VIDEO: How to Understand the ATC2000 Display

ATC2000 is a low noise heating system for maintaining animal body temperature during experimental procedures. Here we will look at the main display on the front panel to see what information is available and the three operational modes.

The main display window shows the set point and the mode of operation on the left side of the screen. On the right side, the control temperature and plate temperature are visible. The arrow next to the TC Probe indicates that the TC Probe is the controlled temperature.

TEMPERATURE DISPLAY

In this illustration, the unit is controlling the thermocouple (TC) probe. In this case, the RTD probe temperature can be viewed by pressing the Display button. When the unit controls the RTD probe, that temperature displays on this screen. The OK next to a temperature indicates that the temperature falls within the parameters defined by the low and high alarm limits. If the temperature falls below the low limit, LO displays instead of OK. Likewise, if it exceeds the high limit, HI displays.
If the message “ERROR HI” appears on the Temperature Display, the temperature probe is either disconnected or defective.

 

ALARMS

When the plate temperature or the control temperature falls outside of the alarm limits, the appropriate alarm LED illuminates. If the audible alarm is enabled, it will also sound.

 

MODE

The instrument has three modes of operation–normal, adaptive and shutdown.

  • The normal mode compares the temperature of the configured sensor (RTD or TC) with the set point to control the heater.
  • In the adaptive mode, the sensor in the heated plate is used as the control trigger for the set point. A platinum sensor in the plate monitors the plate temperature very precisely. The temperature of the subject, using the selected probe is sampled at regular intervals. The difference between the temperature of the subject and the desired set point is used to control the heating of the plate. The sampling interval should be set long enough to allow the subject and plate to stabilize before the temperature is sampled and the heating is adjusted. The default sampling interval is three minutes. This approach is less prone to overshoot, but somewhat slower the normal mode, depending on the sampling rate used.

NOTE: This mode cannot be enabled when the heater plate is selected as the temperature source.

  • Shutdown is a fail-safe mode. If the plate temperature ever exceeds 45ºC, the unit automatically enters the shutdown mode. In this mode, the controller brings the heater temperature to the Shutdown Mode set point. Once the controller enters shutdown mode, it will remain in that state until you change it. You can press the Up and Down buttons simultaneously to manually return the unit to the normal mode of operation, however, if the temperature exceeds 45ºC, the unit will return to the shutdown mode.

 

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