Official Luthiers Forum!

Does anybody make one? For side bending. I'm tired of sticking a round probe into my slat sandwich and getting indents on my sides. This is simple engineering. Thermocouple material. Doesn't have to be intrusively large. I want to assemble the slat sandwich and throw in a flat probe. Can do? And for those who will suggest doing this between the blanket and steel slat. No way. I want internal temp.

Try Keenovo on ebay. I bought my heating blanket from them with a programmable digital controller. I think you can buy the controller separately.
You can program temperature and time cycles.

Brent

You can break off the tube on a meat thermometer, leaving the thermocouple exposed. Worked for me!

Pat

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

The thermocouple is actually the point where the two dissimilar wires are in contact so you can twist the wire ends together and crimp into a hobby shop brass tubing and hammer the tubing flat, the heat will move to that point, I think the 1/8" ID tubing will work. I use a 1/8" 4" probe and put it between the blanket and the top slat, no issues bending 30+ side sets that way.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

I use this in my digital multimeter--works perfect.

https://www.grainger.com/product/1MZW7? ... 29154541:s

I see I'm not the only one! My wife just got me a multimeter with temp input. Guess I could try that bead wire concept

https://www.labfacility.com/magnetic-st ... p182-pg64/

Though it appears to be made for metal...this will work.
Just make sure whatever you monitor with can function with a Type K thermocouple.

...or....you can just buy thermocouple wire and bring the ends together. I make my own thermocouples using this wire in whatever custom aluminum housing is necessary for a task. The housing shape is irrelevant. The wire works simply by stripping the conductors and joining them with tape. Technically...all you really have to do is use the wire, ends stripped and joined, by itself. No housing is necessary. It IS necessary to make sure the type matches the monitoring source. (Type J, Type K....ect.)

http://www.mcmaster.com/#thermocouples/=11cfz16

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

This one is only rated to 100C. Not high enough for bending. Although that may only affect the flat magnet and probably not the actual thermocouple.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Any recommendations on a multimeter with the simple functions for guitar work? I am seeing $15 - $150.

I have a craftsman multimeter that I purchase out of a pawn shop for $12. It works perfectly for everything I need. I build acoustics and electrics, and it serves every need I have.

I'm on my second multimeter. It is one of the more expensive ones, but works great. A nicer meter became essential when I was making amps 5-6 years ago, and, like always, flew through the budget model I thought was the perfect fit initially.

My temperature probe is from Sears. I'm not smart enough to find what I need online (with confidence) when it comes to this stuff, so I just went to Sears and asked. I'm fairly sure it was $10-$20, and looks just like the one from Grainger posted above.

A nice thing about using the thermocouple with the multimeter is the extreme speed. These things aren't messing around. They'll tell you the temp, and they'll tell you now. Its immediate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The whole idea is to have a thermocouple that is mostly flat and least likely to leave a mark on the side. My heat blanket is on top of the metal slat-wood-metal slat sandwich. I'm not going to stick the probe between the blanket and metal slat. I want temp at wood interface. I prefer top of wood to bottom. Makes sense to me. If the thermocouple junction can be pounded flat and thin, then I'm buying wire.

We looked into this recently for our school. The best low $ meter we found is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K8BI3IW (also sold as the MS8233E on ebay). I've seen it as low as $10 in either model.
My review:
Auto-ranging, and it’s pretty fast
Auto-power off
Clear dial and display, good quality
Temp in C and F, includes thermocouple
Probes are much better than the $6 HF one
Shows 0.0 ohms internal resistance. I tried to break the Ohmmeter by applying 9V and then 18V – it still shows 0.0 ohms internal resistance.
2 fuses (but time-consuming to replace them)
PCB is decent (much better than most cheap meters)

Assuming you want Temp and Auto-ranging, some good meters above that are:
Extech: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012VYKVQ
Amprobe: http://www.amazon.com/Amprobe-AM-510-Co ... B00U2F4E6Y
Fluke: http://www.amazon.com/Fluke-116-Multime ... 000NI69YA/

_________________
David Malicky

Another thing you could do is mount an eyelet style thermocouple or this wire.... http://www.mcmaster.com/#thermocouples/=11ec2df (click Thermocouple Probes for Surfaces)

...to a flat piece of aluminum shim stock (.01" or .02" thick). If you snug up the TC tip so it registers the aluminum's temp RIGHT next to the wood...there won't be enough heat loss to worry about.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Ya'll see these? http://www.minco.com/Sensors-and-Instru ... %20Ribbons

High temperature ribbons with embedded coiled TC wire. Very thin. High temp. What i don't know is how delicate they might be. Or the cost.

I like the lmi thermocouple. It is quite flat.