First PXG4 controlled roasts on Roastilino

-
PXG4 on table corner, behind it the Roastilino showing heater temp and time left to roast, Amprobe to the right measuring Bean temp and Air Out temp, on the laptop Artisan monitoring and logging.
Configuring the PXG4 turned out to be very easy, in part thanks to preparing all the relevant steps and having them available my iPad, zooming in on my blog about it.

Connecting Artisan to program the PID seemed a bit unclear to me so I started out programming a roasting Ramp/Soak sequence manually on the PXG4:

1 From room temp to 110ºC in 1.5 minute
2 Up to 160ºC in 3.5 minutes
3 Up to 210ºC in 3 minutes
4 Up to 222ºC in 1.45 minutes

The Roastilino allows maximum 9.5 minutes of roasting, so the machine can't easily catch fire if I forget (or electrocute myself and become unable to end the roast orderly).

I had downloaded and installed the RS232-USB converter driver from

http://de.aten.eu/products/productItem.php?model_no=UC232A but that one seems too old and Marko Luther pointed me to an alternative on http://sourceforge.net/projects/osx-pl2303/ but to get that to work without crashes, I may need to find out how to uninstall the old one.

Artisan is mostly, after some attempts, successful in connecting to the PID using these settings:

USB Serial Controller D
9600, 8, N, 1, 1

But the connection is not easy to keep stable. It might be the two drivers conflicting or something else.


I Auto-tuned with beans:









After auto-tuning twice I had the values P=1 I=240 D=60




A first roast:


I see the BT and especially ET graph meandering around the target and I tried setting P=2 but that does not make much difference.

I must tweak the Ramp Soak sequence better as the ramp seems less steep than I would expect from experience with the original PID. It feels as if the heater is not getting much energy. Maybe that is a P setting issue also.

The external switch to trigger the Ramp Soak sequence works very well. I first thought that switching it off to HOLD would induce a cooling down but it does not so I set that Digital Input to "42" meaning just "RUN" when switched on.

If I want to stop the roast I switch the Roastilino from roasting to cooling.

I noticed that the Roastilino did not want to start up if the PID was on. Of course it considers the PID an internal device and if that one is already powered, something is strange so it won't start. At least that is my guess. So now I switch off the PID, then switch on the Roastilino, then switch on the PID again and next flip the switch to start the roast Ramp Soak sequence.

On http://lookass.ch/?id=4&area=art&art=227 I found an uninstall-tip that didn't work and another alternative which I installed. This may complicate it all or make it simpler, time will tell.






Reacties

Een reactie posten

Populaire posts van deze blog

Tiny Cheap Fluid Bed Roaster by Tije and Jan

-
Afbeelding
(also see Daily Coffee News feature ) Tije designed and made the following structure for a tiny and cheap fluid bed roaster, to which Jan van der Weel added the Arduino parts, electronics and programming: Sketch by Tije de Jong Jan sourced a very cheap blower (€ 11) to start with, Tije developed and constructed the mechanics, Jan built together and programmed the TC4 / SSR electronics.  On his blog, Jan will specify exactly how the TC4 part is combined and programmed and I will copy these details into this blog entry, just as Jan will use this video in his blog. We did a few test roasts to make sure it works at all and it does. Towards the end, the first roast tended to get a flat BT line and airflow was slightly decreased. 200g seems max load of green beans. Second roast a little more power was given to the heater. Next we will try the Background Roast driven by the PID software of Artisan. A week later, with updated software that works better to change the fan
Meer lezen

Finished Pavoni & Fuji PXG4 pid: Probe Inside the Ring

-
Afbeelding
Delicious cup: all the work was well invested! At the end of the previous blog about the pressostat and PID working together , I mentioned that I would like to clean up the xmas tree of wires and have as few cables and probes as possible to visually disturb the classic design of the La Pavoni. Getting rid of the probe that was fastened with copper tape to the top of the brew group was a priority. I wanted to hide a new probe in the cooling fin as close as possible to the brew group. This morning I asked Tije if he could do that. He would need to drill a straight hole of 3mm diameter in the 4mm inner ring of the cooling fin that sits as a tight clamp around the brew group. Always the optimist, Tije set to work: First, Tije made a piece of aluminum to fit the inside of the ring. Drilling a thin hole straight through the curved aluminum, if possible tangentially going through the inside of the ring to touch the brew head directly, you need the support of the temporary insid
Meer lezen

TC4+ boards and Arduino controlled roaster by Matthias Gerstgrasser

-
Afbeelding
illustration by Matthias Gerstgrasser On the mailing list for Artisan users , Matthias Gerstgrasser posted a report about his coffee roaster project, with a link to a beautifully illustrated, complete step by step guide of his work on Instructables: A while ago I posted a few messages on here regarding automation for my hot-air popcorn roaster, and was asked if I could share a writeup of what I had been doing with my setup. I know it’s been a long time, but I haven’t forgotten, just got a little sidetracked (more on that below). I have finally found time to do this over the last few weeks though, and compiled a step-by-step guide of how I modified my popcorn machine. This is now available on Instructables: https://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-controlled-DIY-Coffee-Roaster/   Do let me know if there’s anything missing or anything that could be improved. I intend to keep updating the guide as I find ways to improve it or as new developments occur. I am also discussing b
Meer lezen