PID Control

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

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.

First successful curve controlled FZ-94 roast with Artisan

(See also: my previous blog)

Roastmasters working with a PID like the Fuji PXG4 could in the past already enjoy the "autopilot" feature of Artisan, making sure the roast profile neatly coasted along the curve saved from a previous roast.

Now, Artisan has its own internal software PID and if you can link it to a device that influences your Bean Temperature (BT), you could use this option to automatically correct the live roast curve to develop along the curve you have as your current ideal.

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 v2.4.4

This version improves some established automation features to better support the control of preheat and between batches protocols.

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.

More Modbus

The support of Modbus RTU was just added to Artisan (see this previous post), but it is already time to extend its scope based on your requests. This extension of the Modbus support allows Artisan to talk to more device including some build into commercial roasters.

Artisan v1.4.0

Here is Artisan v1.4. More than 30 bugs have been fixed w.r.t. v1.3.1 and many suggestions for improvements have been integrated, mostly communicated via our Artisan issue tracker.

UPDATE 17. October, 2018: Artisan v1.5.0 has been released with important bug fixes.

Device Selection

There are a number of devices to monitor or control your roaster that are supported by Artisan. Which one to choose? Let's look at the key features of the available choices.

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.

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.

Fighting Spikes

You might be one of the lucky roasters who gets perfect readings from your meter. However, some don't. Mostly spikes are caused by some electrical interferences between the temperature probe, meter or Computer. In the ideal word those should be resolved by an improved hardware setup. A nice description of the issue and a documentation towards its solution was recently posted to the HomeBarista forum and also a newer post details on a solution. However, in some cases a physical solution is not possible for various reasons. In those cases the new spike removal features of Artisan might help you out.

Videos: Curve Controlled Roasts with FZ-94 and Artisan

See also: http://kostverlorenvaart.blogspot.nl/2016/08/complete-curve-controlled-coffee-roast.html

The video below may be a little boring for some because I did not cut footage from it to skip any part that may be uneventful. Do slide back and forth at will to see / ignore any part you want.

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.

Probat Probatone

Probat is opening up to 3rd-party roasting software. The Artisan team is proud to be picked as one of their first collaborations. Thus, in the last weeks we worked together with Probat engineers to establish the connection between Artisan and their Probat Probatone roasting machines.

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.

Profile Templates

Once a convincing roast profile for a certain coffee and purpose is found, a roastmaster has to replicate it over and over to produce a consistent product. Artisan offers a list of tools to support the roastmaster on this.

Automating a Huky

Here I give a short insight in my roasting setup, detailing how I connected my Huky 500T using VINT Phidgets and some custom electronics to Artisan.

by Philipp Schmidt

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!

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.