The board is an NF7-S; unfortunatly, unlike my old soltek, it doesnt read the diode temp but i have been looking around for a 'hack', which im yet to find.
After seeing that the range is only in one degree C increments, and not really the resolution i wanted, I guess its pretty pointless as i have a 3 sensor thermometer here which will do the same job, i guess. Once you start getting into the 0.1's it gets expensive quickly, I'd imagine!
As far as gate and needle goes, I'll do a search tomorrow and talk to my engineering shop and see what they have

flow control for this is in the loosest sense anyway - its basically going to be a 'bucket count' style thing. A ball would create back pressure though, from what ive seen of it, not a healthy restriction at all... Now, i realise that im not going to get within a great margin of error here, but as long as its good to 1(even 2) deg +/- then im happy; this is just to test my blocks, I'm not after test data that proves anything to anyone else
g_f : lol!