value of the heater resistance can be determined. The catch is that the heater has
to be on for the temperature to be measured.
Figure 6.7B shows a means to use an RTD heater and measure temperature
with the heater off. A P-channel MOSFET switches the high side of the heater
to Vþ to turn the heater on. When the heater is off, diode D1 supplies a lower,
well-regulated measurement voltage to the heater. For a 24 V heater, a typical
measurement voltage might be 2.5 V. The measurement voltage must be small
enough to prevent any significant heating.
An alternative to this approach is to eliminate the sense resistor, use the N-
channel, low-side switching MOSFET, and use a large-value resistor in parallel
with the MOSFET. The voltage across this resistor ...