Talk:Ice detector
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Verifiability
[edit]This article seems to be about a specific, commercial product although the article does not name the product. (Note especially the data on NASA testing.) Google searches for optical "ice detecting" "transducer probe" and optical "ice detection" "transducer probe" only return references to the commercial product or this Wikipedia article. Instance 06:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
A different variety of Ice Detector
[edit]used on aircraft ice detection or weather systems is not optical, but acoustic.
The sensing element is a vibrating probe driven by an oscillator circuit. It senses the changes in frequency as ice accumulates. The presence of ice on the probe increases the effective mass of the sensing element, which is detected by a shift in the measured resonant frequency. Depending on the actual icing conditions such as temperature, Liquid Water Content, airspeed and etc, 0.02-inch (0.5mm) thickness of ice on the probe causes the operating frequency of the probe to decrease by approximately 133 hertz.
When a predetermined shift of the frequency is detected on the probe, the ice detector is designed to activate the ICE SIGNAL outputs.