Add a Thermometer to Your Multimeter

Technology

In addition to being an online editor for MAKE Magazine, Michael Colombo works in fabrication, electronics, sound design, music production and performance (Yes. All that.) In the past he has also been a childrens' educator and entertainer, and holds a Masters degree from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

View more articles by Michael Colombo

May 7th, 2012 6

Hardware hacker Raj wanted to expand the functionality of his multimeter, so he hardwired a temperature sensor to it. When building new circuits, measuring heat tolerance can be important, and this hack makes it easy to do. Using an LM35 temperature sensor, all he has to do is set the multimeter to 200mV and slide a switch at the top. His extensive documentation can be found here if you’d like to do it yourself.

[via Dangerous Prototypes]

6 thoughts on “Add a Thermometer to Your Multimeter”

Raj says:

May 7th, 2012 at 11:45 am

Hi Michael,
The temperature sensor used in this project was actually TMP35 and not LM35. Although both of them are functionally the same, the TMP35 can operate at a lower voltage (3V) which is required to make this technique work.
David says:

September 19th, 2013 at 10:39 am

That’s a cool hack, i am going to give it a try when i have a spare weekend, see if i can add a thermometer to my multimeter too.
Steven @ Best Multimeters says:

November 9th, 2013 at 10:01 am

Interesting addition to a multimeter, i like the innovation but did not have a chance to test it out myself.