since Bill is away I guess I'll need to play devil's advocate
as you are of course aware, we are now talking pretty small differences in one DUT vs another, and Id imagine that even though the primary path would be whichever two thermocouple metals are employed some of the path would be through the solder. Id also want an "ungrounded" sensor for directly embedding in a heatsink and or multiple surface mounts
used welders on ebay run $200>300
"as is" nasty ones occassionally much cheaper, that would still buy one hell of alot of bare sensors
I bought
40 epoxy coated and 40 glass rod thermistors the other day planning on building some "grids" with them that can be installed infront of, in back of and inside of cases \ fans. I'd be able to do 50 channels at a time with the 7701 (would need to build 2 cables)
close enough for rock and roll is really a function of what it is undertest, measuring airflow Im just trying to get a basic picture, but in WB tests there are alot of "photo finishes" which I think demands as high an accuracy as can be managed, there are alot of unaddressed variables still, and the "general picture" pretty well mapped already