Bill Kielb

Sorry, just saw this. Hard to tell without a bit more of a step back context photo but the fact it works and matches the diagram means you have it right. I am curious why some of the the insulators don’t push in flush though. No need to force them though if they are just too long, they only need to keep the bare element wire from touching any metal so they don’t have to be flush. Nice work! BTW your kiln should match the top drawing, the bottom drawing is for a three phase kiln. Both drawings have identical element configurations though.

I was wrong, those ring elements are wired in parallel. Sorry, too much in a rush! The relay has to work for just one of those elements to work. Likely bad connection or jumper between the two elements. Look very closely at the wiring or snap a few pictures of the connections as well as the jumper wires and post. Likely simple fix

You should be able to find a broken one as you remove them; however if they are old enough it’s going to be hard to tell as they will easily break into pieces as you try and remove them. Just an add, try and be sure all nice “very tight” connections to the elements.

Just a question, do you fire with witness cones? I ask because the firing schedule you use is a bit unique and does not really follow the Orton cone methodology that generally gets you to a certain cone. It’s hard to know what these were fired to looking at your schedule. A normal maturing ramp for the last 200f of firing would be 108 degrees per hour. Yours may have been double or triple this speed which could mean you fired more like 07. It’s hard to know. I also mention it because you are pondering firing to 04, so maybe learning how Orton cones predictably drop will be something you explore and prove helpful. So do you use witness cones and what cone was this fired to?

Looks like the 1027 has three relays, each control one ring which has two elements in series. So you could have a bad element in the top ring or bad relay that powers it. Easy to test the elements with an ohm meter or multimeter to tell if they are open as well as to get an idea of how worn they are. Elements generally only last 100-150 firings before they degrade enough to where the kiln will not finish a cone 6 firing. If an elements resistance grows to more than about 10% of its original resistance then it’s time to replace. At this point ALL elements are replaced as they wear together. since your cone dropped, it did reach that amount of heat work. The error I believe reflects the kilns inability to climb fast enough. Here is one of several videos on checking element resistance https://youtu.be/67L6xBiJHz0 Here is your wiring diagram, I believe: https://skutt.com/images/KM1227-3-_1027-1PH-and-3PH.pdf Don't forget shut off the power to the kiln, test safely

Thanks! Just trying to understand the potential element life though. Hard to quantify or anticipate. For some context https://youtu.be/AvdPwKuj6rM

A common way to get lava glazes is with silicon carbide. Here is a sample https://glazy.org/recipes/76600. If this is your intention you may want to search Glazy.org for ideas / formulations.

Definitely call Bartlett but it appears the controller is configured for 3 zones. Since you only have one zone the others show as infinite to the controller and it auto detects and solves as if two of the thermocouples it’s expecting to be there have failed. Check how many it’s programmed for, confirm it is three and call Bartlett, they will let you know how to change back to one zone. If you are in a super hurry, Bartlett has a technical manual online that tells you how to access a hidden menu and set this back to single zone. All of this is assuming The above proves to be true of course.

I heard they are fully fusion powered now.

I think on planet Zircon they have been working at cone 20.

I would love to know your experience with the longevity. Something that it should do but really hard to speculate and quantify.

I love everything above. For the most part I have heard many of the same reasons / feedback and also speculate boron helped simplify the melt issue. I am a cone six proponent for sure just on energy use alone. As far as reduction, I think it’s a great learned skill and an artistic tool. The number six though (cone 6) - seems pleasantly odd maybe without one central reason ……… but it happened.

Stand-off mounts an old tried and true solution, which way is the fan airflow? Nice tight installation!

Perhaps. Seems to make a good case for cone 5 though. ….. and It’s the last cone that follows the .5/5 relationship. Cone 4 is .5Al / 4Si. I have never really found a reason though, lots of speculation. Cone 10 on the other hand does make sense as the raw materials tend to lead you there. Probably far different on planet Zircon.

Very probable and definitely included in the popular speculation. Some Bristol glazes melt as low as cone 2 though. 70’s energy crunch? Reduced academic budgets ……… why 6 and not five though? Weird! Never have found a definitive answer.

Hmm, No worries, if the parallel is unclear my only thought is it is what the geology has lent itself to over many years. Cone six and lesser glazes have generally been cone 10 glazes made to melt earlier. Maybe the better question is how did we end up with cone six? Never found a solid reason for that for sure.

Yes, Not meant to be complicated or elaborate I think it’s a reminder that cone ten is a thing because of our geology, we often do special things to make cone ten glazes melt at cone six or less.

Well, just my opinion: Barium carbonate is not something I ever include in my glazes for food use. It has more boron than required to melt at cone 04 so appears to be excessive for 04 - maybe ok at cone 08. It.has very low amounts of silica and alumina and falls in an uncommon area of Stull. It’s R2O is 0.27:0.73 so not bad in that respect. Hard to know without firing and testing for sure but the barium carbonate and very low silica and alumina levels for me mean I would not use it for food service.

Yes but too much boron has its own issues. Earth geology basically melts at cone 10 so not really a need for boron there. My suggestion: do some tests lowering the Si:Al or in your case sib:Al and observe how it becomes more matte as the ratio falls to 5:1 or less to better understand this ratio and the effect it has on a true matte. The Glazy link I posted above has Peters chart and a paper written by the guy who created that chart (Matt Katz, 2012). Also has some great references to other research that may prove interesting. You might want to open it and give a once over. https://wiki.glazy.org/t/understanding-the-stull-chart/857.html Here is a quick Katz intro video where you can learn a bit more about Stull. It contains the screenshot below which illustrates things fire by composition which means if you raise the amount of Alumina high enough it will require more heat to melt. Your glazes have been fairly high in Alumina so they ought to fire stiff by composition. https://youtu.be/-oRFAxpmaqE

Here is a interesting guess and why: everything with more than 0.45 boron will melt at 04 and with sib:Al of 7.0 will fire as some form of gloss. The relatively high alumina 0.56 ish will make these fairly stiff and maybe difficult to melt at 04 though so there is the possibility of an underfired matte. Just a guess though interesting to see how they all fire.

Just a thought …….. don’t be afraid of reducing your raw silica to get your si:Al ratio towards more matte. Often worth a simple line blend reducing silica to see the effect. Glazy has a free calculator that you could sub materials out, rather than guessing types and quantities.

RT Stull - a long time ago (Ray Thomas Stull, 1875-1944) understanding the Stull chart: https://wiki.glazy.org/t/understanding-the-stull-chart/857.html BTW if you put your glaze in a calculator, you will know some of those numbers which can give you an expectation of the melt.

I think I would add my 240 vac telltale to terminals one and two, non element side. Add a green 12vdc to the SSR control voltage and maybe even an amber 12vdc to the control voltage of the safety relay. I can watch everything operate so to speak. My guess (Hope) is that your meter is a bit out of calibration at the lower voltages. If this was more like 14 volts dc we likely wouldn’t really be having this conversation.

Maybe old school …. Get a 240 vac miniature pilot indicator, hook it to the output of the SSR and L2 neatly and visible. Get a cheap 12vdc miniature pilot lamp and hook it to the control voltage. They both should light and extinguish unless the SSR is stuck on. Neatly done, should be visible through the ventilation slots, different colors so you can tell which is which. Old school, telltale! Keep neat and away from kiln heat. Remove when finished testing.

The transformer is a pretty passive device with a fixed ratio of windings. More likely the input voltage is high, so then why? That goes to does it measure the same as the mains voltage, does the home have an open neutral, etc….. from there if still really high a call to the utility company as you should be limited to 240 vac +/- 10% I believe. Grounding is something I would confirm for sure as it will be used to mitigate any noise on the thermocouple input. Use of an unbonded neutral for the ground can cause noise issues. It needs to be a good earth ground. Since this can still point to thermocouple input issues I would double check that the thermocouple does not contact the metal case. I have seen them inserted a bit off center and when the kiln heated the side of the thermocouple would just touch the metal of the kiln creating all sorts of random noise.