Ski Builders Forum

so NIGHTMARE scored 3 new press bays for our factory (ancient beasts from the history of snowboard manufacturing in colorado)
while we dont need that many bays (5) at the moment we hope to be growing into them in the next year. as we work out the pneumatics and electrical for each new press we realized the level of investment in each bay, around $600-800 in raw materials and electronics (not including MDF for new molds)
the most expensive single piece are the PID controllers (closely matched by heater blankets) and we need 6 of each.......
my buddy is a physics major and showed me a couple ways to make your own PID controller. the best site is listed here (http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/Bareb ... orEspresso).
has anyone attempted to build and code a PID???
i assume that this will be harder to create than just using a fan dimmer switch, however i would love to be able to have a real temperature loop controller.

a couple homebuilt PID's and a 220v homebuilt blanket would be sick for our new dyesub press however im not trying to burn down the factory just yet...... we still have one year left on the lease.

any words, help, opinions, etc would be much appreciated.
i will update with my progress as it goes.

tom

http://www.adafruit.com/products/50

so this is the "heart/brain" for most PID's, at 30 bucks each i say this is a great experiment. all i need are thermocouples and some other random wiring and displays. purchasing two of these today. will update.

Arduino's are great little devices... the Atmel processors are perfect for this kind of thing. I've always wanted to make a controller that will combine PIDs for top and bottom blankets and ensure that they never deviate by, say, 5F while ramping up the heat but I've never gotten around to it. I'm looking forward to hearing how well the sample you link below works out!!

not building a PID from scratch, but bought a PID controller and solid state relay and thermocouples. Aside from the tutorial here on skibuilders site to build a PID box, this link below i found to be most helpful so far.


http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showth ... Controller


I just bought straight off the site they link to in the tutorial, got this one because it has ramping and timing features, the 30 dollar ebay boxes just hold the temp you want:

http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_ ... 4669c14506

anyway this stuff should be here in about a week.

My $1000 BH Thermal "heat controller" is nothing more than a glorified on/off switch. Anyone have one of those? The bulb/capillary type temp probe is crushed and shot.

strange, i imagine if you can piece together some circuit cards like the one you showed, and build an interface and program it, you could probably control all the presses from the one unit and have quite a nifty display, get a nice flatscreen

I have that same PID Doug
Has worked well for me thus far
The programming language takes a bit of working out (certain numbers you input create different effects), but isn't too bad when you get the hang of it. In reality I have just created one ramp/soak/cool sequence that I use every time I press.
If you have any worries let me know.