How did I miss this goat rope? Better late than never I guess.
Technically, galvanic voltage sensors are extremely sensitive to temperature. They address this with a small chip that compensates for the temperature. Without compensation, the sensor output would vary wildly. In most instances, the chip is part of the O2 sensor itself but a few designs rely on an external circuit for temperature compensation and the disposable sensor unit has no built in compensation circuitry.
The compensation circuit takes temperature mostly out of the equation except for one scenario.
Many O2 sensors have the compensation circuit at the base, opposite end from the membrane. If you blast cold gas on a warm sensor, the temperature compensation will not be accurate because of the differential between the membrane side and the side where the temperature sensor is located. The compensation is less accurate the bigger the difference between the temperature that the circuit is seeing vs the temperature where the galvanic reaction is occurring.
So, bottom lining it, you don't want to blast a whole bunch of cold gas on to a hot sensor. Another reason to keep the flow limited and why I like units like the Divesoft where I have not only a flow limiter but a hose that let's the gas temperature warm up to something closer to the ambient temperature of the O2 sensor before it gets there.
Technically, galvanic voltage sensors are extremely sensitive to temperature. They address this with a small chip that compensates for the temperature. Without compensation, the sensor output would vary wildly. In most instances, the chip is part of the O2 sensor itself but a few designs rely on an external circuit for temperature compensation and the disposable sensor unit has no built in compensation circuitry.
The compensation circuit takes temperature mostly out of the equation except for one scenario.
Many O2 sensors have the compensation circuit at the base, opposite end from the membrane. If you blast cold gas on a warm sensor, the temperature compensation will not be accurate because of the differential between the membrane side and the side where the temperature sensor is located. The compensation is less accurate the bigger the difference between the temperature that the circuit is seeing vs the temperature where the galvanic reaction is occurring.
So, bottom lining it, you don't want to blast a whole bunch of cold gas on to a hot sensor. Another reason to keep the flow limited and why I like units like the Divesoft where I have not only a flow limiter but a hose that let's the gas temperature warm up to something closer to the ambient temperature of the O2 sensor before it gets there.