Apparently, NASA engineers have time on their hands.

Tom,
The point is not cost effectiveness. Otherwise I'd pay some kid to mow my lawn. His costing rate is much cheaper than mine. However, I actually enjoy mowing my own grass and I get the benefit of exercise.

Hi,

You are welcome to review my web page that has more details on using an external thermistor application but you'll have to assemble the URL from these parts:
hiwaay.net
~bzwilson
prius
pri_temp.
html

My interest is automotive, the save gas with my hybrid electric Prius. So I'm both reading the temperature from a thermistor and later, adjusting it to fool the vehicle control computer into driving in hybrid versus just gas-only, warm-up mode.

How much accuracy do you need? I'm recording the data for analysis, do you need that feature too?

You might consider some of the 'off the shelf' solutions which would not require programming the MSP430 if you need a production answer. I like the MSP430 but my application is very unique.

Bob Wilson
ps. I'm getting about a conservative, 5 MPG savings with this hack. For a car whose license tag reads, "C-52MPG", this is significant.

Bob,

Could you post the instructions for your latest hack. I am trying to insert a small thermistor to read the temp of a peltier element and am using both the msp430 usb stick and the devloper board from TI. I have zero EE experience since I am virologist

This was also a self-training exercise to master the MSP430-F2013. I subsequently put the MSP430-F2013 into a "thermistor hack" for my hybrid-electric. Testing revealed a significant mileage improvement, ~10%, in 50F and colder weather. The fuel savings already paid for the parts and my home, hobby time.