I’ve just built a similar circuit, using a rice cooker instead of a crockpot but using the identical CD101. Oddly, setting SL6 to 0001 (i.e. heating mode, time scale output) results in OUT1 never being turned on; setting SL6 to 0000 results in OUT1 turning on and staying on (and eventually bringing the rice cooker to a boil, independent of the value of SV).

What are your settings for the CD101 on sous-vide?

Thanks very much,
- Raffi.

THANK YOU!

Don’t tell me you canibalized your soldering hot plate to cook sous vide too?!?

My PID controller was appropriate by my partner for this

I’m working on a circuit to read thermocouples using a TI TMP513 Power Monitor chip. It’s got built-in temperature measurement that’s perfect for the cold junction reference and it has a 12-bit ADC designed to measure current in a shunt resistor with a 40 mV maximum range. It’s working great in my tests so far.

http://digital-diy.com/forum/electronic-projects-and-gadgets/thermocouple-measurements-t1150.html

Thanks for the confirmation that STOP mode doesn’t work on these controllers. I’m sort of happy it’s not just me, but overall disappointed that such a simple feature doesn’t work. Oh well, I guess that’s what you get for buying a $40 PID controller.

I created a Wiki page for the CD101 that includes links to both manuals that I’ve seen for this controller, as well as some undocumented features (such as the ability to switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit display). You can find it here: http://mightyohm.com/wiki/resources:cd101

Also, I wanted to mention that there’s an article on making a Sous Vide cooker with the CD101 in the most recent Make: magazine (vol. 25).

I didn’t get the controller set to 55, it was set to 75 degrees when I looked at the PID display and saw that the temperature was already at 54. I quickly set the controller for 55 and made sure it took this time.

Despite telling my laptop not to sleep, it did, but I managed to log nearly 2 hours of data before it shut down. I took data using my work-in-progress thermocouple board, which at the moment reads to the nearest degree. The data shows that the temperature was actually centered around 53 degrees, (confirming our belief that the PID controller is reading 2 degrees high) with short excursions +/- 1 degree. My resolution is only one degree so the controller looks pretty consistent to me.

I recorded a measurement very 5 seconds. From the flat part of the curve after the slight overshoot caused my my failure to get the temperature set on the PID (55 degrees max, which was 2 degrees higher than the average), about 80 readings were recorded at 52 degrees, 730 at 53 and 43 at 54 degrees.

The indicated temperature on the PID controller was never seen to vary from 55 degrees. Right now, with cool ambient temperatures in the house, the PID controller is turning on the power for 1-2 seconds every 15 seconds.

I’ll try to get some better results and make a graph when we do a turkey overnight starting later today.

I’ll get about 10 hours of 55C operation. I’m doing Yet Another Turkey for a card party on Sunday. If you’ve got a Kroger-operated store near you, check the frozen meat case out for these Ready-Roast turkeys – not worth the normal $40 price, but well worth $20, and ASTONISHINGLY good value at $15. Ignore the printing on them, and put the drumstick ends facing down into the bath.