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| Oven controller (arduino based) |
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| rschilp:
Always wanted a metal treating oven, but the ones made for the purpose are WAY over my budget. After looking around for a while I found that Ceramics ovens are cheap, they can often be had around here for Euro50 (USD70) (and sometimes even less) have good temperature range, mostly 1,200C+ (~2,200F)and nice volume. The welcome fact that my wife and kids like working with ceramics doesn't hurt either. So recently I picked up a 1 cubic foot front load oven (30x30x31cm) with a 1,200C temp rating with a truckload of clay and ceramics supplies for Euro100. Problem is these are manual control only, no computer and the computers that go with them are WAY expensive and limited functionality. So I decided to build my own control system. These are the parts I decided to use: - Arduino UNO - DF Robot 16x2LCD + 5 buttons - SSR-40 DA solid state relays - Adafruit MAX13855 + k-type thermocouple Today I received the parts and did some coding and it works!!.. although I haven't build an enclosure yet or hooked it up to the actual oven. The software I wrote has the following options: - Manual: set/change temperature at will, in in/de-crements of 100C and 5C, while showing the heating activity and time - Timed: set a temperature, the system will get the oven to the temp, keep it there for a set time and show progress in temp and time and show cooldown temp and time after the process completes - Anneal: set a temperature, the system will get the oven to temp, and decrease temperature slowly - Biscuit (Ceramics stuff) - Glaze (Ceramics stuff) I'll post updates as I complete the last details and post the code once I've had the change to do a final debug. Soldered it all together. |
| rschilp:
A project is not a project without pictures, so here is one on the kitchen table while testing. |
| AdeV:
Arduinos & thermocouples are great, aren't they? I was messing around with one a couple of years ago, measuring exhaust gas temperature from a loaded slow-speed diesel engine. Great fun, and I still plan to turn it into a highly instrumented genset one day. I got my thermocouple from Farnell, along with a bunch of MAX6675 chips (IIRC). Once I'd soldered one to a DIP socket (makes it easier to handle), it worked brilliantly. |
| bhowden:
Did you incorporate any PID routines to avoid over shooting the temp? My head usually starts spinning when I look at that stuff. It is also worth checking the temp range of the thermo couple. LOTS of K type themocouples are only good to a few hundred degrees. The one you want looks like a stack of ceramic donuts with no metal on the part in the oven (other than the actual junction and leads). Donuts can be added or removed to change the length. I ended up buying a PID controller off ebay. Landed at my doorstep from Hong Kong it was around $20. For a little more money you can get them to ramp up and down along with other interesting features. The same source in Hong Kong carries all sorts of solid state relays for a very reasonable price. In my case I needed two to switch both sides of the 220 volts as kilns here are wired using the neutral to get multiple heat settings. Brian |
| rschilp:
Brian, thanks for the reply, yes I considered all of these items. The current thermocouple is a cheapy only rated to 400c, the one in the mail from Hong Kong is the real thing upto 1300c. With this setup I can do up and down slope settings, save multiple preset programs and more, just what I need to de metal and ceramics projects using a single controller. |
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