Industrial PID Controller and Temperature Controller Products

Its interesting that technology has not advanced all that much with the development of industrial temperature controller products in the last 25 years. 25 years ago, Cal controls launched its latest 1/16th DIN microprocessor PID controller the 9900 which was an innovation at the time. It offered PID control with self tune, alarms strategies, universal inputs and switch mode power supply. 25 years on as an example the Pixsys ATR243 PID controller is one of the strongest 1/16th DIN available on the market but feature wise it doesn't really offer all that much extra. OK it has a RS232 port so it can be programmed by a PC but once its installed that feature is never used again. One significant difference is the price, back 25 years ago the Cal9900 temperature controller would sell for 200 USD where 25 years later the ATR243 PID controller sells for barely more than 100 USD.

If you take into account inflation the CAL9900 temperature controller at the price it sold for in 1990 would be around 560 USD today, so how did temperature control products become so cheap? Almost all temperature controller manufacturers outsource most of their production to China and Asia these days to significantly reduce production costs & most manufacturers operate a final assembly & test operation only. The problem with this is keeping a handle on quality control, in industrial electronics its usually at the expense of many customers production, to realize there is a quality control issue or quality isn't to the required standard.

As a distributor, we are pleased to say Pixsys SRL who's PID controller products we have been supplying for 8 years now produce all their own products, even down to circuit board level. They have their own pick and place surface mount circuit board machines & in house produce circuit board for 95% of their own products. The results is fewer failures in fact less than 0.25%. The trade off is slightly expensive production costs. so Pixsys are not the lowest priced PID controller brand available today. But if you save $15 per PID controller using a cheaper brand a very small amount of failures will soon eat away all the savings made choosing the cheaper product.

There are so many brands available today, last count was at least 50 manufacturers, its staggering how all these PID controller manufacturers can all make a profit. Either a manufacturer has to incorporate some real salable, beneficial features into the design of their product, have a strong reputation for reliability or otherwise you are dragged into a price war. Pixsys have some interesting features just around the corner for their temperature controller range. One popular innovation is RFID antenna so the temperature controller can be set up initially by a smart phone without any leads or connectors. For details on the latest microprocessor temperature & PID controller range please visit ucontrol.com.au.

About the Author:

The writer is an expert in the field of Electronic with focus on Panel Meter and Signal Isolator etc..

Ucontrol Pty in Australia has introduced a pioneering product in the form of new generation, highly compact STR571 remote Modbus display.