Smartec SMT160 smart temperature sensor

[Ferry Toth]

For those interrested:

There is a 3 terminal IC (SMT150 Smart temperature sensor) available from
Smartec (www.smartec.nl) that has a duty cycle output and costs about $1
(1000's). Using a 5 volt regulator you can connect it directly to a PC's
serial port. By sampling the serial port and avaraging you can directly
obtain the temperature. Normally using a microcontroller you would measure
the duty cycle directly to get 0.3C accuracy (typical) and 2mC resolution,
however this way you can get 0.5C resolution (same accuracy of course) in 1
s measurement time (Pentium 200).

I have written a small LabVIEW VI that uses VISA to do just that.

By the way: they also have a device called UTI (Universal Tranducer
Interface) tha
t measures virtually anything, from capacitance (2pF, 12pF and
300pF range), thermistors, bridges. The output signal is suited to connect
directly to a microcontroller. I've tried their evalution board which uses a
PIC controller and connects to a PC and it works great!

[Olivioloyer]

Hi Ferry, 

About the UTI do you know if it could be connected directly to serial port, or must it be connected to a microcontoller?

If this is the case, have you developed any code for this device?

I have seen an evaluation toolkit on smartec's page but apparently they don't share source code.

I understand this message is hold, hope you still active in the community

Thanks, 

Best Regards,