Today I tried to set up the TEC on the actual assembly. When doing so, Tara pointed out that I needed to have a separate temperature sensor to monitor the TEC, and to use to calibrate the PID gain on the TEC controller. 

I built a simple temperature sensor with a 10k thermistor. The temperature can be determined by measuring Vout and determining RT. Once RT is determined, this can be converted into a temperature using the information on the data sheet for the 10k thermistor. The schematic is attached. I chose the value for R0 based on what would maximize the difference in Vout for a 1 degree C fluctuation about room temperature (25 C) which is what will be used to tune the PID gain. I chose Vin based on what would make the signal have fluctuations of about 500 mV, which is what is needed to be readable on an oscilloscope. Once I built this circuit, I tested it. It is sensitive to temperature changes, since the output voltage changed when I covered the thermistor with my hand.

Tonight I am going to incorporate changes Tara suggested for my progress report. The updated version will be put on the SVN. Tomorrow I will try to the temperature sensor I built today to calibrate the PID gain on the TEC controller.