PID -Hardware needed for a software fix

Thanks Ryan, I didn’t notice that. I did plan on writing my own code (because I don’t intend on using an arduino) but I will have to double check to see what would be required for it to read the zero crossing.

It took a lot of research to find the ones we use, and I know all of the features were very hard to find combined. I honestly do not remember all the details, I would have to read this thread again to catch up. I should have left my notes in here somewhere.

The ones you linked look mighty plain and have no logic onboard.

Yeah I have a small plc that I plan on using for the logic… should be more then powerful enough to handle it. Just not sure what is involved is sensing the zero crossover. If it requires to much extra I will just buy the one from your shop. I’m trying to have less boards in my fibox, not more :slight_smile:

You could feed that Banggood module with pwm but if you want full phase angle control, which is really a must for this application, you would use the zero crossing pulse to synchronise firing the triac with the AC. There’s already Arduino and ESP example code out there to do this https://github.com/RobotDynOfficial/RBDDimmer. It would be straightforward to integrate the phase angle control and PID in the same processor.

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Just thought I would throw something out there as I haven’t seen it mentioned or considered here yet… but I haven’t gotten my head around every detail nor read every post either.

If you are sampling at or near (or even a ways above) the frequency of the collet spinning you are prone to getting some strange artifacts because of the Nyquist rate. Basically, not sampling fast enough leads to aliasing and potential strange jumps or drops in your readings. If its working well enough… never mind I said anything.

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How important does the capacitor value end up being? I’m looking through amazon, and pretty much everything I can get is in the $10 range, but the shipping dates are WAY different, and I ordered the rest of the stuff from Ryan just now…so I know THAT will be here fast. I’m sure I’ll end up ordering a box of stuff with a ton I don’t need, just want to make sure that what I DO need is in there as well…

I am pretty sure I have them, lots of them. Let me see what I can do, and just drop them in the box.

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More evidence that not all heroes wear capes!

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Decided I am going to get one of Theese and use an arduino zero crossover library and the arduino pro mini to try to create a version of this for the esp32 6pack board :slight_smile: I will let you all know how it goes!

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Your not worried about zero point crossing on these brushed motors?

maybe i should be? but my plan is to have the pro mini handle syncing the PWM with the crossover. same thing the fancy dimmer board does with the onboard ATtiny. i’m just going to offload it from the dimmer board onto the pro mini that is there anyway. or am i missing something?

i guess, i’m just not seeing any circuitry on the dimmer you sell that would allow it to handle an inductive load any better, other then a fly back circuit that would be easy to add.

I know very little about these things, I was actually just asking thinking maybe I overthought it.

i am no expert, i did go to school for computer engineering but never made it into the field. so i admit my knowledge is out of date and rusty. but looking at the components on the power side of the dimmer you sell, i only see one diode, one cap and a few resistors that are not included in the one that i am planning to use. to me that would indicate either a flyback circuit or a RCD snubber. both are relatively simple and cheap to implement. but from my understanding even those are not used very often anymore, the main purpose is to protect the IC, but i have no fear that my 5A 120V router will be frying a 24A 600V triac. the only other reason to use one is to try to improve efficiency. i could be wrong but i doubt the loss in efficiency will be noticeable, it would take some thorough testing of both methods to validate.

if anyone reading this has more experience or info with this then me please chime in, especially if i’m wrong :slight_smile:

Edit:
i think i recall that a transistor in parallel with a cap is the preferred method for this circuit now, i may dig a little deeper into that option but unless someone says otherwise(or i start breaking things) I’m not really worried about it (the board is optocoupled so worst case i fry a $6 dollar dimmer).

in short i think you are. at least if your using an IC that is way overkill for the circuit, such at the one i linked :slight_smile:

P.S. sorry if i came off confrontational, it was not my intent. i appreciate the questions it makes me double check my work :).

Not at all. I did some research a long time ago and this is what I came up with and it worked. I can’t sell them so I stopped testing, but still use mine all the time.

I hope there is a cheaper easier way.

me too, lets find it together!

also why cant you sell them? just no demand or legal reasons?

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Lawyers.

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More accurately, insurance lawyers.

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Darned litigation goes hand in hand with some things and sometimes just the threat makes it to expensive to take a chance