When voltage changes occur in rapid succession, with magnitudes large enough to cause lighting level variations. The human eye-brain response is most sensitive to periodic r.m.s. voltage changes that occur at around 8 - 10 cycles per second.
A coil having large number of turns of fine wire is wound on the middle limb of the shunt magnet. This coil is known as pressure or voltage coil and is connected across the supply mains. The voltage coil produces a high ratio of inductance to resistance.
The function of a thermopile is to transfer the heat radiation emitted from the object to a voltage output. The output is in the range of tens or hundreds of millivolts. Thermopiles are used to provide an output in response to temperature as part of a temperature measuring device