Breath alcohol measuring instrument used by public services

Temperature sensors used in breath alcohol instruments are essential to maintain that the subject breath temperature falls within an acceptable range and to provide the means to compensate for minute breath temperature variance for the test result. Along with other measured criteria, breath temperature levels help to determine the validity of the breath sample – if for any reason the temperature is out of its normal and relatively narrow range, the Alcolmeter 500 will register an alarm.

To maintain such a high specification, the alcolmeter 500 uses ultra-small bead thermistors from BetaTHERM. These sensors utilise metallic oxide semiconductor material sintered on platinum/iridium alloy lead wires with a controlled glass coating which provides a hermetic seal. With fast response times and high power sensitivities, the technology is well suited to gas flow or liquid temperature measurement and their small size (0.25 mm diameter) make them ideal for portable instruments. Other applications for this high reliability temperature sensor are gas chromatography and thermal conductivity gas analysis equipment.

The BetaTHERM range of thermistors are used in demanding temperature measurement, control and compensation applications in biomedical, automotive, aerospace, instrumentation, HVAC, consumer industries and instrumentation. The range enjoys the highest reputation for total reliability and uncompromising accuracy and Variohm provide complete technical support from customer product development through to full production.