neilestrick

L&L has switched to an open-ended protection tube. There were issues with the closed-end tubes being inconsistent in thickness. The open-ended tubes do not need an offset. Default setting in the controller is 0 offset.
@Pres Make sure your thermocouples are all the same distance from the end of the proctection tubes, about 3/8 in from the end.

In my experience, very few people are affected by the molds in clay. I've spent 8 years in University studios, 3 years in a clay supplier business, and 17 years teaching classes in my own studio, and I've only run into two people that had to drop classes due to mold sensitivity. I've got students with immune deficiency conditions (I don't know the specific conditions) and it doesn't affect them. Mold is unavoidable in the clay itself, short of mixing your own clay every time you go to work with it, which would be very poor clay to work with. And doesn't seem to be the type of mold that causes strong reactions and health issues like you'd get in moldy drywall. If it was we'd all be experiencing health issues every time we opened a bag. I think that testing a bag of clay for specific molds would be useless because the clay body materials are sourced form different places and you would/could get different spores from every batch of raw materials.
The studio itself is a different story. There's no reason it should be any more moldy than any other environment due to the clay itself. If your local studio is musty, I'd first determine if the issue is the clay, or something else like a damp basement, etc. Just using clay in a space shouldn't contribute to the mustiness if the space is dry in the first place, because the mold needs moisture to proliferate. If the smell is from slop buckets or standing water in the sink, those issue can be easily dealt with. However I've got open slop buckets in my studio, and we do not have any oder or mustiness problems from them. If we did, then lids would solve the problem there. 
Personally, I'm allergic to molds in the environment, and my allergies are always a mess in the Spring when it's rainy and in the Fall from leaf molds. The studio environment never sets them off, though.

Sorry to say @Bill Kielb, but you are speaking in a foreign language at this time. I guess what you are saying is that L&L uses a certain type of Thermocouple cover that has an insulation value that is programmed into the controller. If so there should be a file/program that has the entered values for that  T cover.  Where would I find these values, and the values that should be entered?
 
On another note, I have been thinking that when running a bisque firing that I would use a lower cone value maybe 08 or 07 to see how my 06 witness cones are affected. If it is as @neilestrickhas said, that the differences at lower temp are nearer to standard, I might even try running the glaze load at ^4 to see how close that comes to my ^5-7 cone pack. I am currently reluctant to physically change any of the settings with offsets even though I believe I would know what I am doing.  I really don't know how far the kiln overfired other than it was above cone 8 in all probability considering the pimples on the cones 6 & 7.
Thank you for you input, more to look into.
best,
Pres

If they're in the brick far enough to hold solid they will work. I don't have confidence in the two coming from the top, though. If you want to make a guard rail, I would try straightening out the staples so they're nice and long, and put a series of straight pins all along there, as that will give you more metal into the bricks.

If you fire it with that element unsupported, it'll sag and stretch and you'll have a mess. Because of the element holder you can't pin it as-is. You have several choices on how to deal with it:
1. You can carefully chip out the rest of that holder and then pin. Install a pin every 4-5 coils, pins angled upward so they don't sag. Place the pins at the upper part of the coil so the element hangs on the pins. When it's time to replace elements, replace the holder then by method 3 below.
2. Carefully chip out the broken holder and install a new new one by chewing off the bottom lip of the new holder with a pair of pliers and pocketing it in. If you break the upper groove in the brick this won't work, so be careful. Kiln cement tends to keep it from sitting flush in the brick, so don't use any other than along the front edge at the bottom, just along the surface of the joint, if needed.
3. If the elements are flexible enough, you can carefully pull the element out of the groove, remove the brick, slide in a new holder, and slide the brick back in. HERE is a video, although it's much more extensive than what you need to do. You just need to loosen the body band clamps and slide the brick out. Also remove any parts on the outside of the kiln between the clamps and the broken brick because the screws will keep the  band from being able to move. I'd go ahead and replace both holders in the brick.
Your elements look pretty good. Check them with a meter, but I think they'll work for a while still.

In my experience, very few people are affected by the molds in clay. I've spent 8 years in University studios, 3 years in a clay supplier business, and 17 years teaching classes in my own studio, and I've only run into two people that had to drop classes due to mold sensitivity. I've got students with immune deficiency conditions (I don't know the specific conditions) and it doesn't affect them. Mold is unavoidable in the clay itself, short of mixing your own clay every time you go to work with it, which would be very poor clay to work with. And doesn't seem to be the type of mold that causes strong reactions and health issues like you'd get in moldy drywall. If it was we'd all be experiencing health issues every time we opened a bag. I think that testing a bag of clay for specific molds would be useless because the clay body materials are sourced form different places and you would/could get different spores from every batch of raw materials.
The studio itself is a different story. There's no reason it should be any more moldy than any other environment due to the clay itself. If your local studio is musty, I'd first determine if the issue is the clay, or something else like a damp basement, etc. Just using clay in a space shouldn't contribute to the mustiness if the space is dry in the first place, because the mold needs moisture to proliferate. If the smell is from slop buckets or standing water in the sink, those issue can be easily dealt with. However I've got open slop buckets in my studio, and we do not have any oder or mustiness problems from them. If we did, then lids would solve the problem there. 
Personally, I'm allergic to molds in the environment, and my allergies are always a mess in the Spring when it's rainy and in the Fall from leaf molds. The studio environment never sets them off, though.

As one wag said, anything is possible, but some things are not likely. My one attempt at that was not satisfactory. I connected a separate pyrometer to the same thermocouple as was being used by the kiln's Bartlett controller. The temperature readings went jittery and I couldn't tell what was going on. Haven't tried it since.

The majority of people who get into ceramics now are going to work in cone 6 if they plan to have a home studio. And for a large percentage of commercial studios it can be just as difficult to install a gas kiln because of zoning restrictions and cost, which was the case for my studio. In 2008 I moved my studio after 4 years at its original location, where I had a gas kiln, and it proved impossible to install a gas kiln at another location in my town because of landlords who didn't want it in their buildings and because of the cost. Those costs included making changes to the studio to increase fire ratings of shared walls, as well as the cost of upgrading gas lines and moving and re-installing the ventilation system. I already had the kiln and it was still going to cost me $35K+ to do all the other stuff. So instead I bought two electric kilns for about $6000, and I have never regretted it.
From the standpoints of running a community studio and producing my own line of work, firing electric has made my studio life much easier and freed up a lot of my time because I don't have to babysit the kiln. I can be at home with my family, or out on repair jobs, or at an art fair while the kilns are firing. I can have the kilns on while my students are in the studio, because they're so much quieter than most gas kilns. I can fire overnight while I sleep, and my students can load and run the kilns if I get too busy with repair work. Other benefits of electric kilns for me are faster turnaround times and more size options. Because they cool faster, I can get pieces fired and moved through the studio faster than I could with my gas kiln. My little test kiln allows me to fire just a couple of mugs at a time so I can get small orders out the door faster, and I do a lot more glaze testing than I did with my gas kiln.
It has been mentioned that people feel more connected to the firing when they fire with gas, but I have found the opposite to be true. With electric kilns I'm more connected to what's happening during a firing because I program exactly what's happening, with a precision that wasn't there with gas. I have far more control over what's happening every minute, and I put much more thought into my firing schedules than I ever did when I fired with gas. I also have to be more aware of how I load the electric kilns than I did with gas, as I don't have the benefit of moving air and pressure in an electric kiln. Even though I'm not turning up dials and adjusting dampers and doing the physical work during a firing, mentally I'm much more in tune with the firing than before.
After 29 years of making pots and working in all temperatures, I'm mostly just tired of the attitudes that one type of firing/cone is better than another. That attitude was instilled in me during my college years, and it cost me a lot of time and money and creative progress when I got out of school because I was so hung up on the idea that I needed to make cone 10 reduction pots in order to make good pots. The reality was that my situation was really better suited for cone 6 electric work, and instead of jumping into that I spent a lot of time more focused on trying to get a gas kiln set up when I didn't really need one. For most people, one certain type of kiln/firing is going to be the best option for their studio. That may be electric because of zoning rules, or it may be gas because of their production needs. Most people won't have much of a choice, but no one should ever be made to feel like they're making a sacrifice because of it. Everyone should feel confident that they can make great work no matter how they fire.
 
 

The majority of people who get into ceramics now are going to work in cone 6 if they plan to have a home studio. And for a large percentage of commercial studios it can be just as difficult to install a gas kiln because of zoning restrictions and cost, which was the case for my studio. In 2008 I moved my studio after 4 years at its original location, where I had a gas kiln, and it proved impossible to install a gas kiln at another location in my town because of landlords who didn't want it in their buildings and because of the cost. Those costs included making changes to the studio to increase fire ratings of shared walls, as well as the cost of upgrading gas lines and moving and re-installing the ventilation system. I already had the kiln and it was still going to cost me $35K+ to do all the other stuff. So instead I bought two electric kilns for about $6000, and I have never regretted it.
From the standpoints of running a community studio and producing my own line of work, firing electric has made my studio life much easier and freed up a lot of my time because I don't have to babysit the kiln. I can be at home with my family, or out on repair jobs, or at an art fair while the kilns are firing. I can have the kilns on while my students are in the studio, because they're so much quieter than most gas kilns. I can fire overnight while I sleep, and my students can load and run the kilns if I get too busy with repair work. Other benefits of electric kilns for me are faster turnaround times and more size options. Because they cool faster, I can get pieces fired and moved through the studio faster than I could with my gas kiln. My little test kiln allows me to fire just a couple of mugs at a time so I can get small orders out the door faster, and I do a lot more glaze testing than I did with my gas kiln.
It has been mentioned that people feel more connected to the firing when they fire with gas, but I have found the opposite to be true. With electric kilns I'm more connected to what's happening during a firing because I program exactly what's happening, with a precision that wasn't there with gas. I have far more control over what's happening every minute, and I put much more thought into my firing schedules than I ever did when I fired with gas. I also have to be more aware of how I load the electric kilns than I did with gas, as I don't have the benefit of moving air and pressure in an electric kiln. Even though I'm not turning up dials and adjusting dampers and doing the physical work during a firing, mentally I'm much more in tune with the firing than before.
After 29 years of making pots and working in all temperatures, I'm mostly just tired of the attitudes that one type of firing/cone is better than another. That attitude was instilled in me during my college years, and it cost me a lot of time and money and creative progress when I got out of school because I was so hung up on the idea that I needed to make cone 10 reduction pots in order to make good pots. The reality was that my situation was really better suited for cone 6 electric work, and instead of jumping into that I spent a lot of time more focused on trying to get a gas kiln set up when I didn't really need one. For most people, one certain type of kiln/firing is going to be the best option for their studio. That may be electric because of zoning rules, or it may be gas because of their production needs. Most people won't have much of a choice, but no one should ever be made to feel like they're making a sacrifice because of it. Everyone should feel confident that they can make great work no matter how they fire.
 
 

The majority of people who get into ceramics now are going to work in cone 6 if they plan to have a home studio. And for a large percentage of commercial studios it can be just as difficult to install a gas kiln because of zoning restrictions and cost, which was the case for my studio. In 2008 I moved my studio after 4 years at its original location, where I had a gas kiln, and it proved impossible to install a gas kiln at another location in my town because of landlords who didn't want it in their buildings and because of the cost. Those costs included making changes to the studio to increase fire ratings of shared walls, as well as the cost of upgrading gas lines and moving and re-installing the ventilation system. I already had the kiln and it was still going to cost me $35K+ to do all the other stuff. So instead I bought two electric kilns for about $6000, and I have never regretted it.
From the standpoints of running a community studio and producing my own line of work, firing electric has made my studio life much easier and freed up a lot of my time because I don't have to babysit the kiln. I can be at home with my family, or out on repair jobs, or at an art fair while the kilns are firing. I can have the kilns on while my students are in the studio, because they're so much quieter than most gas kilns. I can fire overnight while I sleep, and my students can load and run the kilns if I get too busy with repair work. Other benefits of electric kilns for me are faster turnaround times and more size options. Because they cool faster, I can get pieces fired and moved through the studio faster than I could with my gas kiln. My little test kiln allows me to fire just a couple of mugs at a time so I can get small orders out the door faster, and I do a lot more glaze testing than I did with my gas kiln.
It has been mentioned that people feel more connected to the firing when they fire with gas, but I have found the opposite to be true. With electric kilns I'm more connected to what's happening during a firing because I program exactly what's happening, with a precision that wasn't there with gas. I have far more control over what's happening every minute, and I put much more thought into my firing schedules than I ever did when I fired with gas. I also have to be more aware of how I load the electric kilns than I did with gas, as I don't have the benefit of moving air and pressure in an electric kiln. Even though I'm not turning up dials and adjusting dampers and doing the physical work during a firing, mentally I'm much more in tune with the firing than before.
After 29 years of making pots and working in all temperatures, I'm mostly just tired of the attitudes that one type of firing/cone is better than another. That attitude was instilled in me during my college years, and it cost me a lot of time and money and creative progress when I got out of school because I was so hung up on the idea that I needed to make cone 10 reduction pots in order to make good pots. The reality was that my situation was really better suited for cone 6 electric work, and instead of jumping into that I spent a lot of time more focused on trying to get a gas kiln set up when I didn't really need one. For most people, one certain type of kiln/firing is going to be the best option for their studio. That may be electric because of zoning rules, or it may be gas because of their production needs. Most people won't have much of a choice, but no one should ever be made to feel like they're making a sacrifice because of it. Everyone should feel confident that they can make great work no matter how they fire.
 
 

The majority of people who get into ceramics now are going to work in cone 6 if they plan to have a home studio. And for a large percentage of commercial studios it can be just as difficult to install a gas kiln because of zoning restrictions and cost, which was the case for my studio. In 2008 I moved my studio after 4 years at its original location, where I had a gas kiln, and it proved impossible to install a gas kiln at another location in my town because of landlords who didn't want it in their buildings and because of the cost. Those costs included making changes to the studio to increase fire ratings of shared walls, as well as the cost of upgrading gas lines and moving and re-installing the ventilation system. I already had the kiln and it was still going to cost me $35K+ to do all the other stuff. So instead I bought two electric kilns for about $6000, and I have never regretted it.
From the standpoints of running a community studio and producing my own line of work, firing electric has made my studio life much easier and freed up a lot of my time because I don't have to babysit the kiln. I can be at home with my family, or out on repair jobs, or at an art fair while the kilns are firing. I can have the kilns on while my students are in the studio, because they're so much quieter than most gas kilns. I can fire overnight while I sleep, and my students can load and run the kilns if I get too busy with repair work. Other benefits of electric kilns for me are faster turnaround times and more size options. Because they cool faster, I can get pieces fired and moved through the studio faster than I could with my gas kiln. My little test kiln allows me to fire just a couple of mugs at a time so I can get small orders out the door faster, and I do a lot more glaze testing than I did with my gas kiln.
It has been mentioned that people feel more connected to the firing when they fire with gas, but I have found the opposite to be true. With electric kilns I'm more connected to what's happening during a firing because I program exactly what's happening, with a precision that wasn't there with gas. I have far more control over what's happening every minute, and I put much more thought into my firing schedules than I ever did when I fired with gas. I also have to be more aware of how I load the electric kilns than I did with gas, as I don't have the benefit of moving air and pressure in an electric kiln. Even though I'm not turning up dials and adjusting dampers and doing the physical work during a firing, mentally I'm much more in tune with the firing than before.
After 29 years of making pots and working in all temperatures, I'm mostly just tired of the attitudes that one type of firing/cone is better than another. That attitude was instilled in me during my college years, and it cost me a lot of time and money and creative progress when I got out of school because I was so hung up on the idea that I needed to make cone 10 reduction pots in order to make good pots. The reality was that my situation was really better suited for cone 6 electric work, and instead of jumping into that I spent a lot of time more focused on trying to get a gas kiln set up when I didn't really need one. For most people, one certain type of kiln/firing is going to be the best option for their studio. That may be electric because of zoning rules, or it may be gas because of their production needs. Most people won't have much of a choice, but no one should ever be made to feel like they're making a sacrifice because of it. Everyone should feel confident that they can make great work no matter how they fire.
 
 

I sent an email to the owner of L&L this morning explaining the issue, and he responded: Thanks. I will take a look at that and make any corrections necessary.
I've been a distributor for L&L for 17 years, and have seen them make many changes to their manuals over that time. Sometimes they just put a flyer in the front pocket of the binder until they can make more permanent changes to the manual.

I sent an email to the owner of L&L this morning explaining the issue, and he responded: Thanks. I will take a look at that and make any corrections necessary.
I've been a distributor for L&L for 17 years, and have seen them make many changes to their manuals over that time. Sometimes they just put a flyer in the front pocket of the binder until they can make more permanent changes to the manual.

I sent an email to the owner of L&L this morning explaining the issue, and he responded: Thanks. I will take a look at that and make any corrections necessary.
I've been a distributor for L&L for 17 years, and have seen them make many changes to their manuals over that time. Sometimes they just put a flyer in the front pocket of the binder until they can make more permanent changes to the manual.

@Smokey2 Those are exactly the same pages I refer to in my post. I find it counter intuitive that the one page states follow the Genesis controller pages, while another page unde Dynatrol says to do the ^5 firing as a slow bisque. . . . but they were talking about the Dynatrol.
@neilestrickI think I will get in touch with L&L about the confusion of the manual set up. I have been waiting on electric set up for a little while, and have not wasted my time, but been reading the manual once and some places 2 and 3 times. Maintenance, repair, and operation areas I have covered well. I think that the section on the Dynatrol was not thought out when the Genesis was added in. That seems to be the biggest discrepancy that I could find.
Is there a person I should aim my discussion of the manuals misleading statements?
 
best,
Pres

I think a large part of the confusion comes from the section in the ring binder marked OPERATION. First page shows the Genesis panel and dialogue boxes. Page 2 begins with DYNAIMIC ZONE CONTROL, then FIRST TEST FIRING OF THE KILN.  Text here is " See pages 5 and 6 of the Genesis Model LT3140 Controller Operation Manual for simple and detailed instructions on the process. This section is in the binder under CONTROL. 
If there is to be an edit change, it should be made in the Genesis Controller Operation Manual so that the slow bisque or glaze is chosen.  I have inspected the kiln thougougly and do not see anything amiss.
 
best,
Pres

@Pres You definitely didn't do any harm with your first firing. I'll talk to L&L about making it more clear what should be done with the first firing. I think the confusion comes with the Genesis controller being added in as a separate booklet.

Definitely a possibility.
Might just need to start over with mounting the hinge. Pull the tension rod, loosen up the hinge, make sure the body bands are all tight and even, and start over. Have the springs sitting on the rod as mirror images. Does the lid sit flush all the way around when the hinge isn't assembled? Push the hinge up and make sure the spring rod is sitting in the bottom of the oval holes on both sides. Tighten everything up. Lid should still be flush and even at this point. Open it up all the way, insert the tension rod and close it. It should go back down and still sit evenly on the kiln. it may be off by a tiny bit side to side, but not so much that you can't just scootch it over a bit to get it to latch.

They are awesome kilns, incredibly well built and durable and long lasting. I talked with many customers who had 40 year old kilns that were still in use. Alpine got a bad rap because updrafts are a little bit more difficult to fire, and they were a little late getting into the downdraft game. There was also a famous old-school potter and kiln guy who bad-mouthed them constantly on the ClayArt forum. Each Alpine updraft has its own personality, and once you get to know how it likes to fire it's very consistent and dependable. I have a friend with two Alpine updrafts at his school that that were delivered on the same day, sequential serial numbers, same models, sit right next to each other, and one fires an hour faster than the other.

It was standard equipment on the digital controllers as well, at least until they sold the company in 2007-ish. Not sure what they're doing now. Their web site still shows the crappy touchscreen controller that was developed when I was there (total rush job), but I can't remember if it had dual TC inputs or not. As bad as it was, it was still better than the Chromalox controller they had been using for a while, which was a general purpose controller that had way too many parameters and required scrolling through something like 26 settings to get to the high limit shutoff setting.

What did the cones show? Like GEP said, it's going to go to whatever temp it needs to in order to achieve the proper heat work based on the rate of climb. I wouldn't change anything until you do a firing or two, with cones, on the schedule you would normally use, which really shouldn't be the Fast setting. After a test or two you can then dial in the thermocouples or cone offset.
Where did you see the recommended firing schedule for the first firing? Was that in the Genesis controller manual or the main L&L manual? Like Smokey2 said, L&L's recommended first firing is a Slow Bisque to cone 5 with a 3 hour preheat. It could be that the Genesis manual, which is not written by L&L, is saying something different. 

I meant to add since it is still a switch it can only go as fast as a half cycle  which you guessed it is .5 seconds. They are zero crossing as well so they always turn on at zero, rather than turn on at peak. Another cool  longevity thing.

The Genesis has an 'SSR Mode' that cycles the relays at 500 milliseconds. Pretty cool.

You can put a simple toggle switch on your control box to switch between thermocouples.

Putting a shelf at the bottom, whether two halves or one full, is a must for two reasons. One, it helps to reduce heat loss through the floor so the kiln fires more evenly. Second, it protects the floor. It's much cheaper to replace a shelf than a kiln floor if something goes awry. Kiln shelf: $60. Kiln floor w/ freight delivery: $450. I've always just used pieces of kiln shelves as posts under the bottom shelf. It doesn't need to be any more than 1/2 inch. You'll get plenty of air flow from a downdraft vent with just 1/2".
If you use a full shelf at the bottom and use 1/2 shelves above it, then you have to use 4 posts under the full shelf, which runs the risk of the shelf not sitting evenly on all 4 posts. You do not want the shelf to rock, or it can warp or crack. If it's rocking at all, use very thin wads of clay dipped in kiln wash or alumina to even everything out. Be sure to use clay that is rated for the highest temp you'll be firing, or make wadding from kaolin and alumina.
I never stagger shelves unless I have to, and have never had issues from it, even in my big 21 cubic foot kiln. I've always found that staggering just wastes space. Unless you're firing very quickly, you shouldn't have evenness problems across a shelf.