Unlike air flow meters, hot wire or hot film mass air flow sensors directly measure air mass, as the convective qualities of air are affected by factors like temperature, humidity and density. Hot wire sensors create an analog signal and hot film sensors a digital frequency signal.
Most common hot-wire MAF sensors use a platinum wire or filament heated to a prescribed, maintained temperature above ambient, located centrally in the incoming air stream. These sensors function on the electrical principle that resistance increases with temperature. As intake air moves past the wire or film, the cooling effect causes a measurable drop in resistance, and thus lower voltage is required to maintain the prescribed temperature. The hot-wire MAF control unit is sent a reference voltage of 5V, and returns around .4V to.5V at idle and from 4.5V to 5V at full throttle. Based on a fixed data set, an accurate assumption of air mass is made.
Readings can stray from the target values as a result of contamination of the wire and for the sake of accuracy, an additional input from an integrated intake temperature sensor is sometimes used. Many hot wire MAFs incorporate a burn off cycle when the ignition is switched off, heating the element to over 1800-degrees F to clear it of contamination. Hot wire sensors are the most physically delicate and easily contaminated of all the air flow and mass sensors.
