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Confused about lights and temperatures
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[QUOTE="Claudiusx, post: 2021781, member: 31715"] Your IR gun is most likely plenty accurate, but you're using it wrong, and this is the issue with IR guns and why I don't recommend them. Your probe thermometers are giving you the true temperature. Any adjustments you make need to be based off of your probes, not your IR gun. The issue with IR guns is they measure temperature by measuring light coming off an an object in the IR spectrum, and this gets measured in the device and converted to a temperature. The issue is different materials absorb and reflect IR spectra differently. This metric is called Emissivity, or E-value for short. Most IR guns come pre programed to measure surface temperatures of objects that fall into an E-value around .95. This is pretty good for a majority of items. But for some items, this falls way out of the range of what is needed to accurately measure temperature. For instance, Slate has an E-value of 0.67 - 0.80. This is WAY outside of the range of the average IR gun, which means your IR gun is not going to give you an accurate temperature. It is also why you can hold your hand on a surface that is reading 140 degrees. It's because the surface is not actually 140 degrees, your IR gun is only assuming it is based on the assumption that it's E-value is .95, which it clearly is not. Digital thermometers with probe ends do not have this issue. Place your probe on the spot you want to measure and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. That is going to be your accurate surface temp. Probes don't only measure air temp. They end up measuring surface temp too once set in place long enough (10 minutes) as the probe will heat up to equilibrium with the surface it is resting on. IR guns can still be used, but they need to be confirmed first by using a probe. If the two measurements agree, you can assume your IR gun is reading the surface temp right. If they don't, the surfaces E-value falls outside of the range of your IR gun. You also can buy IR guns with adjustable E-value settings, you just need to know what the E-value of your material is. -Brandon [/QUOTE]
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