Over the past 50 years, industrial thermostat technology has undergone earth-shaking changes and a series of advances have been made. This article aims to introduce how industrial thermostat technology can help users create new solutions with outstanding performance to meet the changing needs of customers.

In the 1960s, moving coil meters were standard equipment for industrial applications. However, advances and developments in electronic technology have quickly changed the way thermostats are designed and produced. For the first time, open printed circuit board (PCB) regulator proportional control with switching function or scale control is provided. The ability to provide a lower power output near the setpoint minimizes temperature overshoot and was the most accurate control method at the time. However, the proportional control method still has drawbacks: the system temperature may be slightly higher/lower than the set value, the so-called offset error.

In the 1970s, thanks to analog regulator technology, the size of the temperature controller was reduced from 96 x 96 mm to 48 x 48 mm, while the function was hardly affected. However, from the late 1970s to the present, there has been little progress in analog regulator technology. In the 1980s, the advent of digital controllers made temperature control technology a big step forward: button and digital display technology replaced the dial to better solve the problem of regulator settings; at the same time, the development of microprocessor technology Make PID control a reality and further improve the control accuracy. Compared with the proportional control method, the integral control eliminates the offset error, and the differential control reduces the temperature overshoot and reduces the interference.

       PID control technology brings many advantages to temperature control applications, but it still requires professional engineers to manually set up, which is very time consuming. Nowadays, PID self-tuning has been widely used, and the thermostat can automatically calculate the optimal PID value. The above problem is no longer a problem.

       Another advantage brought by the development of modern electronic technology is to reduce the manual operation in the application process and reduce the probability of occurrence of errors. The temperature controller YR-GBP with temperature curve function can configure the temperature ramp rate, heat preservation, stepping and loop to accurately realize the temperature curve required for the application and realize the automatic temperature change. Save equipment setup time, staff can also store configuration data and freely call it in different process flows.

In applications such as extruders, the temperature does not drop rapidly after the power is turned off, so a cooling device is required to achieve better temperature control. The thermostat has integrated heating-cooling control to control heaters and cooling units for better application control.

       In recent years, in order to simplify wiring and shorten installation time, it is becoming more and more common to integrate other functions inside the thermostat. Some of the core process control components of the mid-range and high-end controllers support logic programming functions, integrate common working control components, and the entire system is equipped with only one human-machine interface, which improves end-user productivity and makes process control easier.

       For example, a component manufacturer in Germany needs to design a temperature control solution for a heating furnace for graphite electrodes, which is inseparable from a standard thermostat, and any upgrade of the application requires the thermostat to have advanced functions such as sequence management, and Ease of use has higher requirements. The problem is that the graphite electrode needs uniform heating, but the burner has different heating rate and heating intensity for heating different regions of the furnace, so it is easy to cause the electrode to be damaged due to excessive heating or uneven heating, resulting in production waste and serious economic loss.

        The final solution uses an enhanced oxygen control unit for pure gas heating. The KS98-1 thermostat is a compact micro PLC controller (programmable logic controller) and DIN controller that perfectly fits the existing housing requirements and is equipped with all the necessary I/O options. Compared with other thermostats, the KS98-1 controller with PLC and math functions is more complete.

         Like many devices, the development of communication technologies has also facilitated the integration of controllers and systems. In general, both temperature and process controllers are applied to the system in the form of discrete devices. With communication options, users can now monitor and manage control directly from a PC or PLC system. In addition, there are a variety of general-purpose control software that support data logging, charting, configuration, and management functions. Finally, more and more companies have demanded advanced data recording technologies for high quality control over the past few decades, which in turn has contributed to the development and advancement of PC-based data logging technology.

How will temperature control technology develop in the future?

Expanding the thermostat function to gather process information requirements, streamlining operations, and integrating common work control components has driven the development of solutions with a single display (eg, HMI, control panel) and information routing to PC.

This means that in the future, the thermostat will further become a single product rather than a single device, giving users more application advantages and control functions to monitor system data more efficiently and accurately.

Another major trend in the development of future thermostats is customization, which is to create customer-specific thermostats based on specific application needs. The latest display and programming techniques also make the operation of the thermostat simpler, allowing workers to easily access data, ensuring further process changes and increasing productivity.

       Connecting to the network is also the future direction of the thermostat: Ethernet communication technology simplifies integration under standard cabling and non-engineering connectivity, further enhancing ease of use and control, and optimizing temperature control.

       One thing is beyond doubt: Industrial temperature controller technology will continue to evolve in the process of meeting customers' ever-changing application needs, creating more advanced solutions for customers, increasing productivity and controlling quality.