Anyone with good PID Programming Experience?

The PID controllers we have for ovens in the metal shop apparently have some sort of Serial support. Given the various processes use different settings and cycles, and the difficulty of programming through the 4 button interfaces, I’d like us to see the serial interfacing put to use.
I have an old laptop I can donate for the purpose to run any software, but ideally we’d be able to make a template (thinking CSV so Excel / LibreOffice can edit it) and the laptop is just pulled out to push it to the oven or kiln.

Cheers,
-Jim



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In a previous life that was how I earned a living.

Make? Model? (Posting a picture of a nameplate should be a quick way to answer.)

RS-232? Nine pin?

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Why not run it to a ftdi and esp8266? One can then easily code up a file share (spiff), and csv parser to basically make a very simple printer like interface

Of course one could just do that anyways: https://github.com/gianluca-nitti/printserver-esp8266 but I’m sure I’m just over engineering there.

I still haven’t written this down, but it’s on the large oven in the metal shop. It’s an auberins SYL series, want to say RS-485 just looking at their web offerings.

No port wired up yet, we’d have to breakout the pins

I’m trying to make this friendly to the people who walk up to the oven, though a possibility is using an rPi with a touchscreen. The biggest users of the cycles are those doing annealing and other forms of treating, and the users who want to do powdercoating after the prior group fails to change the settings back :stuck_out_tongue:
Part of asking for a volunteer is to think this through a bit whilst I work on other things like our new redhead.

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How is an oven cycle started? Through the same PID controller?

how’s this for a design:

esp8266 talks modbus to the PID and provides a web ui over wifi. Users then can connect to the wifi with their phones or over the dms network. The web ui can have button controls, profile selection and if its required to have a class then authentication.

Not sure if this is the exact model number that Jim’s talking about but its what keeps coming up in google: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/auber-syl-2362-need-heating-and-cooling.201526/

See chapter: 5.3 Temperature setting and Alarm setting off the manual at Auberins Manual SYL-2362

the PID controls everything except the Fan (which should always be on) and the initial contactor to provide power. It runs the time, measures, temperature, runs plot cycles, etc. It supports a lot of cycles (I think at least 30 when hand programming alone) each of which can have their own ramps, temperatures, and timings.

-Jim

That’s an excellent layout for something like this, especially if they can watch their cycles and temperatures.

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That is essentially what we have in 3D Fab for the PolyPrinters. It is actually quite annoying.

Something with a screen (laptop, rPi w/ touchscreen) makes a significant positive difference. (I’m already missing the little LCD display that used to be on the Rostock 3D printer.)

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@hon1nbo, ok let me see if I can herd some coders from Software to help with this and obviously @Brian since your interested I’d defer to you if you want to take point on this project. Would you prefer hardware, or something more?

Sounds very similar to the one in the table top furnace for our YBCO project in science. Definitely interested to see how your progress goes.

For inspiration, a picture of the pesky little varmint…

It is not an SYL-2362. The face is different. There are several other possibilities.

If you get a chance please post a picture and the model,

There is no mention of such things in the protocol manual. Basically, whatever is displayed on the front panel is accessible through the protocol.

The “hand programming” you mention, is that done through the front panel?

Thank you for the offer. At a minimum we are going to have to get an RS-485 / USB adapter. I prefer USB Gear for such things. But don’t get anything yet. We first need to determine if the PID controller will support what @hon1nbo has in mind.

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We first need to determine if the PID controller will support what @hon1nbo has in mind.

Agreed. Has anyone noticed a serial code on the board or case?