Besides all the advice on thermistors and thermocouples, Aavid has a decent thermal design article at
formatting link
-- Regards, Carl Ijames carl dott ijames aat verizon dott net (remove nospm or make the obvious changes before replying)
Specifically, I'm wondering, if I have an airflow of, say,
> between 1 and 5 LPM (liters per minute), in a known tube,
> and a heating element, assuming the tube is either insulated
> or reaches operating temp. OK; how would I find out how many
> watts it would take to heat that air to, say, 160C?
>
> Of course, 1 to 5 LPM is quite a range, but I can do PWM
> from 1-99%, so no worries there - I just need to know how
> much nichrome wire to use in my heating element.
>
> And if there's some kind of formula, like the heat capacity
> of air, that wouldn't be unwelcome. :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Rich
>