CFW for KSGER/Quicko STM32 Soldering Stations

[mastershake]

edit: i now have the no iron overshoot again. was working fine today and i just did a calibration on a ku tip and it now climbs to around 550-600c then says no tip. did not see this earlier when i was using it. did nothing except do new calibration. and i tried to erase the chip and reflash with most current firmware just in case and reset with the same issue now. this is on a 102

[mikes]

so in this firmware changing the "tip" from the menu does not change the pid for that tip?

No one said that. Create a new tip. Switch to that tip. Set the PID and other settings to whatever works for you. There was no point in starting with multiple tips before, when they were all the same unless/until you changed them. BTW, when creating a new tip, it initially copies settings from the first tip.

[mikes]

Try to fix the cheap encoders. If it detects the encoder stopped in the middle position for more than 500mS, it will treat the clicks as normal clicks instead drag clicks.
It might need additional timing tweaking, and could cause more problems that it fixes.

Something is wrong with the encoder changes you made, with the normal/reverse setting. I have a Bourns encoder, needs "reverse". When it powers up, it works backwards as if it's set to normal. If I go into Settings/System, it's still set to reverse there. If I change it - reverse to normal to reverse - then it's fine until the next power cycle. If I set it to "normal", it always works backwards. So, it's acting like it's always set to "normal" at powerup.

[mastershake]

so in this firmware changing the "tip" from the menu does not change the pid for that tip?

No one said that. Create a new tip. Switch to that tip. Set the PID and other settings to whatever works for you. There was no point in starting with multiple tips before, when they were all the same unless/until you changed them. BTW, when creating a new tip, it initially copies settings from the first tip.

gotcha i just wanted to be sure i was not misunderstanding was all. as edited above im getting the no iron overshoot again for some reason. with most current firmware to when this is posted. as said above did an erase reflash, reset same issue. tested 4 different tips now and 2 handles. 2 different stations (i went ahead and flashed another one both are acting the same way, for testing since i had three here for different work areas)

[mastershake]

i am not sure if its been posted here or not but i did find a v3.1s im testing now. i flashed this to a ksger 102 stm32 v3.0 board and its working exactly as the ksger version is but says wlida when it boots. just in case anyone needs it to revert to stock and then back again while testing. this was said to "which corrected the error with the calibration of VSM2" over at radiokot i attached it here in case anyone might need to use it. everything seems to work as the ksger version did.

[DavidAlfa]

You have the old, old pid settings few post up, might work well, or might not.
There are no "standard PID". Even not PID at all. There are a lot of driving algorithms.
I already said too many times recently. Search how to tune pid and play with it.
Sorry, I'm getting a little tired, some people need everything chewed up...
There's a fw for the 3.0, I don't know if it's the wilda or the ksger.

[mastershake]

You have the old, old pid settings few post up.
There are no "standard PID". Even it might not use PID at all.
I already said too many times recently. Play with it.
I'm getting a little tired, some people needs everything chewed up. Try yourself...

i of course have been all day testing it and trying to get it as close as i can. do you know why its doing the overshoot no iron thing as some others mentioned? i have it testing within 3-4deg now. if i could get that no iron thing fixed this would be great to use!! and i do not mean to ask stupid questions i appreciate your work on this very much and now that i understand i do not need to ask the pid question again. ill do some calibrations for you with ksger and genuine hakko tips tonight and post results.

[DavidAlfa]

Hey mikes, thanks for the commits. I made few comments explaining some features.
Be careful with that, I may have uncomitted changes at any moment.
I don't know what happens when I commit changes and later you make a pull request using older code. Doesn't sound good.

mastershake, what are your actual PID values? I had some 2 (supposely defective) tips that were completely undrivable.
All I can say is, again, remove Ki and Kd and increase only Kp until it reaches close to the setpoint.
Then give it a little of Ki. 1...2... very small steps.
It's a complex thing.
https://newton.ex.ac.uk/teaching/CDHW/Feedback/Setup-PID.html
https://www.eurotherm.com/temperature-control/pid-control-made-easy/

Check this picture, it will make easier to understand what each PID paraneter does


All are important, but Kd in special can make the system go absolutely crazy, as it responds to small changes.

Try 90-2-0 for example. If I remember correctly that value worked pretty well.
It's been months without the T12 tips. C245 cartridges worked soo much better.

[DavidAlfa]

i of course have been all day testing it and trying to get it as close as i can. do you know why its doing the overshoot no iron thing as some others mentioned? i have it testing within 3-4deg now. if i could get that no iron thing fixed this would be great to use!! and i do not mean to ask stupid questions i appreciate your work on this very much and now that i understand i do not need to ask the pid question again. ill do some calibrations for you with ksger and genuine hakko tips tonight and post results.

Again I don't pretend so be rude by any means. It's just that I can't magically fix every single tip/board, specially not having it.
I didn't invent PID, neither made the PID implementation in this firmware. I tested with a lot trial&error, following internet tips.
Is the tip new? Does that happen with all tips? Try to measure the real temperature.
>600ºC will quickly destroy the tip, also the tip will start glowing red around that temp.
700ºC+ will be clearly red.
And always remember that  700ºC can't cool down to 400ºC in matter of seconds. So it must be some reading issue.
Some ksgers have terrible power supply noise causing a lot of problems. They have a 3.3V switching supply, stepping-down from 24V.
And all the analog and digital circuitry is powered with that, without any kind of filtering else than few ceramic capacitors... Not the best way to interface 20mV signals!

Do you have oscilloscope? Watching the waveform would be a great way of debugging the problem.
If you want to be 100% sure the ADC isn't reading inductive spikes from the heater, increase the ADC delay to something crazy, ex. 100mS.
Yep, 50% of the power will be lost. But it's just for testing.

Follow these guides!

[mastershake]

yes i can put in on the scope tomm when im in the office ill bring it with me and have a look. i think i found what "seems" to be a happy area where its not overshooting and temps are almost spot on. this is 150-30-0 or slight variations of that seems good also, the stock firmware was 0100-0030-0100 but that made it way worse. with that it was a mess. but using the 150-30-0 after a calibration im literally around 3deg over at 300c, spot on at 350, 4 deg under at 375 and 2 deg over at 400c (ksger tip). and stable it seems. ill continue to test it as a main station and see how it does. i also have c245 and c210 tips i can test also. ill power it off the bench psu and see if that helps also.

whats odd is i even erased and reflashed then did a reset-all. did not touch the pid at all left it as was and it was reading crazy high like 650-700 no iron then i adjusted the pid and got the same high readings and no iron. then i put it aside to get some stuff done and came back a couple hours later and did another reset -all (did not reflash) did not touch the pid settings and tip it was not overshooting anymore, its just weird was all thats why i was like hmmmm temps were off but it was not going nuts.

i saw a station on you tube (homeade one) where he had it graph out the pid is that possible with these chips or would they need to be more powerful?

[cosmin1]

got new st link's in today and am going to try to reflash. im also curious due to my color vision would anyone know of a white oled i can solder in place of the blue one from ksger that will be fully compatible? i ordered a few to try but they are taking FOREVER to get here from china right now. is there a specific one anyone has tried yet?

edit this time it flashed fine with the new stlink. must have been something odd there. went through no issues. love the new gui imo

I already did that. It's a nice improvement. But it's not easy. If you have v3.0 black board, you have 6 pin screen board so you need to unsolder only the screen with the flex foil, then resolder to your screen board because it's different in dimenssions.
If you have 4 pin blue board, you also need to do the same operations because the chinese screen boards you will find, are bigger than the controller screen board.

[mastershake]

i actually found today a screen that has the exact same 6 pin out as the 3.0 and its very very close dimension wise. im thinking if i slightly bend the header pins i might be able to get it into position without de soldering the screen itself. i ordered a pair of them once i get them and try it ill report back if it worked or not

[cosmin1]

Do you have a link?
I ordered few white screens too but only one is pure white. The rest is some greenish dirty white. Didn't liked.

[mastershake]

ill ask the seller on aliexpress if they will put them up. i messaged a number of sellers. i gave them the specs and size (approx) and they had me send payment for a dollar amount. they sent me the specs so im just going off that. thats why i said ill see how they are when they arrive. and yeah i know what you mean about the dingy look. they told me these are bright white same pin out and not perfect size wise but not tooo far off. we shall see.

[DavidAlfa]

yes i can put in on the scope tomm when im in the office ill bring it with me and have a look. i think i found what "seems" to be a happy area where its not overshooting and temps are almost spot on. this is 150-30-0 or slight variations of that seems good also, the stock firmware was 0100-0030-0100 but that made it way worse. with that it was a mess. but using the 150-30-0 after a calibration im literally around 3deg over at 300c, spot on at 350, 4 deg under at 375 and 2 deg over at 400c (ksger tip). and stable it seems. ill continue to test it as a main station and see how it does. i also have c245 and c210 tips i can test also. ill power it off the bench psu and see if that helps also.

whats odd is i even erased and reflashed then did a reset-all. did not touch the pid at all left it as was and it was reading crazy high like 650-700 no iron then i adjusted the pid and got the same high readings and no iron. then i put it aside to get some stuff done and came back a couple hours later and did another reset -all (did not reflash) did not touch the pid settings and tip it was not overshooting anymore, its just weird was all thats why i was like hmmmm temps were off but it was not going nuts.

i saw a station on you tube (homeade one) where he had it graph out the pid is that possible with these chips or would they need to be more powerful?

Now you got it more or less stable, try EMA filtering. First try a factor of 1, if it does better try 2. I wouldn't go further, but you can try.
About these pid stock values, where did you took them from?
You didn't say if the tips were new. The way it fixed itself by leaving it running suggest that it could be the case?

[DavidAlfa]

Try to fix the cheap encoders. If it detects the encoder stopped in the middle position for more than 500mS, it will treat the clicks as normal clicks instead drag clicks.
It might need additional timing tweaking, and could cause more problems that it fixes.

Something is wrong with the encoder changes you made, with the normal/reverse setting. I have a Bourns encoder, needs "reverse". When it powers up, it works backwards as if it's set to normal. If I go into Settings/System, it's still set to reverse there. If I change it - reverse to normal to reverse - then it's fine until the next power cycle. If I set it to "normal", it always works backwards. So, it's acting like it's always set to "normal" at powerup.

I will check that. Edit: fixed, builds updated

[cosmin1]

they sent me the specs so im just going off that. thats why i said ill see how they are when they arrive.

Right... i don't trust chinese measurements, they would tell you anything just to make some money. But maybe you're lucky.
About the different color on white displays available... i only saw that after buying 2-3 displays from different sellers. They all swear they sell the brightest version, but the reality is different.

[mastershake]

yes i can put in on the scope tomm when im in the office ill bring it with me and have a look. i think i found what "seems" to be a happy area where its not overshooting and temps are almost spot on. this is 150-30-0 or slight variations of that seems good also, the stock firmware was 0100-0030-0100 but that made it way worse. with that it was a mess. but using the 150-30-0 after a calibration im literally around 3deg over at 300c, spot on at 350, 4 deg under at 375 and 2 deg over at 400c (ksger tip). and stable it seems. ill continue to test it as a main station and see how it does. i also have c245 and c210 tips i can test also. ill power it off the bench psu and see if that helps also.

whats odd is i even erased and reflashed then did a reset-all. did not touch the pid at all left it as was and it was reading crazy high like 650-700 no iron then i adjusted the pid and got the same high readings and no iron. then i put it aside to get some stuff done and came back a couple hours later and did another reset -all (did not reflash) did not touch the pid settings and tip it was not overshooting anymore, its just weird was all thats why i was like hmmmm temps were off but it was not going nuts.

i saw a station on you tube (homeade one) where he had it graph out the pid is that possible with these chips or would they need to be more powerful?

Now you got it more or less stable, try EMA filtering. First try a factor of 1, if it does better try 2. I wouldn't go further, but you can try.
About these pid stock values, where did you took them from?
You didn't say if the tips were new. The way it fixed itself by leaving it running suggest that it could be the case?

the tips were not new one was VERY used prob towards end of life the other still fairly used it did the no iron issue also with a genuine hakko tip also bought here from reputable store in the usa. i took those from the stock firmware v3.1s on another unit. i can take a pic and show you if you would like. also they are the same in the wlida 3.1s firmware

[DavidAlfa]

Seems weird. But as I'm out until I receive the tips, try the "PID test" build.
It disables and resets the PID when temp is higher than setpoint.
https://github.com/deividAlfa/stm32_soldering_iron_controller/tree/master/BOARDS/KSGER/%5Bv3.0%5D/%5B64pin%5D

However a proper PID should not need this...

[mastershake]

i just double checked both the ksger and the wlida 3.1s pid are p-0100 i-0030 d-0100 as default setting

[DavidAlfa]

Do the ksger actually allow PID tuning? Didn't knew that.
I think they actually set a very high PID but also disable it when reaching the temp to prevent overshoot.
Try the test build

[mastershake]

thanks, will test it at the office today and ill have my scope and stuff available to take some readings first. yes the v3.1s lets you adjust pid settings. 2.1 prob does also but i will check tomm i have a 2.1 controller board (original green style) i ordered and have not used yet but im thinking it does.

[cosmin1]

Do the ksger actually allow PID tuning? Didn't knew that.
I think they actually set a very high PID but also disable it when reaching the temp to prevent overshoot.

Yes, it allows.

[mikes]

The weird corner: Ouch. The graph also expected Celsius only. Fixed and updated. Try it.

The graph is a nice touch, but not very useful, since it shows the full range, and normally only changes by a pixel or two (unless you change the set temperature).

Let me suggest that it should be centered on the set temperature, and show +- 10 or 20 degrees away from that. That would provide a better visual indication of actual vs. desired temperature during use, and also make it useful for PID tuning.

[DavidAlfa]

I made that just because it was cool and easy. It displays 200-500°C, so 300°C range.That gives 7°C /pixel.
I think I won't bother with that, at least for now... +-10°C definitely not... that would be noisy.Maybe +-20