ITC-106VH Egg Incubator Application

Questions & Answers
1

I’m using an ITC-106VH with an SSR for an egg incubator. I’ve been using an Inkbird temp controller (just on/off control) with good luck. But want to dial it in a little better. With on/off control my incubator swings +2/-3 degF. Not terrible.

So, being an electrical engineer and a tinkerer. I thought, why not buy a PID controller and really dial this thing in. Well… it isn’t working. With default settings (or any settings, honestly) the PID controller swings +3/-4 or possibly even worse. I tweak integral by setting I to 9999 and D by setting to 0. I would love to be able to just run proportional control such that it feathers up just under my 99.5 degF setpoint, but I simply can’t. Try as I might, the thing just does the same regardless of what parameters I use. I’ve done several autotunes and the results are the same. This thing functions basically like an on/off controller. And to be honest, WORSE than my other Inkbird controllers without PID ability.

Is mine broken?

Thanks!

2

I purchased an ITC-100VH to try based on one of the other posts here. It was even worse control and it arrived without the default parameters in it (clearly used). Or I requested a replacement for the ITC-100VH and straight out of the box it’s controlling to setpoint -0/+0.2 degC. And maybe even better than that as it’s only been running for maybe 30 minutes. I don’t know what the failure rate on these PID controllers is. But on the three that come through my door only one is functional.

For the record, I own about 20 Inkbird products and outside of a WiFi BBQ temperature unit from several years ago, I love them all and constantly tell people about how great the products are. These PID controllers have made me leery.