Chuck,
Most certainly your solution would be best, but far too much
trouble for Willie. The friend who conducted this experiment with
the measuring of top and bottom of the radiator for me used to
do it with a thermocouple as you suggested, but found the
diviation to be no greater than +/- 1 degree C. whenever he did
inside his shop at ~ 75 F. In this particular application he no longer
bothers to use the thermocouple. Unless MMC radiators are
made of Martian alloy, this degree of error is acceptable to
me. As a matter of interest, he reports a much larger error
with an oil cooler of say +/- 5 C. This could be due to a lower
rate of flow or any number of other variables. "Close enough for
Government Work", as they say.
Regards,
Willie
At 08:02 PM 9/23/99 -0400, Vandergraaf, Chuck wrote:
>Willie,
>
>This is a bit academic for me, since my +4 hasn't been fired up for years
>(it has to wait until I get around to restoring it), but the measurements
>you had done interest me anyway. You say that you had the "water
>temperature measured ... with a Raytek infrared gun." Unless the sensor
>actually "saw" the water (in which case I have no argument, but wonder about
>the actual setup), would the sensor not have measured the surface
>temperature at the two locations? If so, the temperature drop across the
>thickness of the walls has to be taken into consideration and a 10 - 14 C
>drop may well be possible (depending, of course, on the ambient
>temperature). The actual water temperature may therefore well have been
>higher than what was measured. I would think that, to check the calibration
>of the VDO gauge, one would have to place thermocouples at the same
>locations as the VDO sensors and compare the readings.
>
>Am I missing something?
>
>Chuck Vandergraaf
>'52 +4
>Pinawa, MB
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