HT Controler Question

B

Bordergraver

Joined
Jul 31, 2019
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Hello all, first time poster...long time lurker. I recently purchased a used pragaon HT oven with a bad DTC 600 controller. I was just about ready to pull the trigger on an Abuerins ramp/soak PID and dual SSRs but the more I read, the more fiddly and non-user friendly they sound compared to the controlers that come with the unit, albeit at a much steeper price. However, I just found an RTC 1000 from Barttlets can be purchased for $290 which is probably double that of the PID setup, but significantly less than what I was quoted from Paragon for a replacement. My question is, being a newbie to HTing and PIDs in general, would the RTC 1000 be worth the extra money? Would it be much more intuitive and user/programmer friendly than the PID with less of a learning curve to set up and use, and would it be a direct replacement with no additional components needed? Maybe I'm just overestimating the complexity of the programing and turning of the PID? Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

TJ
 
I have installed and used the Auburn’s ramp pid and I would never own one. I don’t mind there simple single setting pid but not the ramp soak. But in all honesty do you really need a ramp soak pid? That function gets talked up but for blades it’s useless in my mind. I would never put a blade in an oven and ramp it up to temp and soak and ramp to final temp. That’s not to say ramp and soak is not useful but for other reasons then you might think. I use it to anneal D2 at a controlled cooling rate of 20°/hr. But if your just heat treating blades a simple pid will work perfect. Just set it for the austinite temp and let the oven equalize. Pop the blade in and start your timer.

With all that being said when I build another oven I will use another tap controller. I love those but I’m in a different situation then you are.
 
Thanks for the advice. The TAP controller really sounds great, but is more money than I want to spend, and I think I would want more control than what a simple PID offers for normalizing or annealing, etc.

JT, would you elaborate more on why you dont like the Auberins ramp soak controller?
 
I have not used the Auber, but have used similar industrial ramp/soak controllers.

The issue with the industrial controllers is basically that they are intended for use by industrial process/control engineers. It is assumed that anyone with access to the menu is an expert. The same menu that programmes ramp and soak segments will also give access to the input setup, process setup and PID tuning screens. Because they are intended for a very wide range of uses, there are many settings available and changing any one can seriously louse up the system.

With the dedicated kiln controllers, there are normally multiple menu levels. The basic user level allows you to program set points and ramp/soak segment times, but nothing else. The worst a user can do is enter an incorrect time and/or temperature and louse up the job in hand. He cannot change anything that will affect the operation of the oven in the longer term.

I have built several HT ovens, all with industrial controllers. As JT says, it is pretty unusual for the average user to really need Ramp/Soak, unless annealing something which requires very slow cooling.

One of the guys with one of my ovens (he makes very nice kitchen knives) phoned me to say that the controller was telling him his oven was at Austenitizing temperature when it actually seemed to be at a much lower temperature (he described it as "about tempering" temperature). I asked if he'd been in the menu since it last worked properly. He said yes, to set an annealing program. It was immediately obvious (to me, though not to him) that he'd changed the input type from Type "N" (which is what I use), probably to type "R" or "S". I talked him through the key presses to change it back and everything was fine again.

I got the impression he'd spent some time trying to work out what was happening himself: he sounded pretty frustrated by the time he phoned me. I imagine this is the sort of thing that would put your average knifemaker off using an industrial controller.
 
Thanks for all the help. That's is kinda what I was afraid of. Being on a bit of a budget, I thought the PID set up would be the way to go, and appears that it still is, as long as your willing to sacrifice some user friendliness and potential missteps. I was afraid of that after reading the manual, and this just confirms it. I think the RTC 1000 will do all I want it to, and still be relatively budget friendly so that's what i think i will go with.
Thanks again!

TJ
 
What I did not like about the ramp soak controller was it was always a long drawn out process to do anything. Just to get the oven to say 1500° you had to tell it the ramp rate then input the temp then how long you wanted to stay at that temp. I think you had to enter a few other things as well but it’s been like 10+ years. But all I know is it was super frustrating because you got like 2-3 buttons to use to enter all this information. With a bone stock pid all you do is push the up or down button to change the temp in the bottom display and poof done. Super simple and fast plus way easy for anyone to use it.

The tap gives you everything in one nice little package and makes it easy to enter the data. Plus it stores all your schedules and records of past runs. The function I thought was the cheesiest was the “app” but come to find out I use it SOOOOOOOO much. It allows me to check on the oven any time any where. The thing the app won’t do is let you start a schedule. But I have found a way around this by just starting a schedule and putting in a real long start delay (when you select a pre programmed schedule to run it asks if you want a start delay). I put in some large number like 24hrs. Then say 1-2hrs before I leave work I open the app and bypass the delay and the oven starts heating. It’s quite handy in my situation.

But if I just needed a simple pid controller I would hands down buy Watlow pids. I have 3 and LOVE them. The one on the small tempering oven is an older 93 and the 2 on my big tempering oven are the EZ zone. Very nice pids. But the cream of the crop is Watlow the company. Thy will talk to you and help you with anything you need. I bought my big oven used and was changing stuff and thy where more then helpful. What shocked me is I call the tech number and it rang once and an actual person picked up and low and behold it was the technician. Amazing service.
 
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