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.

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.

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.

Modbus RTU

Artisan v0.6 adds a new device call MODBUS. Selecting that one allows you to have Artisan talk to your Modbus RTU device. Modbus is a de facto standard serial communication protocol connecting industrial electronic devices. Artisan supports the RTU (Remote Terminal Unit) variant and plays the role of the supervisory computer, while the connected devices have to be the slaves. Interesting devices for us are variable-frequency drive controllers that allow to control the speed of your drum and fans as well as PID controllers. But there are also temperature meters that provide a Modbus link.

Artisan 0.6 beta

Last November we released Artisan v0.5.6 that only added a minor fix for the Voltcraft K201 meter over Artisan v0.5.5, which is available already since September 2011. The development of Artisan seems to have stopped. Not true!