liambesaw

Definitely on a concrete floor!

8 feet eh, I dont think my kiln would fit anywhere on my property haha, my plate says 10 inches from flammables, that's kinda like 8 feet!

Wow that looks scary, haha

Also depending on when they were made, might be nice to test them to make sure theyre safe

Yes, I'm very sore... Mostly shoulders and knees. The knees are all bruised up from crawling, didnt think to get some knee pads til I was far too gone for it to matter. My wife is already tired of hearing my groaning haha

Full body tyvek coveralls with a hood, respirator and goggles. We don't really have dangerous spiders where I live, more likely to find a coyote or bear under there than a black widow

Running conduit under the house today, WHAT A CHORE. 24 inches of clearance and I'm a big 220lb 6'2" monster so not a whole lot of room to work. Hopefully this pays off in the next few weeks and I'll be firing an electric kiln!!! Wire arrives via UPS sometime next week and I can run the wire and call the inspector if everything goes swell. Fingers crossed I did everything OK, it looks good anyway.

I'm glad you came here to collaborate, this is a great place do it! As you know, one of the main reasons developers choose to make their software open source is to draw on the knowledge and abilities of a community to make the project better, the same can be said of the hardware in this case. I'm excited that this has the potential to turn my manual old 75 dollar kiln into something I can control as well as a newer 2500 dollar kiln. I'll be doing this project eventually and without you coming here, sharing, and being humble and open to criticism, it just wouldn't happen. So thank you! And thank you to everyone else who has contributed here!

Active probably better if it's contained in a kit box right? I'm trying to think of ways to not have a hot heat sink inside of a kit box, it might affect the efficiency of the heatsink. Just tossing out ideas at the moment

One point I saw when looking at SSR paperwork is that they require active cooling if run at 30 amps or higher, maybe a cpu cooler would be a cheap option, I used those with some high wattage cob LED units a while back and they worked great. Seems the SSRs have similar cooling requirements as a cpu. Can also be powered via the rpis USB hub

Only thing i can think of, is that with 3 separate insulated strands, that's 3 points of failure per connection. What if one wire has some broken strands and higher resistance? I'm attaching the NEC wire ampacity chart for your future reference. Also in this case, #6 copper wire is cheaper than cannibalizing an extension cord,

So what's the solution to the single ssr? Two separate ssrs connected to the rpi? Does the rpi have two outputs to trigger the ssrs? I looked at 2 pole ssrs and they're nutty expensive, used in HVAC it looks like

Could you compress from inside the cookie cutter instead? Kind of like a hamburger press? Would probably give neater lines with less hassle

I think he's using all three conductors in each extension cord as a single conductor

Interesting, and I assume you mean ground instead of neutral? I'll be direct wiring my kiln so I get to skip all the plug stuff, looks like it will be pretty simple! Can't wait! Gonna get started on running the 50 amp circuit to my kiln this weekend, I'm so stoked. Will probably do a couple firings without the rpi first just to get a feel of what it's capable of, but then I'm making one of these controllers for sure.

That's a handy tip, thanks @neilestrick

I've used a little space heater, works prettty good but costs a bit to run. I'll keep an eye out for small fan and see if it works just as well, thanks!

Kind of, I do them while shaping with my steel rib. I pull the cylinder and then scrape the slip off and shape the base at the same time, then I will fine tune the shape from inside with a small wood rib. I probably should go back and sharpen them up again after, the line is just the line of slip that the steel rib leaves. Should have seen me sitting there in my shed trying to figure out how to do it nicely like the ones I mistakenly left like that last time. I like the way glaze breaks over the horizontal line though, it's really nice. If you were talking about the fluting, I did that at soft leather before I put on the handles Also the "electrician" won't be here tomorrow, mainly because I found out he's not an electrician.

Having an electrician come out tomorrow to install the kiln circuit. Fingers crossed it turns out well. I have a bunch of mugs I've been working on this week, trimmed, fluted and handled a few today, pulled more handles and will finish the rest up tomorrow, might even give the electric kiln a run if everything goes well!

I do a mix of drawing and then "sketching" with clay. I usually have something in mind but will play with the design in clay until I'm happy with it. Once I have a form I like, I will make more and save a finished piece as a reminder when I go to make more.

That's perfect, because I will end up needing to bring it indoors when not in use (my kiln is outdoors under cover)

Downramp is what I was thinking for slow cooling, that's great! Any tips on doing this project? Should I get a big kit box and mount the rpi in there and everything? The schematics look pretty simple as far as the circuitry goes, but it would be cool to see a shot of yours as well.

Very cool, is there support for controlled cooling? Will be taking on this project as soon as I get the outlet for my kiln installed. Having an electrician over for a quote next Friday.

Interesting, thanks