Artisan v3.1.2

 

Initially planned as a minor release to address a few specific issues that has been reported, things took an unexpected turn. In the end, we added several useful features to our so-called "free-but-limited approach."

Enjoy Artisan v3.1.2!

Using an Energy Meter to Measure Roast Machine Energy Consumption with Artisan

 

Artisan version 3.1.2 allows connecting energy meters to log precise measurements of energy consumption.  Artisan can connect to one or two meters simultaneously allowing measurement of gas energy consumption and/or electricity energy consumption.  This allows the roasting operation to accurately monitor and report on its energy use and carbon footprint. 

Artisan v3.1

Artisan v3.1 comes with renewed Bluetooth and MODBUS infrastructure and adds quite some additional device and machine support.

Artisan v2.10.2

We have again updated the best roasting software you cannot buy! To ease the path for Mill-City-Roaster owners to Artisan we added support for all of their machines. This version also extends the support for IKAWA roasters supporting their latest addition, the PRO 100 X, and simplifies the connection to Aillio Bullet R1 machines on Windows removing the requirement of an alternative USB driver installation. For further news see below.

Artisan v2.8.4

 

We introduce Artisan 2.8.4 which adds a few features and improves stability while staying full compatible with any previous version.

Buttons – Appearance, State, and Action

A custom button in Artisan is specified by a name, an event type and value, an action as well as button and text colors (see Events, Buttons Palettes). There can be as many buttons as you like. Additionally, each button has an appearance (normal/pressed) and a state. State and appearance are disconnected by default, but can be connected via button actions.

Supporting Between Batch Protocols

Here is our response to Scott Rao's call out to makers of roasting software to offer structures supporting the tracing and managing of BBPs (Between Batch Protocols) and warmups.

Artisan v2.4.2

 

The focus of this release is on extending the one-click configurations to many more machines.

Artisan v2.4

We are proud to present the results of our work of the past months. This release takes Artisan quite a bit further by introducing a number of new roasting tools besides and many small refinements. Enjoy the new Roast Comparator, Roast Simulator, and Profile Transposer now available with Artisan v2.4!

Artisan v2.1

This is the Artisan version we will use to prove Scott Rao wrong (or right). We extended Artisan in various ways to facilitate the application of his roasting theory.  Thanks Scott, for pushing us!

Roasting with Phidgets

An introduction to automatic roast logging using basic hardware from Phidgets in combination with Artisan. This article focuses on standard USB Phidgets that have been supported by Artisan since 2013. The follow-up post More on Phidgets! describes the extended Phidgets support by Artisan v1.2 covering also the new VINT devices that were introduced at the end of 2017 by Phidgets.

Artisan v1.0

After a long journey that started at the end of 2009, the development of Artisan finally reached version 1.0. Download it from the Artisan GitHub page. This one introduces only a few new features w.r.t. the previous one, but adds some small improvements and bug fixes. For the full list of changes and additions see the Artisan change log.

PID Control

A PID controller is a control loop feedback mechanism commonly used in industrial applications. – PID Controller, Wikipedia

FZ-94 (4) – Taking Control

Now that Artisan can talk to the drive controllers, it is not only possible to read the drive speeds, but also to control the drive speeds. However, that needs some further configuration changes on the drive controllers as well as some additional setup on the Artisan side.

FZ-94 (3) – Connecting the Drives

The FZ-94 comes with two Delta VFD-L drive controllers often referred to as frequency drives. One controls the drum speed, the other the air flow via the fan speed. Both are operated manually via a dial. While Artisan can log roasts automatically by reading the three temperature values from the machine via its RS485/MODBUS connection, the drum speed and air flow, both of which have a considerable influence on the resulting roast, have to be manually marked via some user defined buttons or sliders.

FZ-94 (2) – Pushing the Drum Heat Limit Controller

That third MaxWell MTA-48 temperature PID, all the way to the right on the front of the FZ-94, plays a dual role. Besides reporting the actual temperature of the roasting drum, it is wired to control the heaters based on the set temperature limit.

FZ-94 (1) – Bumping up MODBUS

In this first post on an improved FZ-94 setup for Artisan v1.0 we are focusing on the communication between the machine and the software. MODBUS RTU speed in Artisan prior to v1.0 was limited by an issue in an underlying library. That resulted in each request/replay pair to take at least the amount specified by the serial timeout parameter, which defaults to one second.

FZ-94 (0) – Playing with the CTE Lab Roaster

Some new features in Artisan v1.0 open up advanced possibilities to log and control the Coffee Tech Engineering's Lab Roaster  FZ-94. This series of posts describe an improved setup that supersedes the one documented in an earlier post.

Coffee-Tech FZ-94 working seamlessly with Artisan

Artisan 1.0 screen with sliders for FZ-94 on the left

Recently, we received the opportunity to get an FZ-94 lab roaster and see how this roasting machine could work seamlessly with Artisan. An inspired back-and-forth between Marko Luther on the Artisan side in Germany and the R&D team of Coffee-Tech in Israël ensued and soon, the first machine was communicating fully with a newly expanded and freshly compiled version of Artisan.

Increasing the Heat

Up to Artisan v0.9.7 custom event buttons could only set absolute event values. The version 0.9.8 adds the possibility to define buttons that increase or decrease an event value relative to the last one registered.