1.10.08

thermistor system in development

i traded two thermistors for a quantum mechanics primer today, from an absolute legend of an engineering buddy of mine. i'm siting them in the back of my left hand or wrist - haven't decided which yet; it's a question of practicality - in order to artificially replace (poorly, but better than nothing) my natural temperature sense, which has been pretty much obliterated by my painkiller use. the idea is that i'll be able to develop a small circuit with a lithium cell and a pair of LEDs, one for each thermistor, whose brightness will increase as the resistance of the thermistors decreases, meaning the hotter it gets, the brighter the LEDs should be.

i have a long way to go, including building the system, siting the implanted components, and testing it all, before i consider this a success, but the idea is pretty much there. i have no idea if my concept of how accurately the thermistors respond to temperature shifts is accurate, and that needs testing too.

the reason there are two sensors is (in my relatively worthless opinion) also pretty cool: one is in the ohm range, for sensing the temperature of things i touch, whereas the other is in the kiloohm range, for ambient temperature. combined, they should give a rudimentary picture of the temperature of my environment.

if i succeed here, the next step will be to replace the LED indications with a proper LCD readout of the temperature, which needs a microcontroller to calibrate the thermistors and perform the calculations necessary to translate their resistance values into grokable Celsius ones. that's a pipedream, for now, but the first setup i'm actively developing. more news as it evolves... this is gonna be one hell of an experiment.

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[pls no ask about the vodka. debate is always welcome. remember, Tramadol fucks you up]