(no subject)

[randomdreams]

So this discombobulated mass of wiring:

is a kiln controller. It reads a thermocouple and will let me run the burnout oven under precise temperature control, fairly precise heat-up and cool-down ramp times, handles measurement and producing a just-sufficiently-slow on/off wave pattern to the relay that controls the oven coils, and logs what it's trying to do and what the actual results are to a memory card. Right now it'll also log to a webpage I can look at, via ethernet, and can take commands either from an attached computer sending serial commands, or from a file it reads off the memory card. (and it displays what it's measuring and trying to do to the nice lcd screen.) I'd like to have this whole thing working wirelessly at some point, and be able to change the heater tuning characteristics remotely as I accumulate data, but that's still in progress. Now I can do a gradual burnout of wax molds (if my homemade oven gets hot enough) and a gradual annealing of glass beads. Man, I've needed this capability for like 18 years.
It does need more robust packaging, though. I have to turn all this into a single board, that the thermocouple amplifier and LCD solder onto. (And add buttons for the menu system, because right now I have to simulate that by sticking a wire into various points as it runs, to simulate multiple attached buttons.)
The white proto board and the potentiometer are just there to handle power distribution and contrast for the LCD. None of the chips on there do anything.

Comments

[corvi]

AWESOME!!!!

[randomdreams]

yaaaaay! Now it needs robustness.

[amaebi]

"my homemade oven," you say so casually. :D

[randomdreams]

Well, it seems casual NOW. When I was building it, hoo boy, that was a big project, but that was before LJ existed, I think.
I learned a lot, including a lot of things to not do.

[amaebi]

If you ever go lame I will know that you reincarnate Hephaestus.

[rebeccmeister]

Yay, so awesome!

[randomdreams]

If ya need a fire control hardware set to refurb a purchased broken kiln...

[rebeccmeister]

...I know exactly who to call. :^)

[sistawendy]

I have a Burning Man project. Someday I will consult you in depth.

[randomdreams]

Ooooooooh. I like those!

[annie_r]

That is really awesome! My boughten kiln controllers came with some preset programs for ramping up slowly, etc. (I have not needed anything more detailed) but alas, no webpages. I'd love to see what you do with it!

[randomdreams]

My intent is to use something like google drive spreadsheets to allow a user to just draw a temperature profile online, and this thing will interpret it. (And plot out what it's doing and log what it did, which will help enormously in tuning it.)

[lantairvlea]

I admit to not understanding all of the technical, electrial jargon and such, but I'm always impressed by what you can get these things to do and your resourcefulness!