Anyone ever do a PLC / HMI control for their stove? Good geek project!!

I am too dumb to know how, but I would LOVE to have something like this!

That could be a very good idea!
I have done some PLC troubleshooting in my years of work and my only hesitation would be the heat effects.
If a PLC was mounted externally, that would reduce the possible damage from the heat of the stove.
I've even wondered if some of the reasons for circuit board failures could be caused by the heat inside most stoves.
Being a rookie pellet burner, I haven't seen the interior design of most pellet stoves.
To me it would make sense to have the electronics sealed off & have a cooling fan, just like they do on computer boxes.
As far as a manufacturer using a PLC, that could make the stoves a lot more expensive and hard to compete.

I really hate to toss cold water on the camp fire, BUT why would you want to make something thats supposed to be simple, so complex ???

I have migrated towards the older stoves with manual lite, and then rewired them to be rid of as much of the complex controls as possible.

Just an adjustable mosfet industrial timer to run the feed auger at the intervals I need and a one shot timer to bypass the low temp switch during start up.


The more complex the system becomes with all the logic controls and goodie yum yum add ons, the more likely that you will, sooner or later wake up to a cold house and have to work on the thing in the cold.

Pellet stoves started off with the idea of simplicity and ease of use.
Cheap fuel and a unit that was very reliable.

The big sales pitch was all about these things.


Slowy over the past many years the micro processor has been worked into the equation to the point that the stoves are now just as much of a PITA as the newer automobiles.

They flash a code and then you need a lap top or a scan tool to figure out whats wrong with it.

I removed the factory control boards from my stoves a while back and installed far simpler and way more rugged controls, that in the case of a failure its a 15 minute task with minimal bother to figure out whats wrong and replace the offending part with a fresh one.


I am not advocating that we all go back to driving a "Model T" but keeping my house warm is my top priority during the winter, and worrying about some logic controller taking a poop at 1 am gives me nightmares.

Now with my rant done, if you feel the need to make your stove far more complex than it ever needs to be, have right at it.

Its not if ya could, it's if ya should.

These things could be sequenced using a little variable speed gear motor that opens and closes a set of contacts.

Could be done with a 30 day windup clock works too. Just set the desired timing, wind up the spring and it's off to the Rodeo.


Have fun

Snowy

You'll get opinions from both sides, Many like the simple controls. But some are more up to date and want all the bells and whistles. Look at the todays car. It isn't a model T anymore. Computers control just about everything in them. Harman has a computer controlling its stove and has for a long time. Its considered the caddy of stoves. But it does have a few quirks. So????

A PLC is kind of bulky and large to add on. And when it breaks you'll be spending $$$ to repair. Even the mini PLC's run some good coin to replace! Also you do know that what you do will not be considered UL listed.

Before you venture. There are a few stoves that have controls that might be drop in with minimal additions. Check out some of the controls like on the Upland 207 Pellet Stove by NU-TEC. Also the cumberland stoves. And Bixby has on that is controlled by a PIC and can be easily tweaked with a PC.

What ever you decide keep us posted. Very interested in your project! Great winter pass time. ;-)

Some very good points being made and I can only compare to being a beta tester for new computer software programs.
I would only attempt something like that on a spare toy and not my main system. Most beta testers have a half dozen or more computers for testing purposes.
Simplicity is my best friend for troubleshooting, when it comes to doing emergency repairs. I agree that a rheostat control is easier and cheaper to replace than a memory chip
on a circuit board,circuit board or anything more complicated.
Good luck with your project!

Snowy's right, of course, but with a half dozen AB controllers sitting on the shelf and the know-how to program them is an irresistible force that a true nerd cannot ignore! It's like 'why did you climb the mountain? Because it's there!'.
I spent years programming, using, and upgrading Automation Direct PLC's and motion controllers on industrial assembly lines and loved them. Also, I toyed with the idea of using the very simple and inexpensive Cubloc equipment and went as far as having a program written to control, monitor, and troubleshoot my stoves. Of course, they are only 3 years old but, hey, it's what nerds do!
Snowy's basic control system that she's posted will control just about any stove out there for minimal cost for probably the rest of its useful life (and mine) but I was born with a soldering iron in my hand! Boy, did my Mom scream!! %-P

Ok, just so you understand that I can speak Nerd EZE too, lets try this out.

Lets set up a controller that has a Blue Tooth interface so that the stove can be accessed by a cell phone at home.

So you can whip out your new iphone and check what your stove is doing and make any needed adjustments from on the fly.

This should be a fairly simple task given the av availability of the electronic gizmos.


My big deal is that I consider the stove as a sacred cow so to speak and I like coming home to a warm house.]

I have to deal with computer fly by wire controls on my large Cat diesel in my class 8 truck and also in the cars and light duty stuff too.

The iphone is very new to my hands (this past summer) but I have been around computers since the TI99 was all the rage and started building my own when the 133 Pentium was the Hot stuff.

5-1/4 inch floppy's were in almost every machine and if you had a 500 meg hard drive you were really hot stuff.


OMG a 500 meg hard drive, the little thumb drives we all carry in our shirt pocket have at least 8-16 gigs. woooooooooooo hooooooooooo where we have come with this stuff.

I can remember the IBM System 7 monsters.

I would imagine that an iphone has more computing power than the old system 7


Snowy

I started with the Radio Shack TRS80 Model 1. 16K memory was awesome! No hard drives then. You saved your programs onto a cassette tape player, which was VERY unreliable. Graduated through Atari computers, Model 3 RS, and then bought one of Mike Dell's computers when he was making them in his dorm. After that I started making my own, which, as you know, is a never ending transition of motherboards, memory types, graphics cards. More like a merry go round.

tjnamtiw said:

I started with the Radio Shack TRS80 Model 1. 16K memory was awesome! No hard drives then. You saved your programs onto a cassette tape player, which was VERY unreliable. Graduated through Atari computers, Model 3 RS, and then bought one of Mike Dell's computers when he was making them in his dorm. After that I started making my own, which, as you know, is a never ending transition of motherboards, memory types, graphics cards. More like a merry go round.

Click to expand...

And the faster and bigger they are the more bloated and slow the software becomes. What was a supercomputer class machine back in the day can no longer run those eye candy but otherwise useless games.

exactly! I only use my desktop for Flight Simulator now.