[bigben2k]

The PID control is going to be another learning effort. I understand the general principle, and I downloaded the manual for the unit I spotted on eBay. It comes with a "pulsed voltage output SSR drive", forward and backward, and can be configured manually, or let the fuzzy logic circuit figure it out. The only part I'm not clear on, is how I'm going to integrate a heater to the whole thing, nor what kind of heater. The unit is spec'ed with a 1 second response time, minimum: I'm not even sure if it's going to be enough, or if I can somehow make it work with a slow response heater. Right now I'm still trying to figure out the details of the "pulsed voltage output SSR drive"; it'll pretty much make or break the idea.

Looking at it backwards, I'm targeting for it to maintain a 25 deg C air inlet temp, with minimal fluctuations. I have yet to define what "minimal" is, but I can figure it out, that's not a problem.

Interesting indeed; if this works out, the same effort could be used in a water cooling loop. The dynamics are a bit different, but the application is the same.

Temp probes gallore coming... and I haven't tested my GPIB network yet!