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[jhawkinsvalrico]

I have a Novus N1050 which has been working fine for our ramp and soak needs, but I have been asked to address a new use case and cannot seem to get this working. The use case is actually quite simple:
intial SP = 250f
s1 = 250f with duration of 2HR

I have been asked to start the timer (t1) after PV=SP.
On page 6 of the Novus N1050 Controller Instruction Manual in the Timer Cycle:
t.Str if set to SP states T1 timer Starts when PV reaches SP.

When I test this, on my n1050, when I run this program, the timer starts as soon as I start the program. Perhaps I misunderstand the purpose of this t.Str setting or maybe another setting is overriding t.Str=SP? I have been trying to get this working over the weekend and have tried changing other setting on the n1050 that I thought might possibly override the setting, but no matter what I have tried, T1 starts every time I run the program. I am not one to ask for help easily thinking that I should be able to figure out how to make this work, but I have reached the point that I need to ask "how do I make this setting work, or do I misunderstand the purpose of the setting?". One last point to make is that the oven is at ambient temperature for all testing.

[Kkane]

I just tried this function on my end and it worked as design. The parameters I changed are the following:

Under timer cycle,
t.str = Starts when PV reaches SP
t1 = 20 (Set the timer)

Under operation cycle,
RUN = YES.
SP = 28

So when I power up the controller, RUN indicator is ON and timer is OFF. When the PV reaches 28, timer is ON and I can see A3 indicator flashing on the controller front. After 20s, A3 indicator will be OFF and RUN indicator will be OFF.

Yes, I suspected some other settings in your controller override your timer's settings somehow. If you keep the factory default settings for this controller, you can try factory reset and see how it works. Otherwise, you can send Auber an email for the factory settings.

You can probably try to turn off your ramp soak function (PRG = NONE) and see if your timer works then.

[jhawkinsvalrico]

It is good to know that this feature works as I thought it should. So my next question is how to do a factory reset? I have gone into nconfig and entered REST but that did not reset the pid to the factory setting.

[Kkane]

NCconfig software stopped working on my computer and it cannot communicate with N1050 for some reasons now. It worked well before. It seems Novus decided to discontinue this software and its download link has been removed from Novus page already.

In quicktune software, you can create a default parameter list via "Create Configuration" button for this controller model then send it to the controller. But this function has deficiency and it will also changed some key parameters under calibration cycle. After you reset the controller, you need to change these parameter back manually then.

Prot = 1, H.PRG = YES, CTR.E = YES, PRG.E = YES, RUN.E = YES.

N1050 controller itself does not have one-key factory reset feature. The REST parameter (restore) seems to reset the reading calibration value, not reset all the parameters back to the factory default. I haven't tried this parameter before so I don't know how it works.

[Kkane]

Again, NCconfig software is not supported by Novus. I just tried it and it cannot identify my PID, so I cannot generate the cfg config file.

Instead, you can easily generate a default parameter list via Quicktunes. You can either save it to your computer (.qtc file) or send it to your PID as reset. I mentioned the issues regarding this method in my previous post and you need to change those parameters back after you reset the controller.

[jhawkinsvalrico]

Kkane, thank you and I got this working. I discovered that I have been running an older version of QuickTune. QuickTune was/is setup to check for updates, but for some reason it has never informed me of the latest update. I installed the latest version and the t.Str feature now works. Thanks again.

[Kkane]

Well, the latest quicktune (v2.0.0.3) has some bugs with N1050. It will show some errors when you try to change some parameters. You can try the earlier version such as v1.0.7.0 on Auber's websites.

Yeah sometimes you may need to verify the parameter change on the PID's keypad, to see if the parameter was changed correctly or not.

[jhawkinsvalrico]

I believe that the issue I was encountering was not completely caused by the version of QuickTune. I have to explain that I bought my N1050 months ago, setup some ramp and soak programs that work great and pretty much left the pid alone. My son asked my whether I could setup some configurations to be used to out gas some different materials which are quite simple. Create a set point and once the oven reaches the set point start the timer. My mistake was that I was attempting to do this within a ramp and soak program which, as I have learned, ramp and soak is not really designed to do. I have now had time to get myself much more acquainted with the N1050 and it is working great. There are some quirks with QuickTune. Such as changing parameters that I did not touch and when I upload the program QuickTune will throw an error stating that a parameter is out of bounds. These are easy to identify and I have learned to go back after uploading a configuration to the pid, to review parameters.  A couple of features that I would like this pid to have (that I do not believe are possible) are:
1. t.Str=SP - When PV=SP trigger a short alarm indicating that the condition has been met and that T1 has started.
2. Enable another short alarm when RUN changes state to NO indicating that the program is completed.

These are both really just would be nice to have features that would remind whoever has material in the oven and might be prepping another piece of the oven's progress. It is easy to add alarm steps in ramp and soak programs, but I have not found a way to do this outside of ramp and soak programs. 

[Kkane]

1. t.Str=SP - When PV=SP trigger a short alarm indicating that the condition has been met and that T1 has started.

You can try to set t.end to OFF. Its manual states "T1 output turns off at the end of T1." So when timer is running, T1 output should be ON. You can probably try it.

2. Enable another short alarm when RUN changes state to NO indicating that the program is completed.

This controller does not have program ending alarm. But you can set to turn on the alarm for the specific step/segment (P.E1 ~ P.E4). You can probably add one more step and set the alarm to be ON for that step.

I'm not sure if you can use both timer function and ramp/soak function at the same time. 

[jhawkinsvalrico]

Kkane: Thank you for the suggestions and I will try #1. Regardins #2, based upon the testing that I have done, I discovered that the time function t.Str=SP does not apply to ramp/soak. At least I have not discovered any way to get that working in ramp/soak. After various tests that I performed in an attempt to get t.Str=SP working during ramp/soak, I stepped back and thought about the purpose of the ramp/soak function and came to the conclusion that was designed to take a process from PV to SP over a specific period of time. So I can understand why enabling t.Str=SP could be viewed as having no purpose for a ramp/soak cycle.To be honest, the alarms that I was trying to setup are not absolutely required, more alerts that would be nice to have. Thanks again.