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I contribution always at peak, no reaction to Ki setting #116
Description
Hi there,
I just stumpled over a problem with my first PID setup. I activated the diagnostic sensors, to see the contribution of the different parts.
What ever I choose for Ki the I contribution is always 3,0 when there is any error. Even with Ki=0 this behavior is not changing, which should deactivate the I contribution, as far as I understand the PID process.
I got a setup with a temperature sensor in a water boiler, that is heated by 3 x 3 kW electric heater.
I set up the output min / max to 0 / 3, and use an automation to turn the heaters on and off, according to the output.
greetings
Christian
Activity
bvweerd commentedon Oct 3, 2025
Hi,
Please start with windup protection off, and very small values for k,i,d as a test.
Note that if your error is bigger than the boundaries you gave, it's not going anywhere.
Please upload your diagnostics info if we need to dig deeper.
denkmalnach commentedon Oct 5, 2025
thx for the hint, i figured it out. the windup protection off was the right clue, so i could see the I contribution reacting better. I also had to increase my sample time, since the process is really slow.
seems like the option 'windup protection' clips off the I contribution to output max, but internally it can rise much higher, is this so?
Is there a easy way to restart the controller, so it can start with the desired start mode (for instance Zero Start)? I must confess, that I restarted the hole home assistant to achive this.
bvweerd commentedon Oct 6, 2025
Great!
No — in the simple-pid library, the windup protection (via output_limits) does not just clip the final output while letting the internal I-term keep rising.
Instead, when output_limits are set, both the output and the integral term are clamped within those limits. That means the integrator cannot continue to accumulate beyond the defined range — it’s actively constrained to prevent windup.
More info here: https://simple-pid.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide.html#user-guide
Yes, set auto-mode to off and on again.