A new control site/blog

http://www.controlguru.com/

This site/blog appears to be an advanced process control site that is run by a very knowledgeable person.

A heat exchanger control example Part 1

http://www.controlguru.com/?cat=32
Doug Cooper, the editor, is a professor at the university of Connecticut.

thank you peter,,

Fred Raud

Thanks Peter.

I checked out this site when Peter first posted the link and my fist impression was...WOW!

There is a lot of good information here. Much of it over my head at the moment...but I am not afraid. =]

Very interesting, especially the feed forward and cascade controller articles - both subjects dear to my heart.

castlerock said:

Much of it over my head at the moment...but I am not afraid. =]

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I could not agree any more, Castlerock you are not alone:beerchug:

edit: and thank you Peter

Control Guru application problems

I am interested in how the Control Guru handles dead time in the heat exchanger problem. I know how I would do it.

Much of it over my head at the moment

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If you know it all there wouldn't be much point would there? There was a time when I was in the same situation. I read control books over and over again. Each time I would pick up just a little more until I had enough of the big picture where the rest came easy. It is kind of like solving one of those sudoku puzzles or exercising. Getting started is hard.

geniusintraining said:

I could not agree any more, Castlerock you are not alone
edit: and thank you Peter

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Thats good to know. =] There is somthing to be said for classroom training. The ability to raise ones hand and ask a question is well worth tuition cost. On the other hand, I've always enjoyed the challenge of being self taught. I'll be spending some time with the control guru.

Peter Nachtwey said:

I am interested in how the Control Guru handles dead time in the heat exchanger problem. I know how I would do it.

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I would be interested in seeing what you guys have to contribute to the discussion board there. Many of you have earned a great deal of my respect for what you know about programming and process control. I see lively discussions in controlguru.com's future. =]

Peter Nachtwey said:

If you know it all there wouldn't be much point would there? There was a time when I was in the same situation. I read control books over and over again. Each time I would pick up just a little more until I had enough of the big picture where the rest came easy. It is kind of like solving one of those sudoku puzzles or exercising. Getting started is hard.

Click to expand...

It wouldn't be much fun either. Like many here, I actually enjoy computer programming and at 39 years old I've taken an interest in PLCs. I've seen people come to our platform to survey for a new project and I could tell that they just didn't have a passion for what they do. Learning more to them is just a way to move up the ladder. ( no pun intended =]). This just has to make the job difficult. On the other hand, the ones I've met who truely love what they do are the ones who get the most respect. They're generally reguarded as being "sharp".

I guess my point, long winded as it is, is that hard is a relative term. I'd be willing to bet that you enjoyed reading those books, no matter how many times it took, because it was a challenge and somthing that tickled your interest.

An epiphany can be quite a rush to the kind of people who come here.

Thank you Peter! Do you also know some other sites with tutorial topics on process automation?

PI tuning

http://www.controlguru.com/?p=47

I tested out the way the controller gain and integrator time constants are calculated and they work pretty well. The formulas are not precise but still are far superior to guessing, ZN, or trial and error. If you do temperature PIDs then you should follow the above link.

I asked for and recieved info on how these formulas were derived. What I learned is how the dead time is taken into account. I was just interested in the math and the dead time calculations, but I am following along working out the solutions on my Mathcad.

I have asked that a topic on why PLCs PIDs alone are not adequate for many process control applications. I think there are many that would benefit from that. I see too many people try to tune applications using only a PID not realizing that a PID by itself is not enough.

Example of temperature control done right.

http://www.controlguru.com/?p=57#more-57

My first article on controlguru

The topic of simulating PID control has come up a couple times.
http://www.controlguru.com

nice content

Hey Doug,
Great web site content but poor SEO. I suggest that you start by reading www.webworkshop.net

By utilizing Overture / Yahoo keyword analysis tools here:
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/srch_pr.php
(and then click on "Keyword selector tool")

I see that "control system" and "process control" were searched
5000 and 6000 times last month on Yahoo. Fairly respectable numbers. You should try to optimize for those key search words.

I could get into specifics of how you should go about improving
your SEO but it's too lengthy.

Use following free tools to help you:
www.iwebtool.com and www.pagerank.net

Quality web site like yours deserves to be higher in the search ranking!

What is SEO?

Is the 'visibilty' on the web?

SEO= Search Engine Optimization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEO