Thank you for the question, David. My feeling is that any temperature measurement is better than none. I have seen surface mounted temperature measurement in many plants. The advantage to this type of temperature measurement is that you can put it anywhere on the feed cylinder. You can move it around to check different locations also. Sometimes smaller extruders do not have a separate section from the barrel. Instead there are two clamped on halves with limited cooling. In this case, I have found that the cooling is very poor to non-existent in the top half. The main disadvantage to a surface mounted unit is that you are getting the temperature through the metal and not the actual water temperature. As long as you realize it won’t be as accurate, you should be fine.
Beth
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