Homebrew PCBs

Ok, so i went and bought that elektor article. Took ages to sign up with  
that nonsense but in the end i got the pdf.

Anyway, there is a lot less documentation than i would have hoped for. Not  
even a flowchart for the software. I knew why i don't read the elektor  
magazine.....
Overall it's a lot less ideal than i'd have hoped. It uses a controller i  
can't get easily, an eeprom i don't see the point in, a 2x16 display will  
be much too wide for my oven (5cm space), the elektor PCB is frankly  
useless, ....

The only interesting thing really is the control method, it measures the  
overshoot once and then estimates the expected overshoot for other  
situations reducing the heating accordingly. I had hoped for something  
like self-tuning PID but hey they say it works for 2K overshoot max so  
that's good enough for me.

There don't seem to be many smaller than 16char LCDs around, overall i'm  
not so happy with the thing...
maybe i could put the lcd in the side or up top, not ideal, not ideal at  
all.

Anyway, i'll have to think about this. I'm not feeling well today and i  
just purchased an article that is of less quality than many free projects  
on the web... This seems way too complicated, i had hoped i could use the  
thing more or less as-is but i'd have to change so much.... damn it this  
should be a dead easy problem to solve and it is getting more and more  
annoying...

ST

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:43:25 +0200, Philip Mac Cabe <Philip@...>  
wrote:

> Has anyone actually read the recent (January) Elektor article on the
> SMD oven?  It uses a K-type thermocouple talking to a MAX6675.