WS-1510ELPM set-up help

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Go to post #2 and the P 1, I 0 and D 0, then go to your manual and find this (senario P 7, I 0 and D 0). This is what I did with my Mes 40 when the out of the box setting was terrible and auto tune was terrible. In P mode I and D at 0, 7 degrees below set temp is 7/7=1 full output solid green light, then 6 degrees below set point flashes and is 6/7, 5/7, 4/7 3/7 2/7 1/7 then (0/7off at set point.) try it without values in I or D. once you add values in I and D then this senario doesn't exist and will come out of full power below 7 degrees of set temp and takes longer to get to set temp. When temp gets to the set temp the light goes out. When the set temp is reached then drops below the set temp then it flashes at 1/7 which is too slow of an output response and the temp drops that's why I use a P 1, I 0 and D 0 for one degree below set temp is 1/1 = full output solid green light .5 degree below set temp flashes 50% and off at set temp even though the resolution is one degree increments it works in a fraction of a degree with P 1. P 0 is an on off controller like the stock Mes controller no matter what value is in I and D so have a min of 1 in the P. This zips you to your set temp with a load in 20 minutes and stabilizes in a couple cycles without screwing with getting to set temp in over an hour in the initial food warm up let alone preheating. You're literally cutting out over an hour of initial waiting to get your smoker to initial set temp. So P value should be in the single digits, then add in the I value like 208 and D 210 like Chopsaw if necessary. I'm totally comfortable not having a value in the I or D cooking ribs, butts and brisket at 275 and my sensor is always at food level down through the top vent a couple inches off the side wall so I know that's the hottest spot in my smoker where my food is below the top vent which is the hottest spot in the smoker couple inches bellow the top vent where heat stacks like a water heater moving around trying to get out. I didn't make this up it's in my ws1510 elpm manual and 2 hours after getting this PID years ago I've been zipping right to temp and holding within a couple degrees of set temp instead of staring at my PID saying when are you going to get to temp.
 
I know it's over whelming , and too much info is hard to follow .
So I'll watch along , but won't comment so we don't overload you . If you have a question for me ask it .

Look over what Kurt posted in post 41 .

The reason I referred you back to the info I posted in the other thread is because I break out what the letters mean and do and how they are measured .

Like Kurt and myself have said , when adjusting P turn I and D to 0 . If you don't you won't know what the true effects of P are .
 
I know it's over whelming , and too much info is hard to follow .
So I'll watch along , but won't comment so we don't overload you . If you have a question for me ask it .

Look over what Kurt posted in post 41 .

The reason I referred you back to the info I posted in the other thread is because I break out what the letters mean and do and how they are measured .

Like Kurt and myself have said , when adjusting P turn I and D to 0 . If you don't you won't know what the true effects of P are .
I appreciate your understanding, and you're right, I feel like I'm on info overload. I think I need to get some hands on smoking on this thing so I can get a feel for it in practice. Once I have some practical context I'm sure I'll be back with more questions.
 
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I appreciate your understanding, and you're right, I feel like I'm on info overload. I think I need to get some hands on smoking on this thing so I can get a feel for it in practice. Once I have some practical context I'm sure I'll be back with more questions.
I read the manual online, plus the CD came with the 1510, a year before pulling the trigger. In the manual they isolated the P, the I and D explanations in there own paragraphs and that made me wonder about the P mode in that paragraph bc thats the only help in the manual other than outta the box settings and autotune. I got lucky when I just tried it and stuck with 1. 0. 0.
 
So if I'm understanding you, the P is really significant for the time it takes the smoker to heat up initially, or when it's ramping from, say, 100 in C1 to 180 in C2. But that once the target temp has been reached it is the I and the D that are responsible for maintaining the target temp +/- 1?

Would it be worthwhile to measure the effect by timing the smoker going from cold to 225 with P=57 and then letting it cool back down and timing it with P=7? And if I do that would it be better to measure the time to get to the point it first hits 225 or the point where it settles down to 225?
Yep you are understanding me correctly about P and the time it takes the smoker to heat up initially or when ramping.

Yep once target temp has been reached I and D will help maintain temp +/- 1 when set reasonably (which I think yours are reasonable).

I don't think it would be worth going through the process you explain but you can if you have the time and are curious.
Instead, I suggest you get a 2 packs of boneless skinless chicken thighs (can't mess them up) and smoke Pack 1 at 225F and see how fast the smoker comes up to 225F with P=57 and how much overshoot there is.
The chicken thighs will be a quick smoke.

Then the next day or day after set P=7 and smoke Pack 2 of the chicken thighs and see how quick the smoker heats up and how much overshoot there is.

To me a fast ramp up is way way way more useful even if it initially overshoots 20-25F degrees.
A slow ramp up will be even slower when you put a 10 pound pork butt in your smoker so I like the fast ramp up. Also if it ramps up fast but always overshoots like 20F degrees there is a trick you can do.

The trick is like this. Lets say I want to smoke at 250F.
I set the smoker to 230F and it ramps up and initial spike hits like 255F.
Well at that point I just change the set temp to 250F and boom I'm like right there hahaha. Just gotta be clever with the device and take advantage of its behavior :)

Try not to overthink it too much at this point. Your autotune got you in or near the ball park. You are almost there but can totally do some test smokes that will produce good food to get there. Boneless skinless chicken thighs are the easiest thing in the world and taste amazing while you figure out your setup.
I hope this helps some :)
 
Would it be worthwhile to measure the effect by timing the smoker going from cold to 225 with P=57 and then letting it cool back down and timing it with P=7?
Yes . My opinion is that's where you should start .
Your comment also tells me that you're thinking .

Your auto tune is way out of whack , and I'd be surprised if it even gets to set temp with those numbers .

Mine gets to set temp in around 20 minutes with no over run and stays there .
Here's the results of following my method of set up .
Notice the steady blink .

 
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Rich, video shows private.

Disappointing auto tune does not work well. Curious why.

Some data for you guys. My settings are based on chopsaw chopsaw (7, 208, 210) but a tiny bit different. 5, 210, 210. Going P7 to P5 seemed to match stock MES heat time. I was not scientific about it but guess P7 took about 30m longer to hit. ID settings are just an OCD thing LOL. One cool thing about the wifi is the data log. You can even export it. Haven't played with it yet but I think you could REALLY geek out with the PID settings not that I plan to do much with it as I am still in shock how accurate it is already. The stock settings took even longer to heat but appeared to hold the temp exactly but admit I was not paying constant attention. FYI the PID settings are systemwide and are not saved in the recipes/presets.
 
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Rich, video shows private.

Disappointing auto tune does not work well. Curious why.

Some data for you guys. My settings are based on chopsaw chopsaw (7, 208, 210) but a tiny bit different. 5, 210, 210. Going P7 to P5 seemed to match stock MES heat time. I was not scientific about it but guess P7 took about 30m longer to hit. ID settings are just an OCD thing LOL. One cool thing about the wifi is the data log. You can even export it. Haven't played with it yet but I think you could REALLY geek out with the PID settings not that I plan to do much with it as I am still in shock how accurate it is already. The stock settings took even longer to heat but appeared to hold the temp exactly but admit I was not paying constant attention. FYI the PID settings are systemwide and are not saved in the recipes/presets.

Yep sounds like you are well on your way with it!

That "P" value will make a world of difference. Have you tried a P=3 yet? :D

Just couldn't resist putting the idea in your head to geek out on :P
 
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OK, I'm back and ready for more help. I'm going empirical and trying to go strictly by the numbers, manually. So I set P, I, D to 1,0,0 and set the C1 to 225 and T1 to 400. Here is a record of what happened and when it happened in total elapsed time. The initial temp in the smoker was 84.

225 7.30 min
258 11.30 min (i.e., it took 4 min to go from 225 to 258)
225 16.0
222 17.0
225 18.30
229 19.50
225 23.30
221 24.50
225 25.30
234 28.30
225 31.50
217 33.30
225 34.50
242 37.30
225 41.30
212 44.00
225 45.10
251 48.30
225 53.30

I stopped the experiment there. It seemed strange to me that as the experiment went on after the initial overshoot to 258, the subsequent overshoots went from 229 to 234, to242, to 251.

So now I think the question is what value of I I should try to reduce the overshoot. In your method, chopsaw chopsaw you say to increase the value of I to control overrun. Would something like 200 be an appropriate value for I? Once I adjust I I will redo the experiment, but it takes a while for the smoker to cool down and rerun the experiment so I want to be sure to use a reasonable value for I.

I'm feeling a lot less overwhelmed. I even watched some YouTube videos explaining PID theory, so I understand it better in the abstract - but they weren't very helpful in actually picking values. Hence I'm going with an empirical process like chopsaw chopsaw outlined.
 
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I suggest you write this down on paper so you can take it to the smoker and refer to it .

P - Power output . Measured in Degrees . The larger the number , the lower the gain .

I - Temp offset . Measured in seconds . Decrease number if taking to long to get to temp . Increase number to control over run .

D - Response . Measured in seconds . Larger the number more aggressive the response .

So now I think the question is what value of I I should try to reduce the overshoot. In your method, chopsaw chopsaw you say to increase the value of I to control overrun. Would something like 200 be an appropriate value for I?
200 would be a starting point , but if you're going to leave P = 1 then you will probably need a higher value for I .
Start with 200 . Leave D = 0 and adjust I a little at a time . When you get the over run where you like it , then you can address D .
 
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OK, I'm back and ready for more help. I'm going empirical and trying to go strictly by the numbers, manually. So I set P, I, D to 1,0,0 and set the C1 to 225 and T1 to 400. Here is a record of what happened and when it happened in total elapsed time. The initial temp in the smoker was 84.

225 7.30 min
258 11.30 min (i.e., it took 4 min to go from 225 to 258)
225 16.0
222 17.0
225 18.30
229 19.50
225 23.30
221 24.50
225 25.30
234 28.30
225 31.50
217 33.30
225 34.50
242 37.30
225 41.30
212 44.00
225 45.10
251 48.30
225 53.30

I stopped the experiment there. It seemed strange to me that as the experiment went on after the initial overshoot to 258, the subsequent overshoots went from 229 to 234, to242, to 251.

So now I think the question is what value of I I should try to reduce the overshoot. In your method, chopsaw chopsaw you say to increase the value of I to control overrun. Would something like 200 be an appropriate value for I? Once I adjust I I will redo the experiment, but it takes a while for the smoker to cool down and rerun the experiment so I want to be sure to use a reasonable value for I.

I'm feeling a lot less overwhelmed. I even watched some YouTube videos explaining PID theory, so I understand it better in the abstract - but they weren't very helpful in actually picking values. Hence I'm going with an empirical process like chopsaw chopsaw outlined.
You had food or a load in which size Mes smoker.? empty P 1, I 0, D 0 would be 20ish empty in a Mes 40 to get to 275, 1,200 watt element with a 5-10 degree initial carry over. With a load it may be an hour in the Mes 40 sucking up heat to get to 275. Your not over shooting much so it's good. The higher you cook closer to 275 max the lower carry over or no carry over above 275. It may drop to 270 in the first cycles but no carry over at 275 with a load. low at 225 then a little more carry over. But don't worry about the first hour of a little carry over to stabilize. I don't want to wait an hour to get an empty Mes 40 to 275 let alone the load for 1.5 hours +. Do a cook start to finish and document it.
 
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Still working on interpreting the csv file from the export but impressed so far. Screen shot of the log.

Screenshot_20221010-190157_AuberWifi.jpg
 
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Reporting back. Think I have the connectivity issues worked out and want to post here in case it can help others. First off Auber wifi is 2.4G ONLY, took some work to deal with that. Then the router settings needed a little tweaking to closer match Auber's. From here, I had to set my phone's battery settings (android) to "unrestricted" use for the Auber app. So now it works as expected. Battery life doesn't seem to be much affected at all. One cool thing I found when I was testing was one time I closed all my apps by mistake including the Auber so the log was gone but the whole log restored once it connected to wifi again! Took a few minutes tho. Also, went away a few hours and phone stayed connected via cellular. Here is shot of around 6hrs testing.

Screenshot_20221016-194948_AuberWifi.jpg
 
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Reporting back. Think I have the connectivity issues worked out and want to post here in case it can help others. First off Auber wifi is 2.4G ONLY, took some work to deal with that. Then the router settings needed a little tweaking to closer match Auber's. From here, I had to set my phone's battery settings (android) to "unrestricted" use for the Auber app. So now it works as expected. Battery life doesn't seem to be much affected at all. One cool thing I found when I was testing was one time I closed all my apps by mistake including the Auber so the log was gone but the whole log restored once it connected to wifi again! Took a few minutes tho. Also, went away a few hours and phone stayed connected via cellular. Here is shot of around 6hrs testing.

View attachment 646222
That is great to hear and boy does it all look good and exciting now! :D
I just sat down from putting racks of wild pork spare ribs in the smoker and I'm looking forward to seeing what you will be smoking, hopefully something any moment now :D
 
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Goal is some SS soon and then some 325F chicken. While I got you, say I use some pickled japs at rate of say 5% +/- in the SS, think that will give me a mild tang so no need for a ferment?
 
Goal is some SS soon and then some 325F chicken. While I got you, say I use some pickled japs at rate of say 5% +/- in the SS, think that will give me a mild tang so no need for a ferment?
Nice on the planned smokes!

I'm not sure on the tang from the pickled peppers, I haven't done summer sausage with jalapenos or ECA for tang (crazy I haven't right!?).

indaswamp indaswamp is probably the man with the knowledge to answer this well.

I HAVE read that for more jalapeno flavor it is best to use dehydrated jalapeno and jalapeno powder vs pickled or fresh Jalapeno.

I assume better answers are on their way for you :)
 
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I bought the WS-1510ELPM for my Pit boss 1600 watt smoker I was really hoping for a simple unit where you set temperature at 130* then manually bump it up every hour or so. The manual is more Greek than English to me, my question is do I need to set the parameters or will the factory defaults be enough for simple smoking.
 
I bought the WS-1510ELPM for my Pit boss 1600 watt smoker I was really hoping for a simple unit where you set temperature at 130* then manually bump it up every hour or so. The manual is more Greek than English to me, my question is do I need to set the parameters or will the factory defaults be enough for simple smoking.

Hey there Bat119 Bat119 !

[EDIT- Striked through txt as it was for the wrong smoker lol]
FYI, the Pit Boss 1600 is a pellet smoker that comes with it's own PID controller already. Your Auber controller is meant to control a smoker that has a heating element, not a pellet auger :)

To give a general answer to your questions, I think you would want to change the parameters of any PID regardless of the smoker so that the PID controls the smoker a bit better, BUT you can always roll with the stock settings to see how a simple chicken thigh smoke goes and tweak from there if needed.

This is a good answer, BUT a general answer and does not address your current issue. The issue being you have the wrong PID for your type of smoker :)


You should be able to use your existing Pitboss PID controller and maybe tune it. If it is trash that can't be tuned, or died on you then there are some alternatives.

Now Auber does make a controller for pellet smokers and suggests a 2nd similar OEM controller that is more easily installed. It is offered by a partner of theirs (according to this https://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=70)

Option 1 - The Auber controller is:
This is only the PID unit. You would still need to buy all other components, wiring, temp probes, etc, etc and perform this as a ground up installation. Not for people new to PID controllers.
If you want something much simpler with all the pieces included, go with option 1


***Option 2*** - The partner OEM controller is:
This claims to be a 10 min installation and looks to be a nice simple option. It seems you don't have to tweak the PID settings/values but I bet you can if you get the proper button sequence and codes from their support site. Auber says this pid is based of the one in Option 1 so I would think they maybe even share the same tuning steps :)

I would go with option 2 if i were in your shoes. I'd see if I could return that Auber PID, sell it, or put it on an electric smoker that uses an electric element like an MES 40 :)

I hope this info helps, ask any questions you may have :)
 
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My smoker is the electric model with a 1600 watt element I burned out two PID's that were rated for 15 amps in power spikes thought I would go with the 1510 1800 watt unit. I've been smoking things for 40 years. My last PID the parameter was 7 degrees it worked well until the power spike.
IMG_1249.JPG
 
My smoker is the electric model with a 1600 watt element I burned out two PID's that were rated for 15 amps in power spikes thought I would go with the 1510 1800 watt unit. I've been smoking things for 40 years. My last PID the parameter was 7 degrees it worked well until the power spike.
View attachment 646400
Ah thanks for the pic and the info!
I went and edited my last post since I was thinking you had the pellet smoker not the electric.

You should be able to roll with the stock settings. If it takes to long to initially heat up you may want to lower the P value to 5 and if still too long maybe a P value of 3.

I wouldnt worry too much about the initial overshoot, but that's just me. Once you have P making your smoker heat up and react fast then you can look to toon I and D but if they are around 200 each then you are likely ok.

I hope this info helps :)
 
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