# Power monitor



## eusty (Dec 6, 2016)

New week I shall hopefully order a Gene roaster and the general consensus is to mod it, that's not an issue as I'm a automation/control engineer by trade.

But looking at the power monitor it seems that no-one sells them any more.....any alternatives?

Also I read that the temperature isn't really too important, I guess why that's why you roast by power as it's the amount of heat being put into the system.

So the second question is if it's worth controlling the temperature accurately by using an SSR and a PID controller rather than the mod?


----------



## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

eusty said:


> New week I shall hopefully order a Gene roaster and the general consensus is to mod it, that's not an issue as I'm a automation/control engineer by trade.
> 
> But looking at the power monitor it seems that no-one sells them any more.....any alternatives?
> 
> ...


1. Power monitor: The main issue here was to compare like with like, so my 950W was the same as someone else. If your not going to compare any power monitor will do, as long as you are aware that when looking at roasting logs, your 950W may be more or less than another persons. Of course you could plug a power monitor in to a known load measure the voltage with a multimeter and find out how accurate it is.

2. No it's better to control things manually. An SSR and a PID isn't going to help you use 900W for 5m, 850W for 5m and 680W till end of roast is it. The watchword is anticipation rather than a max roast temp.


----------



## eusty (Dec 6, 2016)

2. The idea is to keep the temperature controlled, it would be easy enough to change the setpoint during the roasting. I thought the issue with the original Gene control was that it was simple on/off control with quite a deadband which caused temperature fluctuation?


----------



## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

eusty said:


> 2. The idea is to keep the temperature controlled, it would be easy enough to change the setpoint during the roasting. I thought the issue with the original Gene control was that it was simple on/off control with quite a deadband which caused temperature fluctuation?


Nothing quite like the mark 1 human and a knob for controlling things, I used to just set the gene to 245 for safety (way above any temp I was going to reach). Then fly by the seat of my pants....was the best way.


----------



## eusty (Dec 6, 2016)

Well if it works for others then I'll give it a go, although I'm more a prototype human rather than the Mk1


----------



## MediumRoastSteam (Jul 7, 2015)

Bought a energy monitor from Clas Olson in Reading for £1.99 (reduced from £9.99). Thought I mentioned in here just in case anyone is interested.


----------

