2003,The original thermographers conference sponsored by The Infraspection Institute features information exchange, technical presentations, vendor exhibits and more. Held January 12-17, 2003, at the Doubletree Castle Hotel Resort located in the heart of Orlando, Florida on International Drive. Phone: 609-239-4788 Fax: 609-239-4766 Email: support@infraspection.com or go to the web site: www.irinfo.org to register.

Thermal Solutions Conference
January 27 - 30 ,2003 Radisson Suite Resort on Sand Key, Clearwater Beach, Florida, sponsored by Snell Infrared and focused on Condition Monitoring and Nondestructive Testing. The conference features six 3-hour pre-conference courses, daily keynote addresses, two day vendor exhibition and a choice of two field trips. Call 800-636-9820 or email info@thermal-solutions.org.

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.

NEW Links of Interest - November 2002

Links Page

Chaney Instruments, Inc (USA)
Chaney's family of cooking thermometers includes Acu-Rite (TM), America's oldest and most recognized brand of candy and meat thermometers, as well as a new line of patent-pending, digital, instant-read thermometers. Their full line of NSF-certified, professional-quality kitchen thermometers have something for every application: refrigeration, freezing, deep-frying, meat preparation and milk frothing as well.

INSTRUMENT ENGINEERS WEBSITE(India)
This web site has been created to help all Instrument engineers to view, contact and correspond with instrument vendors and to know the technical details of the instrumentation world. This site was developed by L.N.Ramachandran, who is an Instrument Engineer, Graduated from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India and has been serving the world of instrumentation for the past 2 1/2 decades. Suggestions are welcome to improve the site.

Oregon Scientific
Themometers and Hygrometers along with weather tools and many consumer-oriented scientific gadgets.

Radiation Thermometers Page

(Note: The Spot Radiation Thermometers page is now accessible from this page or directly by clicking here )

Infrared Radiation From A Black Body; Planck's Law
Part of the 'Utility Applets' library of TEST, The Expert System for Thermodynamics. TEST is a network of HTML pages with embedded Java Applets that helps users solve thermodynamic problems and perform parametric studies visually without any programming. At the South Dakota State University web site.

Thermowell Page

Thermowell wakes or von Karman vortices. Are discussed in Newport Electronics, Inc's. intro page to thermowell design. Another reference on the web is a downloadable .pdf file from Wika a noted international supplier of temperature sensors and thermowells with many of the design formulae present.

Weather Tools (new page)
(NOTE: Some of the sites previously listed on the links page have been moved to this new page where they are more properly cataloged.)

Azova (USA)
Using the 1-Wire network technology their temperature and humidity measurement systems can automatically identify each point in the system and monitor as few as one or two points or as many as one or two hundred. Also offer handheld temperature and humidity measuring equipment.

Oregon Scientific
Themometers and Hygrometers along with weather tools and many consumer-oriented scientific gadgets.

LIG (Liquid-in-Glass Thermometers)Vendors Page

Ever Ready Thermometers Company or ERTCO (USA)
THERMOMETERS:Liquid in Glass, Bi-Metallic Dial, Hi-Precision Digital Thermometers, Calibration Equipment, Data Loggers and more. NIST Calibrated Thermometers, THERAPEN Pocket Thermometers, Non-Mercury Thermometers, Red Spirit Teflon Coated Thermometers, Precision Armored Thermometers, data loggers and more.

Ludwig Schneider (DE)
Ludwig Schneider, ein Unternehmen, das auf einer 90 jährigen Tradition aufbaut und heute mit modernster Einrichtung ein breites Programm von Temperatur- und Dichtemeßinstrumenten herstellt. (Translation: Ludwig Schneider, an enterprise built on 90 years of tradition, today manufactures a wide range of precision instruments for temperature and density measurement with the most modern equipment.) Multi-language site.

(Infrared) Radiation Thermometer Vendors Page

American IR Technologies Corporation or AIRT (USA)
A new face on the US IR scene with fiber optics and lens radiation thermeter systems and a few specialized applications.

Thermistor Vendors Page

AllGuy International Co. Ltd (Taiwan)
Temperature Sensing Thermistors, High-Precision AT Type, Diode Type and Surface Mount Chip Thermistors.

Thermocouple Vendors Page

AccuTru International(USA)
Self-validating, self-diagnostic temperature measurement systems, extended life, mineral insulated thermocouples, ceramic noble metal thermocouples for glass tanks and other high temperature uses and thermocouples for gas turbines.

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 needs a search engine of its own. One will be added soon. Meanwhile you can visit the archive, subscribe or unsubscribe to the eNewsletter by visiting www.TemperatureSensorNews.com

The new community-oriented web site www.tempsensor.net is moving along. Although not ready for prime time, it does have much of the structure and many new web links started. The main feature of the new site is the availability for user interaction and greatly improved site navigation. We shall continue the existing format in parallel while we continue to add modified versions of the local content to the new site. Many new users are visiting and bookmarks are growing. It may be useful for those who bookmark special pages to look over the new site and capture the equivalent page there, too.

COMMENTS and MORE 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 November 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 we're Number 1).

It is interesting to note that there is no dominant color this past month. That's better news. GlobalSpec continues to grow in popularity, last month about 20% worth. Omega Engineering dropped a surprisingly 10%. Sensors Magazine continues a slow steady growth, the only listing that has grown continuously since June. Some of the societies that we list are recovering from reduced popularity including ISA. ASNT, however, slipped about 10%. Among the vendor ratings, Ircon continues to slide, Raytek and Mikron Instruments made giant recoveries as did Raytheon Infrared, Pyromation and Hart Scientific. while JMS-South East slid noticeably. Remember, there are rankings for sites out to more than the 35 million we mentioned last month. Latest estimates put the number of web sites at over 38 million!

So, 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. And we all know, or should know, the first rule of selling: Inform-tell them who you are and what you do. The web is the lowest cost per prospect "informer"ever .

We believe companies can improve their visitor rate, sales and marketing operations, sales communications and generate more orders through proper focus on their Web resources. The Internet, especially the Web, is a revolutionary new marketing and business tool. We will be announcing after the first of the year a new Web site with resources for companies that want to improve their Web assets.

Note from the above Alexa ratings that our web site consistently acheives 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. Although our site lost a little ground in November, we passed Flir, who dropped markedly for some unknown reason.

Thanks for visiting.