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Way too long ago, I bought a used thermocycler on ebay. It's quite a monster, a Perkin Elmer Cetus, and I've been meaning to test it. I initially thought about testing it simply by running a PCR and seeing whether I get the expected results, but there are so many sources of error in this plan that I've discarded it. There are just so many things that can go wrong with a PCR, even if the thermocycler works perfectly - not least due to my very limited lab skills. So instead, I'm going to measure the temperature of the heating block over a few cycles. There are even sources on the internet that document the temperature profiles of other thermocyclers, so I can use those as a reference. All in all, this approach does not only yield quantifiable results, but seems more attainable to me. Plus, this will (ideally) produce a setup that allows me to test other thermocyclers, too. So. After some investigation of temperature sensors in general and in particular, I decided to use...