Version 1.18.00 of Thor has a new program, Burn In, which will try to remove any moisture from the dual sensing probe. It does this by heating to various set point temperatures and waiting until the difference between the safety and block temperatures (drift) is below a certain threshold.
Starting Up
To access the burn in program, scroll the side bar to the bottom and select Burn In
Setting Up
Minimum Drift is the allowed temperature difference between the safety and block temperatures for the burn in program to continue to the next setpoint.
Time Out is the time allowed at one particular set point before the burn in program will give up waiting for the drift to come below the Minimum Drift.
Settling Time when the set point has been reached the program will wait a further amount of time before monitoring the drift
Set Points Select which temperatures to test, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400°C
Press start to start the program, once started you will not be able to change the settings.
Screen Shot
First ensure you have a USB memory stick inserted into the SMP50.
Press the menu key and press Screen Shot, this will capture an image of the screen and save it to the USB stick
This is useful for sending error reports or anomalous behaviour.
Report and Logs
The report screen shows the temperatures before and after the drift monitoring stage, and the time taken to complete the stage.
More useful is the log file, here temperatures and state are recorded every second. Insert a USB stick, and from the menu press Copy log file to USB.
Example of log output
14:25:00 250.0,250,25.0,Settling,Plateau
14:25:01 250.0,250,25.0,MonitorDrift,Plateau
14:25:02 250.0,250,25.0,Next,Plateau
Format for each row
Time block temperature °C, safety temperature °C, ambient temperature °C, burn in program state, heater state
Advanced
The block temperature is accurate to 0.1°C, the safety 1°C, so expect the drift to flit about by 1°C.
The SMP50 firmware will go into an error state if the drift becomes greater than 15°C for several seconds. The burn in program will detect this error, cool for 10 seconds, clear the error and go back to the previous set point to try again.
The burn in program moves thru the following states
Ready
(Press start)
Heat
(Heater reaches Plateau)
Settling
(Settling time is up)
MonitorDrift
(drift is below the specified minimum)
Next
(Go to next setpoint and back to the Heat stage or Finished)
Finished
TimedOut state will occur if the time taken for the MonitorDrift stage goes over the specified Time Out setting
Error state will occur if the SMP50 reports an error, the Burn in program will cool and go back to the previous set point and resume the program from there.
Trouble Shooting
Stuck at a setpoint
The SMP50 may be stuck at at set point with a drift that does not decrease and will eventually Time Out.
1)Try a larger minimum drift value to allow the MonitorDrift stage to pass
2)Uncheck the set point
The idea here is to force the SMP50 to heat to a higher temperature, if the drift becomes too large the SMP50 will go into a error state which the Burn In program will detect, clear and return to the previous set point.
Alternatively,
3) increase (at least double) the Settling and Time Out times to see if probe just needs more time
Drift is getting worse
The SMP40 kit I tested the program is nearly 10 years old. The Burn In program just made the drift worse, I suspect this is due to a faulty probe. However if the drift is becoming worse on new SMP50 units, stop using the burn in program. The solution to the problem will have to be rethought.
