I also PID'ed my Cafemino and I must admit that it does not do very well when trying to pre-program the profiles. The ambient temperature, the bean density, age, moisture constant are all variables that make the roasts behave very differently day after day.
I also do most of the controls manually and only use the PID to control the Max ET in order to avoid excessive temperature spikes. As Gyro stated

gyro wrote:the Fuji PID I used was a bit too expensive really.

Specially when using it as a temperature limiter . At least I can use it to interact with Artisan.

Gyro, if you do not mind, how long does it take your roaster for a 1kg batch?

Whale wrote:Gyro, if you do not mind, how long does it take your roaster for a 1kg batch?

Generally 18 minutes. I've tried faster and I just don't like it. The drying phase to 150C takes quite a while at 100%, then I back it off to 90% at 150C, 80% at 180C, 65% generally between 190-195C and drop at 215-220C depending on the beans. My start drop temp is 230C on the 'naked' BT probe, which is around 180-200C on the ET.

If I don't ease back the power it rips through 1st and 2nd crack way too quickly. There is alot of thermal inertia going on in there somewhere.

18 minutes for a full kilo!! Wow, there is definitely more power in your roaster than mine (before I modified it that is ).
I have measured the elements on my machine to be about 37 ohms total, hooked up to 240VAC it gives a theoretical 1550W. With this at full on continuous I get a somewhat linear curve that takes about 25 minutes to reach Full City! This is with a charge temperature of 150 C.
I have increased the heating capacity by adding about 2500W of additional external heaters. With these, I can perform 18 minutes or faster roasts.
How do you control the heat power? I have installed Pulse width modulators on both heat sources to control with a potentiometer the voltage.