User:Andy Maloney/Notebook/Lab Notebook of Andy Maloney/2010/08/03/Temperature probe

So the second temperature probe came in from TeTech finally. I mounted it on the top of the objective and I am right now looking at how well it functions. I mounted it with some copper tape and then covered the coper tape with electrical tape to ensure that the probe doesn't move. I checked to make sure that slides were not impeded by the new probe and I am right now running a temperature control to see at what temp the objective is at.

It seems that there is a 0.2C difference between the top probe and the bottom probe. I use the bottom probe to set the temperature with and I'm now using the top probe as the temperature measurement. So, if this is the case for extended periods of time, then my temperature stabilized measurements of gliding were at 32.1C. I've now moved the set temperature to 30.0C and I'm reading 29.8C at the top of the objective. I'm going to try and do my experiments at 30.0C from now on. This is interesting because when I do more experiments, I should see a speed difference. How big of a difference will allow me to gauge how sensitive gliding speeds are to temperature. This should be interesting.

Knowing that there is now a 0.2C difference between the top and bottom probes, I changed the set temp to 30.2C. It took the set temp about a minute to reach a steady reading and likewise the top probe.

After letting the system sit for a few minutes, I decided to see how the temp was affected when I put a cold glass slide on the objective.
 * Putting the cold slide on the objective resulted in a 0.1C drop in the temperature of the top probe but no drop in the set probe. It appears that I will need to offset the set temp for 0.3C in order to have the top of the objective at 30.0C. Bumping it up and letting it sit for a while shows some rather remarkable temperature stability. I really like TeTech's stuff!