Technical Resource Library from Cole-Parmer India

file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Admin/Application Data/Mozilla/Fir...

EchoTherm Hot Plates and Stirring Hot Plates

What you should know about temperature control and EchoTherm Digital Hot Plates, EchoTherm Digital Stirring Hot Plates, and EchoTherm Programmable Digital Stirring Hot Plates The term temperature controlimplies that there is a target temperature, which is defined simply as the temperature that you want to achieve and maintain in a sample, whether that sample is in a water bath, on a hot plate, in an oven, etc. An instruments ability to achieve and maintain this target temperature, over any given time period, depends upon the type of temperature controller in the instrument. EchoTherm hot plates have PID temperature control software designed into all our units to control either the plate surface of the hot plate or a solution in a vessel on the hot plate. Below are described control loop types which will explain the benefits of EchoTherm Hot Plates and the control loop software designed into them. Some temperature controllers have longer temperature cycle periods and experience more temperature overshoot than others. A heating or cooling apparatus which is trying to maintain a target temperature will do this by increasing or decreasing power to the heating or cooling element to keep the actual temperature as close to the target temperature as possible. This results in a fluctuation in actual temperature called a temperature cycle. The difference between the actual and target temperature in this cycle is called the temperature overshoot if the actual temperature is above the target temperature, or temperature undershoot if the actual temperature is below the target temperature. In general, the better the temperature controller is, the smaller the temperature cycle and the temperature overshoot or undershoot. Typically, one encounters products that use one of three basic types of temperature control: ON/OFF, PROPORTIONAL, or PROPORTIONAL-INTEGRALDERIVATIVE (PID). PID control is used on all EchoTherm, digital hot plates. ON/OFF- An On/Off controller is the simplest and crudest of these three controllers. Its name is derived from the way it operates: by supplying full power to the heating element in intervals. In other words, an on/off controller turns the power fully on to heat and fully off to cool. Because an on/off controller supplies either full or no power to the heater, it is not a very precise type of controller, and a unit using this type of control will experience longer and larger temperature cycles and greater temperature overshoot and undershoot. PROPORTIONAL- Proportional and PID controllers are somewhat similar to each other in the way they operate. Both controllers operate proportionally, that is, they consider the amount of error between the actual temperature and the target temperature (overshoot and undershoot) and they adjust the power to the heater proportionally. In other words, if the temperature sensor tells the controller that the actual temperature is well under the target, then the controller will supply more power to the heating element. If the actual temperature is only a little under
1 of 2

9/24/2012 7:18 PM

Technical Resource Library from Cole-Parmer India

file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Admin/Application Data/Mozilla/Fir...

the target temperature, then the controller will boost power only slightly. PID- A PID controller uses a derivative and integral function in addition to the proportional function. The derivative aspect means that the controller looks not only at the amount and value of temperature error, it asks the questions: is the temperature moving, how quickly is it moving, and in which direction is it moving? For example, if an actual temperature reading is well below target but is rising at a fast rate, the derivative aspect of the PID controller will tell it that it needs to boost power to the heating element only slightly to bring the actual temperature up to the target temperature. Whereas a proportional-only controller will consider only that the actual temperature is far below target temperature and neglect to consider the momentum that already exists in the quickly rising temperature. The difference in effect of the two controllers in this particular example might be that the PID controller slows the rate of increase in actual temperature as it approaches target so that the actual temperature can stop rising once it reaches the target. The proportional controller, on the other hand, may generate some temperature overshoot because it ignored the momentum that already existed in the rising temperature when it calculated the amount of power to supply to the heating element to reach the target temperature. The integral function of PID control simply considers the nature of error over a period of time, and then adjusts to compensate for the error. In other words, if the average actual temperature over a period of time is higher than the target temperature, the integral function will signal a general reduction of power to the heating element. This is the final fine tuning done to keep the target and actual temperature the same, and with minimum if any fluctuation. As one can see, PID temperature control gives more precise and stable temperature control. That is why EchoTherm uses PID temperature control software in all its digital hot plates.

2 of 2

9/24/2012 7:18 PM