SSR relay problem solution

mdkmdk said:

The rigid conductors of the thermocouple terminate in the ceramic terminal from the top in the photo. In the lower part of the ceramic terminal two wires come out, one red and one green respectively made of the same materials as the thermocouple. Externally they are contained in a fiberglass sheath. I cannot understand what is meant by cold junction.

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OK. you've done the right thing. No problem. I was just speculating in case the joint here was causing an issue.
I believe what you've done is fine as long as each wire coming out of the terminal block is made of exactly the same material as the corresponding thermocouple wire going in.

Good morning from slightly cooler London.

Let us see how the controller performs when we select digital mode which means the heater is simply on and off depending on whether the temperature is under or over the set temperature. The oven will be like a simple one in the home kitchen.

Select P = 0, I = 0 and D = 0.

Turn of the Auto tune AT.

Select 500C as the set temperature and leave it there and allow a few hours for the temperature to settle. Do not open the oven door. Use 500C so we can compare with the previous results.

Please tell us how quickly to first reach 500C and what are the over shoot and undershoot temperatures.

What does the temperature fluctuate between after a few hours?

mdkmdk - digital or on/off control is the most basic control method. I want to have some results using on/off control to compare with the use of PI control.

mdkmdk: Good afternoon. When you have done the test I mentioned in #108 this morning and the oven is cool, the next test is to slightly reduce the P proportional value and the I integral time. This will have the effect of making the controller more sensitive to changes in the temperature error (ie the heater will be on for longer for a smaller value of temperature error) and reduce the steady state error which is inevitable with just proportional control. The Integral action added to Proportional control will remove this steady state error and with a shorter integration time it will do so more quickly. Thus I hope the changes will show some reduction in time to settle at 500C.

So, set P to 15 ( - it was 20 before) and I to 160 ( - it was 180 before). Leave auto tune off for now.

Once you have observed the performance could you describe it to me? Allow at least a couple of hours to pass.

Then you can turn Auto Tune on and check the oven say hourly thereafter for the next three hours.

Just confirm the LCK Parameter Values is set to 0.

marconi said:

Good morning from slightly cooler London.

Let us see how the controller performs when we select digital mode which means the heater is simply on and off depending on whether the temperature is under or over the set temperature. The oven will be like a simple one in the home kitchen.

Select P = 0, I = 0 and D = 0.

Turn of the Auto tune AT.

Select 500C as the set temperature and leave it there and allow a few hours for the temperature to settle. Do not open the oven door. Use 500C so we can compare with the previous results.

Please tell us how quickly to first reach 500C and what are the over shoot and undershoot temperatures.

What does the temperature fluctuate between after a few hours?

Click to expand...

Good evening marconi,

I did the test of # 108, I state that by setting the values you suggested many items in the menu have disappeared and a new one has appeared. Now the only items present are: AL1 (value: 10), SC (0), ° H (2.0) and LCy (0). About the °H item I saw in the manual that it refers to "Two-digit Return Difference".

In 43 minutes the oven reached 500 degrees.

When this temperature is reached, it switches off.

Although the heating was off, the temperature rose to 509 degrees.

The temperature dropped to 499 degrees, at this temperature the heating started up again.

Although the heating had restarted, the temperature dropped to 489 degrees.

The temperature then rose up to 500 degrees and the cycle repeated itself.

I repeated this 4 times and each time the temperature range was the same, at most 1 or 2 degrees less or more.

Surely if instead I had set 800 degrees as the temperature to be reached when the heating was switched off, the temperature would have dropped much more than just 10 degrees.

I noticed something, the fourth time the red lights AT and AL1 came on, on the display of the temperature controller. After about 30 seconds, maximum 1 minute, the two lights that had switched on went out. The AT as you told me was disabled, usually when it is active the AT light is green and flashing.

Soon I will also do the other test you asked for.

I keep trying to catch up on the thread in my spare time and have seen a few things I cannot see anyone has picked up on, are we running into a dead end here in that the controller, thermocoupler may be working just fine and what you have is a failed element or two, this would account for it working to lower temp's but never getting high enough.
I work on and have designed and fitted many control systems for 50 ton and 80 ton heat presses, if temperatures are not been met then one of the first things to check is element failure, I have 16 on the presses I work on.
Again apologise if already mentioned and put out there but I missed it in my quick dash through the responses, it would fit the issues you are having at higher temp's but hide itself at lower settings, are we chasing our own tails here?

mdkmdk: Thank you for the information. I will think about what you have reported. But it seems quite good to me. In digit (on/off) mode, the heater turns off at the measured temperature PV = 500C and turns on again when lower than PV-H = 500-2 = 498C.

The further drop in temperature below 498 even though the heater turns on at PV-H is because it takes a while for the heating element to warm up to a temperature greater than the current oven temperature. There can only be heat transfer between the element and the oven if the oven is hotter than the oven. Until this happens the oven will fall in temperature. And you are right that at 800C the temperature drop will be greater because the heat loss is higher so the heater must be on longer to transfer enough heat energy to compensate. In digit or Proportional mode there will always be an error between PV and SV in order to compensate for heat loss from the oven. This is why we want to make the controller work in Proportional P and Integral I modes.

In the next trial, which uses P and I modes, the controller's Integral mode should eventually keep the element on at a power level less than full power which is sufficient to compensate for the heat losses from the oven to the surrounding environment and thus PV = SV or very close. But it takes time for the Auto Tune to calculate what this power level needs to be so please be patient.

For now the remarks about the AT light flashing confuse me because I thought auto-tune was not used in digit mode. I will have to check that.

mdkmdk: Good morning. When you have done the test in #110 please turn off the AT and then turn off all power to the oven. After a few minutes turn the power on again and set the temperature SV to 800C. Next turn on AT. This will test the performance of the oven at the temperature you want it to be 800C. During this test the AT will be attempting to tune the controller and you will probably see some overshoots and undershoots. The controller is changing controller values and trying them out to see which work the best. It will require a few hours to do this maybe longer. When AT is finished (if indeed it does) the AT light will turn off. See Section 5 of the controller manual for more on AT.

marconi said:

mdkmdk: Good morning. When you have done the test in #110 please turn off the AT and then turn off all power to the oven. After a few minutes turn the power on again and set the temperature SV to 800C. Next turn on AT. This will test the performance of the oven at the temperature you want it to be 800C. During this test the AT will be attempting to tune the controller and you will probably see some overshoots and undershoots. The controller is changing controller values and trying them out to see which work the best. It will require a few hours to do this maybe longer. When AT is finished (if indeed it does) the AT light will turn off. See Section 5 of the controller manual for more on AT.

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Good evening marconi,
I'm sorry if I haven't done the test yet but I've been very busy for my job, in the next few days I'll do the test and I'll let you know the results, thank you for your time.

mdkmdk. I thought I would contact you to ask if you need any more help. Do not worry about asking me because I enjoy these sorts of problems. They stop me being bored. At 61 I have liked thinking about PID controllers again.

marconi said:

mdkmdk. I thought I would contact you to ask if you need any more help. Do not worry about asking me because I enjoy these sorts of problems. They stop me being bored. At 61 I have liked thinking about PID controllers again.

Click to expand...

I started to do test #110 but I saw that the variable 'P' had a value of 0 and the variable 'I' and 'AT' were not present. The variable LCy instead has the value 0. I await your instructions on how to proceed in order to start test # 110. If I set P to '15' would the other missing variables reappear? Thank you.

marconi said:

mdkmdk: Good afternoon. When you have done the test I mentioned in #108 this morning and the oven is cool, the next test is to slightly reduce the P proportional value and the I integral time. This will have the effect of making the controller more sensitive to changes in the temperature error (ie the heater will be on for longer for a smaller value of temperature error) and reduce the steady state error which is inevitable with just proportional control. The Integral action added to Proportional control will remove this steady state error and with a shorter integration time it will do so more quickly. Thus I hope the changes will show some reduction in time to settle at 500C.

So, set P to 15 ( - it was 20 before) and I to 160 ( - it was 180 before). Leave auto tune off for now.

Once you have observed the performance could you describe it to me? Allow at least a couple of hours to pass.

Then you can turn Auto Tune on and check the oven say hourly thereafter for the next three hours.

Just confirm the LCK Parameter Values is set to 0.

Click to expand...

I set ‘P’ to the value 15 and the other variables were back, then I set the variable ‘I’ to 160.

In about 45-48 minutes it reached 500 degrees.

At around 472 degrees the heating turned off and on very very quickly, I could see it by the red light flashing. Around 491 the speed at which the heating light flashed decreased but still remained fast. The heating continued to switch on and off up to 500. With the heating off, the temperature reached a maximum value of 503 degrees. As soon as the temperature dropped to 500 degrees it started to turn off and on again quickly up to 493 degrees, at that temperature it turned on again steadily, it drops to 491 degrees and immediately after that it started to turn off and on again until the reaching 500 degrees.

I then did the test with the AT turned on, the temperature dropped to 472 degrees and the heating started up again, at 480 degrees the heating was off again. The cycle repeated itself constantly, I did not have the opportunity to keep it on for long, not having much time available and I could not do the other test by bringing the oven to 800 degrees.

thank you. I will read carefully later and reply.

Without AT for a setting of 500C the performance is good. Please now try a setting of 800C. Be careful to follow the sequence exactly as described before:

Turn off all power to the oven. After a few minutes turn the power on again and set the temperature SV to 800C. Next turn on AT. Observe the oven temperature and controller lights and be patient!