Today's log will be short. I just wanted to share a new feature being developed. Using a PID to regulate an environment is nice, but what if you want more than a simple static regulation? What if you want that regulation to change at different time points? This has major utility if you want to build things like reflow ovens (soldering SMD parts), thermal cyclers (replicate DNA), and systems for food production (cultivating, fermenting, aging, etc.), to name a few.

Afew months ago I implemented a feature, known as setpoint tracking, that allowed a daily schedule to be built (to a resolution of 1 minute). This enabled the setpoint (where the environmental condition would be regulated at, for instance temperature) to change throughout the day. However, this was limiting if you wanted to build a method that would change the setpoint farther into the future (such as over a weeks, months, or even years), or if you required a resolution of less than a minute.

This new method builder feature is a major expansion to the initial daily schedule builder, and enables method creation without any duration limitation. The next feature will be the ability to enable repetition, if you want to have a method that repeats at a defined interval.