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Thermistor

3 bytes added, 11:42, 15 July 2012
* NTCs have a negative exponential behavior [1,2,3].
* When trying to read with the ADC on an AVR, you somehow need to fitthe voltage into AVcc, for example using the internal reference at2.56V.
== Solution ==
[2] suggests combining a resistor with the NTC in parallel to createan approximate linear response for a given temperature range.
I decided to do the math first, and it turns out a voltage dividerworks like a charm. Set the ADC reference voltage to 2.56V. Then wirethe divider up this way:
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The 3.6k value can be calculated from [2] and a bit ofexperimentation.
When you read the ADC (say, 8bit ADC), you'll have to post-process thereading. BUT! It is already linear. That means we can easily compute T(in degC):
T = (ADC - 40) >> 2;
Of course, you can decide not to shift and instead have .25 degCresolution.
The resulting temperature reading can be seen in [4] (analysis).
[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Thermistor
 
[2] https://www.avx.com/docs/Catalogs/ntc-general.pdf
 
[3] http://imgur.com/6efmA.png
 
[4] http://imgur.com/YlRCY.png