VIDEO: Understanding the ATC2000 Modes of Operation

The ATC2000 is a low noise heating system for maintaining animal body temperature during experimental procedures.  It has three modes of operation, which we discuss here.

Normal mode compares the temperature and the setpoint for PID control. Adaptive mode is ingenious. It uses the monitored animal temperature and the actual plate temperature to define an offset value which is used to adjust the PID parameters. That offset is recalculated at a set interval for extremely precise control. Shutdown mode is a fail safe that shuts the unit down if the plate temperature reaches a defined setpoint (like 45ºC) that would endanger the animal.

The instrument has three modes of operation:

  • Normal
  • Adaptive
  • Shutdown

Normal Mode

The normal mode compares the temperature of the configured sensor (RTD or TC) with the set point to control the heater.

Adaptive Mode

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 Mode

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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