Author Topic: Temperature Controller  (Read 14439 times)

Mr Eastwood

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #15 on: September 03, 2013, 06:24:23 PM »
Last month I've been a bit side-tracked thinking about another electronics project,  but in the last few weeks I've managed to get the PC software almost complete along with some minor firmware changes.


The Software Installer.




This is the Temperature Profile Editor.


« Last Edit: October 19, 2013, 06:03:01 AM by jucole »
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Mr Eastwood

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #16 on: October 19, 2013, 06:11:58 AM »
Last night I soldered a few more parts to the other boards;   I always used to enjoy soldering - but the novelty soon wears off when you have to add an extra cushion to your seat because your arse has gone numb!  :-)
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Mr Eastwood

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #17 on: October 29, 2013, 09:00:01 AM »
This is the child and pet friendly version wired-up to the kiln ;-)  last night I did a live test on a quick 3 segment temperature profile - and everything went well - so at the weekend I'll do a proper test firing to 960°C with some slip-cast ceramics in the kiln.
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Mr Eastwood

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #18 on: November 02, 2013, 01:24:57 PM »
Well - I set the kiln running yesterday and it ran most of the day; this morning it was cool enough to take the work out, and everything worked great!  the controller ramped the temperatures almost perfectly;   I've really enjoyed making this controller and I've learnt so much along the way - so for the final post for this project,  here are some of the results ;-)


« Last Edit: April 20, 2015, 08:43:04 AM by Mr Eastwood »
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MJLorton

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #19 on: November 04, 2013, 10:21:44 AM »
Brilliant! Hats off to you good man!
Play, discover, learn and enjoy! (and don't be scared to make mistakes along the way!)

Mr Eastwood

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #20 on: April 20, 2015, 08:15:54 AM »
Well it's been a while since I posted an update on this;  I recently got around to mounting it into a box and put it on the wall, also installing a suitable cable to the kiln; and it all seems to be working nicely.  here are some more finished pieces I've fired using it.





« Last Edit: April 21, 2015, 08:46:13 AM by Mr Eastwood »
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Mr Eastwood

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #21 on: November 01, 2015, 04:24:22 PM »


Last week I bought a 30 transformers for £12 from Ebay for my kiln controller boards;  I was really surprised how heavy the box was.
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SeanB

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #22 on: November 01, 2015, 11:51:00 PM »
They are heavy as they contain actual copper and steel transformers, which probably will still work in 30 years, unlike the modern built down too far SMPS units.

I actually have gotten equipment where the power supply is a SMPS ( cheap and nasty self oscillating one with regulation of around 30%) on a board with a footprint to replace the semi standard small transformer directly. Has an output of around 9V, but depending on load it varies from 6V at 500mA to 12V at no load.

Mr Eastwood

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Re: Temperature Controller
« Reply #23 on: September 10, 2016, 08:15:32 AM »
Just an update - I've been really quite busy with other things so my electronics hobby has taken a bit of a backseat ride;  so recently I've taken the time pick this back up again.  When I had the boards made I swapped out a couple of pins on the microcontroller in order to make it possible to use a larger chip without having to respin the board design;  so a few weeks ago I decided to re-write the entire project using a larger chip with a view to including all the extras features I wanted at the time but had to remove, because I ran out of programming space on the chip, as it was only 8K.

My original choice of replacement was the 18f4550 but after a while coding I then discovered that although the USB feature of the chip can be disabled - which was my original idea to free up the pins, one pin in particular of the USB can only be used in one particular direction,  so that made it incompatible without a messy board hack, so I turned to the 18f4685 with its 96K of code space and this looks like it might well work, and with its internal oscillator it will save me a couple of parts too.
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