WEBENCH Thermocouple Designer provides complete circuit solution for common thermocouple sensor applications. Start by selecting a thermocouple sensor from a list, or select a generic thermocouple type. WEBENCH Thermocouple Designer provides you with optimized signal path performance, bill of materials, budgetary cost, and links to evaluation boards and other tools for testing and validating your simulated solution.
Thermocouples are the most widely used temperature sensor in industrial applications. They can differ by type and come in variety of options like grounded, ungrounded, exposed tip, bare wire, beaded wire, surface probes, and other mechanical connections. Thermocouples are used in a variety of applications including high temperature furnace monitoring, gas temperature monitoring, water heaters, ovens, and temperature transmitters for process control applications.
The tool covers the most common thermocouple types, including Type E, Type J, Type T, Type K, Type N, Type R, Type S, and Type B thermocouples.
WEBENCH Thermocouple Designer provides a complete thermocouple to digital serial output solution, including sensor interface, cold junction temperature circuit, precision amplifier and filter, 8-bit through 12-bit ADCs, and a serialized output to connect to various back-end systems.
WEBENCH Thermocouple Sensor Designer
WEBENCH Thermocouple Sensor Designer Solutions
WEBENCH Thermocouple Sensor Designer solutions use either a noninverting amplifier, a difference amplifier, or a 3 op amp instrumentation amplifier, depending on the amount of common-mode noise expected to be picked up by the circuit. (The pickup level is user-controlled.) A 2-channel single-ended ADC (8 to 12 bits) monitors the amplified thermocouple voltage, as well as the cold-junction temperature detected by an IC temperature sensor. If the sensed temperature range extends on both sides of the cold junction, a level shift generator circuit block is added. If the voltage produced by the thermocouple is lower than the common-mode input range of the amplifier, a negative bias generator circuit block is added.
Standard thermocouple products can be selected from a list, or a custom thermocouple can be "created" for use with the Designer.
Example schematic: Thermocouple voltage amplified by differential amplifier, driving single-ended ADC. Optional negative bias generator and level-shift generator blocks are shown.
Thermocouple Sensor Designer Help
How to use this design tool:
1. Explore & Learn
Click the blue Start Design button for your desired sensor type and choose a pre-loaded sensor, or enter a custom sensor to meet your needs. Then click the 'Create Design' button.
2. Compare & Select
Review the resulting schematic, bill of materials, performance summary, and other technical results in the Design Summary overview. Click on any of the displayed panels to review more advanced or detailed information behind each panel. You can modify design parameters or further optimize your design by selecting a different sensor, amplifier, ADC, or other system parameters.
3. Design & Build
Print a report to document your design in the Documentation panel or move forward to order evaluation kits, component samples, and other tools in the Build It panel in seconds. Furthermore, download applicable datasheets, application notes, and other design tips.
Tip: If your monitor is 1024x768, press the F11 key to set your browser to full screen. You can also collapse the header and the side detail panels out of the working view by clicking the small box up to the right and just under the header or at the top of the left design panel. The newest generation of the WEBENCH toolset requires Adobe Flash 9.0. If you do not have Adobe Flash 9.0 installed, you can download it here.
