Operating without the bath sensor
When using an inline heater like the Perfusion Pencil, the bath
thermocouple allows the ThermoClamp controller to monitor the bath
temperature and heat your solutions in order to maintain the overall
bath temperature. If you are using another controller to warm your bath
(with stage, chamber or objective heaters, etc.), then you may not want
the ThermoClamp to use the bath temperature for deciding whether to
heat your solutions. If your other temperature controller is doing a good
job, and you use a bath sensor, then the ThermoClamp will always think
that its liquids are at the correct temperature, and will not apply any heat.
Instead, it will be dispensing cold reagent into a warmed chamber!
If you use another controller to maintain your chamber/bath temperature,
or you do not wish to use the ThermoClamp bath thermocouple, simply
unplug it. This way the ThermoClamp will observe and maintain the
temperature of the Pencil irrespective of the bath.
NOTE: The ThermoClamp will not operate (the “Max Temp” LED will
light) if you try to use it without anything plugged into the Safety TC
socket. Leave the Pencil's built-in sensor connected to Safety.
With the bath sensor removed, the temperature measured and displayed
by the ThermoClamp will be the internal temperature of the Perfusion
Pencil, not the temperature of your chamber bath. If you wish to maintain
a particular bath temperature with flow from the Heated Pencil but
without using the bath sensor, you will need to measure the difference
between the bath temperature and stable Pencil temperature. Since the
liquid will cool by several degrees before reaching the bath, you must set
the Pencil temperature setpoint higher by the observed offset.
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