sonik

dedicated

21/07/2018 at 21:25

@ollie2019 Yep, you just connect your earth wire to the frame or the box or whatever, but make sure that all accessible elements are grounded by their physical connections, e.g.screws.

@anne-barbier Is there any explication for your statement: “– don’t create multiple ground cables (aka ground loop) along the same conductor (metal frame)” ?

andyn

warrior

24/07/2018 at 13:10

‘Ground loop’ – this is a totally different issue and really not relevant here.

For a start the safety connection is an ‘Earth’, not a ‘Ground’ (the terms are often confused). In normal use there is no current flowing through it, it is only to provide a return path in case of insulation failure, to lessen the chance of electric shock if you happen to be touching a bare metal part. (A ‘ground’ in a circuit provides a return current path in normal operation).

You should connect the earth to any metal part that has live wires going through it or where there is a possibility of it becoming live should a wire become loose or damaged. If multiple metal parts are bolted together it’s not usually necessary to earth every individual one, though there is no problem in doing this (it won’t create ‘loops’), machines often have motors which are earthed and also have a separate earth connection (or more than one) to the chassis. If metal parts are painted before being bolted together this can insulate them from each other so multiple connections are not a bad idea. You do not need to earth metal parts that are insulated from the rest of the machine if they are not near any live wires, eg. a metal handle on the end of a plastic lever.

A ‘ground loop’ only effects sensitive electronic circuits which are susceptible to small changes in supply voltage, such as high gain amplifiers and low current microcontroller circuits. The ground here is always carrying current when the circuit is powered. If you have multiple electronic circuits running from a single power supply, the normal practice is to connect the power connections in a ‘star’, each circuit directly connected to the supply. If you connect them ‘daisy chain’ fashion you create ‘loops’ where the current from each circuit gets added/divided and this causes electrical noise between the circuits, especially if you have a high current or inductive device next to a low power circuit. Much better explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_(electricity)

i have mentioned the loop thing rather for completeness since it can get an issue in bad environments and/or additional equipment along the machines. I have seen all sorts of weird wirings (parallel ground wires all over the place,..) by newbies and that was the more ‘working’ explanation i had for them 😉 , especially for large  chassis/frameworks.

ollie2019

starter

04/08/2018 at 17:07

Thanks everyone for all of you help so far!

We have managed to set up the electronics as per the schematics and photos seen in this post. We’re 98% sure we have done it correctly!

However, the bands are not heating when connected to the full circuit. We have tested each individual component and all of them seem to be functioning. We performed a test with a 9 volt battery on each of the SSRs 25DA – both worked and responded to current (light turned on). We connected each heater band directly to 220 and all four worked. The thermocouples are both working and reads the correct temperature on the PID controllers. The REX C100 PID controllers are both turning on and click when trying to reach the SV (we used our body heat to heat the thermocouple). We did a separate test with the battery, the SSRs and the band heaters and that also worked.

We have probably watched every single YouTube video to try and ensure our wiring has been done correctly and there doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason why it shouldn’t work! The current is reaching the PID but isn’t getting transferred into the SSR, meaning the circuit isn’t completed. We think there are two options:

1) The settings on the REX C100 are incorrect (although the audible click when trying to reach SV seems to suggest otherwise??)

2) The PID controllers arrived with the connecting screws in terminals 1, 2, 3 and 4. I moved 3 to 5. I can’t think why this would be a problem but it might be?

Has anyone had any similar experiences? Is there any known programming of the PID that will activate or deactivate the current being passed to the SSR?

Thank you so much!

hey, yeah, after having it done 30+ times this still happens to me as well 😉

however, try :
– flip the upper wires going into the SSR
– flip the lower wires going into the SSR

i assume you got the basics right: one heat band cable goes to the main power supply, and the other one goes into the right upper SSR (labeled ‘2’). the left upper SSR is going to the main power supply. so the relay basically opens/closes the flow between the upper terminals of the SSR.

well, i hope this makes sense 🙂

andyn

warrior

04/08/2018 at 17:26

Sounds like you have the ‘relay’ version of the REX C100 rather than the ‘SSR’ version, can you show us how you’ve connected it? Are you using a DC power source to drive the input of the SSR via the relay? The relay on it’s own is just a switch and won’t do anything without power.

btw. you can actually leave all PID controller settings on default. without heat insulation around the barrel however there are little peaks (10 deg too much, for 10 secs).

ollie2019

starter

04/08/2018 at 18:44

@Anne-barbier
Thank you so much for your help again Anne! I’m glad to hear that even the most experienced have these issues!! We will try these techniques later on this afternoon/or tomorrow. I think we’ve played around with the PID settings so much it would be nice to do some sort of factory reset… Hmm.

@Andyn
Thanks Andy. Yes, we’ll send a photo later/tomorrow too. According to the original item on Ebay, the REXC100 has control for Relay and SSR. Any idea how we’d go about changing this if we needed to?

andyn

warrior

04/08/2018 at 21:10

@ollie2019 There are different types of REX-C100 controllers, check the part number against the manual, eg. REX C100FK02-V is the SSR output, REX C100FK02-M is the relay output. If you have the -M it’s possible to remove the relay, jump the connections for the relay coil straight to the output pins and use this to drive a SSR. There was a tutorial with pictures on the forum a while back, but it’s easy to figure out if you open the unit.

ollie2019

starter

07/08/2018 at 21:24

@Andyn – Lifesaver! It was the blue relay on pins 4 and 5 that you suggested. I have never been so happy to see an orange light. Thank you so much, and @anne-barbier too for all of your help.

danielwollin

starter

23/08/2018 at 17:07

Hello everybody,

I have problems with the Rex C100Fk02-V*AN. I have conected the chords according to the scematics and i am sure theyre all wired correctly. However, one of the controllers doesnt show any numbers in PV it just shows three squares.

THe other one measures the temperature through the thermocouple and it seems to be working all good but i dont know how to set it up. Ive stared myself blind on the manuals but i just dont get why it isnt working.

I am so sorry for being a newbie, but its really frustrating, i just want to get started extruding.

All the best!

try trial & error first, remove the SSR from the circuit, then the thermocoupler and see the differences. the first time i hear about this.
g

danielwollin

starter

24/08/2018 at 12:07

Thanks for your response @anne-barbier, i will do that. Ive done it a couple of times actually but it doesnt hurt to do it again.

Do you or anyone else know how to reset it to factory settings?

Did you change anything after recieving it in order to get it to work?

sanderskunkworks

starter

27/09/2018 at 10:50

Hey guys,

I pulled this 240v indicator light from the oven I am going to use to build the compression.
Now I want to use this and also have the fan in the oven running when I flip on the switch. Now they both say they run at 240v, still given the amount off electricity on them I am hesitant to connect them.

Would like to hear from someone to confirm how to connect the fan and indicator light, just to be sure.

Thanks so much in advance, once I am certain about this I can start building the electronics in the compression machine!!

denns

starter

11/01/2019 at 18:50

Hi,

How may Watts does the bandheaters need to be? The ones i have ordered are out of stock. They have an alternative, is it o.k.?

Order:

3x 923-149 35mm Diameter x 45mm breedte – 220W

Alternative:

3x 923-143: 35mm Diameter x 40mm breedte – 195W

Order:

1x 923-179 40mm Diameter x 45mm breedte – 250W

Alternative:

1x 923-173 40mm Diameter x 40mm breedte – 225W

4al15me029

starter

19/02/2019 at 19:10

Can reversing operation be made automated in shredding machine?
For blades safety, when they stuck with plastic waste is it possible to automate the reverse operation.

@4al15me029 yes, but it requires some extra electronic. there are a couple of options. to me the best is a good inverter which gives you some status signal and an arduino to control the inverter, not much of a brainer. you can also place a sensor and complete the rest with an arduino as well. in a few weeks we publish an update for the v3 shredder. i will message you when it’s done 🙂
g

4al15me029

starter

20/02/2019 at 16:30

Thank you very much for your response! @cgoflyn

izonargienel

starter

22/02/2019 at 17:00

Hello @jerzeek I just set up my compression machine and everything looks fine except for the PID controller. When I test the PID Controller and set the SV to 40°C, the PV shows a temperature measurement beyond the value set in SV. The SSR, stops from blinking when it reached 40°C and the heater also stops from producing more heat. However, the PV in PID controller didn’t stop from the set SV value.. instead it should stop from 40°C .. it reach 54°C and continued to increase..do you know the reason for this and how can I fix it?? Your response will be very appreciated. Thank you!!

*If someone knows the answer you may leave your reply also. Thank you guys!

jerzeek

warrior

27/02/2019 at 11:33

Do you know what type of thermocouple you used? a K-type?

aussiegwapo

new

28/03/2019 at 10:36

Hi all

Im building an exturder and have 3 chinese made 2 wire heater bands.

240v 150w model

put it simple earth is plain and simple any part that is metal more so the main screw holding the 2 Wire Ceramic Plug.

thing that got me is the 2 main wires that control the heater band from mains power

which is Live and Neutral
Ref to ollie2019 post and images

jerzeek

warrior

28/03/2019 at 23:16

You are right about the earth wiring
The polarity of the live and neutral doens’t matter,

aussiegwapo

new

29/03/2019 at 07:08

Cheers Jerzeek

Had me stumped with these heater bands as there are no markings on them and trying to get this connected so i can test the PID’s but will have to wait for a test run due to my coupler not turning up.

And work has a lathe but no cutting tools to make one to suit my screw and gear drive.

vmonyo

starter

09/04/2019 at 08:36

Hello everyone,
Can you make  video demo which shows how to setup complete Electronic Schematics for compression machine?am stuck,please help

Regards

Hi there,
we’ve seen many questions outside of the forum and also our users needed something more detailed. Here is a short video to understand the essentials of the circuit.

danielmendez

starter

05/05/2019 at 16:50

Good morning Community   i have  a Q’   can i use this band heaters for the injection machine?

@danielmendez, looks alright, just make sure : inner diameter fits on your barrel, and : height is big as possible. If possible put as many heatbands as you can on it 🙂

Hey there, we added a video about wiring a 3 phase motor to single phase using a VFD/Inverter as well adding an emergency and direction switch. Next: adding auto-reverse functionality via Arduino.  The pretty long video is for beginners and you can apply it to the shredder and extrusion machine.

olbr

starter

12/08/2019 at 00:31

Hi, I have this problem with my band heaters heating up too fast. If is set the wanted value to 210c it goes up 600c because the relay let go too slow. Is there an easy fix for this problem?

sounds really odd and there are no fixes per-se; the controller has some settings but I am not aware that anyone is setting more than the target temp.
here a little checklist :
1. make sure you’re testing the PID, relay and thermocouple as well power outlets (one from the relay, and one from the mains) which belong to one circuit only.
2. test the thermocouple by holding it in the hand or use a lighter to see the temperature goes up
3. the relay has a status light, it should be on. use a multi-meter to see that there is really power coming out (typically terminal 2.)
4. it’s a good idea to go with babysteps and test only one heatband, in case of doubt, try another heatband

sorry for being a little generic but I’ve seen a few people who found the problem with the steps above and as said, try another relay, PID or heatband to exclude faulty units (can happen).

let us know how it goes, seems like a nice troubleshooting case for the wiki.
thanks in advance,
g