Public Lab Wiki documentation



Thermal fishing bob

This is a revision from November 02, 2013 11:10. View all revisions
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This variation on the thermal flashlight uses a cheaper thermistor instead of a non-contact IR thermometer ($20), but can only detect the temperature of things the sensor is literally touching.

The circuit looks like this:

Thermal fishing bob circuit in Fritzing

Read here for build instructions by Sophia (RISD), using a thermocouple taken from a cheap medical digital thermometer: http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/sobers/11-28-2011/temperature-sensor-led-light

in-bottle

Here is one, assembled:

Thermal fishing bobThermal fishing bob

Concept

The idea is to put this in a waterproof container with the the thermistor poking through the outside (but not letting water in) and to "cast" this into a waterway while taking a long-exposure photograph. This will create a "light painting" where the colors describe the temperature of the water at that location. Eymund Diegel has been doing some good sketches of this, focusing on a version where you drag the package around on the bottom of the canal, but the light is on the surface of the water (this will allow mapping of bottom temperatures, but will require more waterproofing).

eymund-sketch

Eymund's thermal fishing sketches

Arduino code

Updated Arduino code from 2013 Barnraising