More zones ?

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Steve
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More zones ?

#1552

Post by Steve »

Hello Chris,

Just wondering what is the maximum number of zones that you could add to the KL studio?
Ideally I would like 10 instead of 3 but I will be happy with what ever you can manage.
EDIT: After more experimentation i am thinking 5 would be plenty.

Or could a separate section be set up specifically for power profiling where by time blocks can be programmed to use specific amount of power over specific times and not linearly increasing / decreasing %. Have a check box or something that states using this function will override all other automatic controls.

0:00 - 2:30 = 1200W
2:31 - 5:30 = 1000W
5:31 - 7:30 = 1050W
etc

Thank you
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kaffelogic
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Re: More zones ?

#1587

Post by kaffelogic »

My thoughts around this are all constrained by the amount of EEPROM memory in the microcontroller. My inclination at the moment is to push it out to 5 zones instead of the current 3. This adds very little to the EEPROM and the complexity can be dealt with in Studio with a better zone editing feature.
Steve
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Re: More zones ?

#1590

Post by Steve »

Sounds great.
Current thinking even just one more would do the job in most cases and anymore than 5 would be overkill.
Steve
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Re: More zones ?

#1650

Post by Steve »

No more zones are needed, more thinking out loud.... :roll:
Geronimo
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Re: More zones ?

#1694

Post by Geronimo »

kaffelogic wrote: Wed 07 Oct, 2020 11:01 am My thoughts around this are all constrained by the amount of EEPROM memory in the microcontroller. My inclination at the moment is to push it out to 5 zones instead of the current 3. This adds very little to the EEPROM and the complexity can be dealt with in Studio with a better zone editing feature.
Hi

Can you please check at your convenience if zone 3 works properly from a coding point of view for power profiling. It didn’t work for me, but in saying that I left zone 2 PID enabled so to speak. But Steve has just said in a comment that the PID control was overriding his power profile setting for zone 3.

Many thanks
Luca
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Re: More zones ?

#1794

Post by Luca »

kaffelogic wrote: Wed 07 Oct, 2020 11:01 am My thoughts around this are all constrained by the amount of EEPROM memory in the microcontroller. My inclination at the moment is to push it out to 5 zones instead of the current 3. This adds very little to the EEPROM and the complexity can be dealt with in Studio with a better zone editing feature.
Bummer.

I can't get zone 3 working, either.

I think as many zones as possible would be good.

It would be nice to be able to roast by power profile, since otherwise all we're doing is controlling the BT probe, but we have no idea what power the machine is going to apply. This may be important. When you're roasting on a drum roaster, you often adjust to change the environment temp, knowing that the BT will move towards it. With the KL, all we can do is try to change the probe temp, but we have no influence on how the PID gets it there, except for the power.

For power profile roasting, at the moment, I *think* we need to have a zone 1 with no boost to maintain a flatline of the preheat temp for a set time period, otherwise I don't know when the machine exits preheat, and if it does, then the PID will take over and change the power. So because we can only change the power from what it was immediately before the zone started, we must have overlapping zones so that the PID never grabs control. So we've basically got to waste one zone on preheat, then only zone 2 works and zone 3 doesn't work. So if we want a flat power preheat, then we can only have a straight line decline or incline power profile. That's not good. The power I'm assuming is basically a proxy for environment temp, which we can't measure. If you look at the ET profile of a drum roaster, it's not really possible to mimic that with two zones working as I've explained in this paragraph.

In addition to this, we've got the non-linear response of the beans due to the enthalpy of evaporation of water, or whatever it is that people are calling it. At the moment, we can't do a power dip and bounce back before first to mitigate this, as Scott Rao suggests (for drum roasts, at least).

So all of this is kind of an imperfect solution, but it should add a lot more flexibility and hopefully we'll be able to get some good roasts.
Matt S
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Re: More zones ?

#1795

Post by Matt S »

Hi Luca

The 3rd zone works if you install the latest firmware update, as it includes a fix for that issue.

I agree that more zones would be helpful. I have been playing with power profiles and am making do with 3 zones, but controlling the ‘take off’ around first crack would be easier with more zones to play with.

Matt
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kaffelogic
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Re: More zones ?

#1798

Post by kaffelogic »

Getting the third zone to work, see https://kaffelogic.com/community/viewto ... =272#p1761

Keeping the power level locked at the start of the roast, this can be done with preheat min time setting for as long as you want so you should be able to get away without using up a zone on this.

Adding more zones, still thinking about this. I could make a special beta available for power profilers to play with and see if it proves valuable?
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