Ive asked this question to professionals who use Cropster. It comes down to all the back end stuff cropster offers. Unless you are running a giant roastery with multiple people involved in the roasting, then Artisan seems the way to go. But im sure if you just emailed Cropster they would be best at explaining the difference.

@abhishah, if you're not a professional roaster, not sure if there is any reason why you'd buy paid software when Artisan (or Roastmaster) does what home roasters need. (If I recall, you're the guy who built yourself an air roaster recently, no?). My friends who run pro roasteries use Cropster - it is for businesses, and it is priced like a business expense.

Most of the home roasters on this forum appear to use Artisan or Roastmaster (I use Artisan). I don't think I've met any home roasters who use Cropster, though they might be out there. The feature set you're paying for just don't seem to make sense for home roasters.

The key question is - what are you planning to do with the software?

Thank You everyone for all your replies, i really appreciate it.

I am roasting on commercial basis, ill be speaking to one of the reps from cropster tomorrow discussing the benefits of using cropster over artisan.

Thank you again

I haven't used cropster, but I use artisan in a commercial setting daily and it works very well for my needs. I would try artisan for a while, then use the cropster demo and see if it is something you can live without.

Hi,

I have recently added a K-type Thermocouple and a PID to the roaster i built, the roaster is working well but i am having a few issues with regards to the way the PID is reading out the temperature. The final roasts appeared a bit darker than they should have.

So then i added a analogue thermometer to mix, when the PID displayed the temp at 145 C for charge the analogue displayed a temp of 201 C Degrees.

The Ktype PID was struggling throughout the roast, it was lagging by a good 10-15 degrees, its only when i stall the roasts or slow the roast down that the PID comes close to the analogue thermometer, but still lagging by a good 5-6 degrees.

Any suggestion on what could be a good solution to the issue i have encountered?

Thank you

This is a little off topic, but anyhow..

A PID algorithm needs a noise free signal to operate correctly. Therefore, PID implementation apply filtering to smooth the incoming signal that often is rather noisy. Filtering produces a delay. More filtering, more delay. Not a problem for the intended application such PIDs have been originally designed: try to keep a certain temperature constant. If you just want to measure a temperature, you do not need a PID, but just a simple temperature meter. Actually, using a PID might have negative consequences as you describe. So you are abusing a PID as temperature meter. A large delay has been recently discussed here resulting on connecting Artisan to a certain version of the Giesen roasters PIDs. Some PIDs have the possibility to influence/configure the filtering. That Giesen issue could be resolved by deactivating the filter completely. However, one should be careful on this, as this might have negative effects of the PIDs overall function, especially if it is used for some other purposes in the machine, like to implement safety methods or control tasks (like controlling the gas burner).

My advise: use a temperature meter to measure temperatures.

Hi MaKoMo, Thank you for your reply, by temperature meter are you referring to a analogue Thermometer or something similar to a Centre 300 thermometer?

Thank you

I referred to a meter like the Center 300 or a Phidgets. PIDs are build to control.

Today PerfectWheels, Chert, and I visited Resilient Coffee Roasters in Richland, Washington where Cropster is being used with their Giesen 15. Their Giesen Roaster is gorgeous and accents the rest of the tastefully creative interior. We also dropped in on several other roasters/cafes in the Tri Cities area.

The one Cropster feature that I thought would be very useful is the display of the percentage of development time after the start of first crack.
I bet MoKoMo could pull that off for Artisan. What's one more feature? T(total)-T(1Cs)/T(total) then display it in a little window next to FCs

Right now I use a laminated chart with 1Cs times and columns for 20%, 25% and for my son and wife who want Vienna and French Roasts, 27% and 30%.

Those RAO interval percentages have been added a while ago. Do a right click on those existing PhasesLCDs and you can toggle between time, percentage and delta temperature. Thus I am still not convinced that those are really useful.