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Calibrating Coolant Temp Sender with Temp Gauge
ChrisJ15 - 7/6/14 at 09:43 AM

I need to calibrate the Coolant Temp Sender in my Duratec with an Omex 600 ECU.
I was trying to find a thermometer which goes from 0 to 120 and realised I already have one in my Smiths temp gauge and sender.
So my question is, is the temp gauge and sender likely to be accurate enough for the purposes of calibrating the sender for the ECU?

mark chandler - 7/6/14 at 09:50 AM

I took the sender out of my car

Room temperature around 16 degrees, noted the resistance, immersed in icy water 0 degrees, dropped in boiling water 100 degrees then added the same amount of ice water to the boiling water, 50 degrees

If you need more readings then stick the above into excel, graph and trend curve.

Regards Mark

HowardB - 7/6/14 at 11:30 AM

I just did mine at 0 and 100C
That seemed to be ok

matt_gsxr - 7/6/14 at 01:14 PM

quote:
Originally posted by mark chandler
I took the sender out of my car

Room temperature around 16 degrees, noted the resistance, immersed in icy water 0 degrees, dropped in boiling water 100 degrees then added the same amount of ice water to the boiling water, 50 degrees

If you need more readings then stick the above into excel, graph and trend curve.

Regards Mark


A good method. I used something similar (our fridge is a stable 4deg).

If you really want to get a slightly higher set point than 100deg, then a saturated solution of NaCl (table salt) boils at 110degC (quite a lot of salt in a saturated solution so keep the volume smallish). Not worth the bother though.

Ugg10 - 7/6/14 at 02:06 PM

I have a cheap multimeter that has a thermo couple and temp read out, probably going to use that when/if i need to calibrate mine.

big-vee-twin - 7/6/14 at 02:17 PM

In fridge 5 degrees, in steam 100 degrees, under arm pit body temp.

19sac65 - 7/6/14 at 02:20 PM

Would a laser thermometer do it
They can be bought quite cheaply
Point it at the area where the sender sits to read the temp
Useful for other diagnostic stuff too

ChrisJ15 - 8/6/14 at 11:01 AM

Thanks for the advice guys. I think Ill do the ice, room and boiling water temp and probably just sense check that with the gauge.