Hotrod

[Greg Dake]

I have some spare time, (gosh what's that!!??), I want to build a PID simulator similar to Ron's Hotrod. Ron, if you're out there, and you were to build your hotrod again is there anything you'd do better or differently? I'd like to build one just like it, or similar. I have the PLC components at my disposal, I'd just need to get together the components for the "hotrod". Do you have a parts list and a schematic of the hotrod?

TIA,

Greg

 

[GMc]

Greg,

I believe Ron is teaching this week. It might be later before he reply's.

Gary

 

[Ron Beaufort]

Greetings Greg,

as GMc said, I'm teaching this week ... so I've only got a few seconds during lunch break to answer ...

to answer your specific question: nope ... there is nothing on the Hotrod that I'd change ... but if you're building one for your own use, then I can probably save you some money and/or time and/or effort ...

questions: is this project just for you? ... or for you and your boss? ... reason for asking: what type of budget do you have? ... the original Hotrod cost about $1,000 and a lot of that was at wholesale prices ... if you want to get much of the same functionality at less cost, then I might be able to help you out ...

I'll try to write more later ... in the meantime, have you read the advice that I offered in this thread? ... I think you'll find it useful ...

 

[Greg Dake]

Hi Ron, thanks for the quick response! The hotrod will initially be for myself, but for use by the company I work for. We have plenty of AB PLC components in stock I can use. I'm just curious about the hardware and schematics for the actual hotrod itself, not the PLC components. As far as a budget is concerned, the high dollar items will be borrowed components from my company. I can pitch in a few bucks here and there as needed.


Greg

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

A cheaper way.

In the downloads section there is a HotRod simulator that simulate the Hotrod in Ladder. I used files from Ron's Hotrod to generate the gain, time constants and deadtime so it behaves like Ron's Hotrod.

No Hardware required except for the MicroLogix or SLC plc. There is documentation on how to change the model so the system will react in a way other than a Hotrod but the calculations are not easy.

 

[Greg Dake]

Thanks Peter, I'll fire up a rack at my desk and try it out.


Greg

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

Don't change anything except the set point which I believe is at N7:0

The system almost perfectly tuned using the model of the Hotrod. I have some other files in the hotrod.zip. One use feed forward.

Ask if you have questions. There is a trend that shows the realtime ( very slow compared to motion ) response.

 

[Greg Dake]

Thanks, give me a day or two to get some hardware together. I just downloaded the zip file.


Greg