In article ,
Stealth Pilot wrote:

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 18:32:03 -0700, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
Stealth Pilot wrote:




Sorry for waxing pedantic on this one.

so why didnt you step in and answer the guy's question?

I'm not positive which question you're talking about, because I don't
remember all the details of our little saga. Recumbent bike guy came in
here looking for temperature control info for his custom carbon fiber
bicycle. Someone suggested sitting and watching, with a thermometer and
a switch, so I brought up the shortcomings of ON/OFF controllers and
suggested he might need a PID controller. (Based on subsequent
discussion, I've reconsidered that, and said so.)

I think it was Dan who had an inexpensive controller from ebay. He was
asked whether it was a PID type, and by looking at the picture, I could
tell it wasn't, and I said so. When Dan said he didn't know what a PID
controller was, I didn't interpret that as him asking for a detailed
explanation. I thought I did answer the relevant question, which was,
"is the ebay model such a beast?"

Which brings me to my best attempt at trying to answer your question: I
actually thought that the nitty gritty details of what PID controllers
do was outside the scope of RAH and beyond the participants' interest.
But since your explanation seemed incomplete, I wanted to offer a little
clarification in case anyone was still actually reading this thread!