Bill Kielb

Can they have an unglazed bottom or foot ring to allow for display? If not, how about casting a sacrificial ring or tab (maybe 3/16” diameter eyelet) into the bottom, suspend while firing, grind off after finished and finish the remaining dot with paint, or a bigger dot and insert logo? Just thinking …….

I think that might make sense. I think I was assuming the relay was not making any activation noise or a click could not be heard. If the solid state relay is not functioning then your elements would not heat up even with the relay functioning. Hopefully they can recalibrate your controller and update any software patches as well. Sounds like you will finally have this solved.

Since this all started with the Tap screen recalibration, it seems likely that it is the issues solve first. The tap executes a calibration routine after holding your finger in one place for 15 seconds I believe. Software updates may effect this as well so probably good to be in a position to get this connected to the net if not already connected. Not being able to start this kiln by controller is definitely an issue before checking other parts.

Good practice. Worn connections usually will reduce power in the kiln and not necessarily make your breaker trip. Definitely fix the connections though - see this fairly often as well. Pictures of main power to kiln and a decent repair below just as an fyi.

Yes, can you manually operate it with your finger. Push the plunger down until you hear a click. If you hear a distinct click then hold this down and see if your inside relay will fire with this held down. If that all works you need to physically see what needs to be done for the lid to engage this switch when the lid is closed so that the switch is depressed enough so that same click is heard. This is a roller safety switch which I believe Is non adjustable so whatever depresses this is often the adjustable portion. If this all works then great, to troubleshoot further is not hard but will take a bit more writing space. BTW can you confirm the 3 amp glass fuse is fine? Very fine wire so you likely need a meter to check it has continuity. If you have power to your controller some way, then that fuse is fine.

Hmm, has happened but usually shows a decent amount of heating. If you can measure the amperage and it truly in the 45 amp range, I think it’s realistic to replace that breaker for tripping early. The typical overloaded breaker I see on occasion below, which at prox 130f definitely made it early trip and definitely feels hot to the touch.. That yours is not heating is interesting but I think reasonable to replace if you confirm your kiln is drawing approximate 45 amps when measured. The breaker pictured below was not sized correctly (125% minimum) and is not old but it is loaded near 100% of its rating.

Check this after several hours or at least four to five hours of operation. Compare with others for perspective

Just curious after several hours of operation is the breaker cool, warm or hot to the touch compared to the other breakers in the panel?

Yep, turns the relays on and off. Everything gets wired as full power and rhe elements just sequence on and off as needed to climb on schedule.

Any reason you preheat this for so long? Is this your normal practice?

Only time I have seen unique circular and spiral failures were from the trimming and burnishing at the green stage, which in those cases very excessive. Was hoping your picture would reveal the actual crack / blowout. Sorry, that’s all I have at the moment. Anything special to add about the throwing trimming process? “Pictures definitely key here as I have seen circular failures and delaminating especially in bowls where the interiors were overworked in the green stage. Pictures and a little about any special throwing, trimming, ribbing, burnishing etc…. could help narrow this down.”

This may help - I like those as well but their mass is small so I personally have seen them fail on the highest loaded elements in the least cooled ares. They are not big enough or have enough surface area to keep the connection cool for the amount of cooling air passing them. Improving the cooling airflow can help if the convective flow from bottom to top can be improved. Reducing leaks out of the kiln by stuffing with high temp insulation can help for radiant and convective losses as well. The simplest solution has been to extend the element pigtail more and position for best convective cooling, just to get some additional cooling to the connection. conductivity plays a role so copper best, brass next, followed by steel / stainless. An old easy connector to build is drill a brass bolt, use the bolt and two washers. Sandwich the wires between the washers through the drilled hole. Increased convective cooling (heat sink) easy to achieve this way, thermal conductivity less of an issue but surface area as well as mass very important. So this can be done with steel and stainless, just harder to fabricate and not thermally as conductive. 1/4” - 3/8” X an inch or two (Cooling surface area and mass) simple brass bolt and nut depending on the clearance in your cabinet can last forever and be very economical and easy to build.

Really nice! If I could give two thumbs up I would. It would not take much conductivity to leak 5 milliamperes.

@SolidCitizen Vented used to mean propped, perhaps with a peep hole or two out. Some kilns came with a small L shaped prop build into the lid, for others folks would prop the lid and inch or so with kiln furniture to vent. Usually in the first portion of the firing to let out any minor amount of water (steam) being released. If this is on a 2 pole GFCI breaker and the breaker trips then there is leakage at that level. (About .005 amps directly to ground) some GFCI breakers are sensitive and will nuisance trip so changing to a new 2 pole GFCI may work. If this run is out to a garage, the quality of the wire, connections etc… can contribute to the sensitivity. Any junction that is wet or moist can cause minor leakage. In my view, if it is tripping then there is leakage so solving that issue can be difficult. Lots of folks don’t run kilns on GFCI’s, just items within reach of water sources ….. sinks mostly. A well grounded kiln is important though so ensuring a good ground all the way back to the panel AND to a grounding source such as water main and driven ground rod is a must to protect from shock. Here is a link to the old generic Paragon manual https://paragonweb.com/wp-content/uploads/IM104-Paragon-Ceramic-Kilns-April20181.pdf venting is explained among other things. 4 way rotary switch operation explained here https://eadn-wc04-7751283.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/IM-55-Current-Flow-thru-4-way-Switch.pdf A&B service manual https://eadn-wc04-7751283.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/IM5-A-and-B-Paragon-Inst-Man-Jan2017.pdf Your kiln by manufacture requires a 30 amp breaker, btw page 6 guide above. Finally the pilot is likely 240 volt rated neon light. Double check the voltage stamped on the side and replace with proper voltage rated lamp.

Aha ! Better pictures. So it has terminal extensions. If it’s just not working then check the fuse between PIN number 11 of the power switch and pin 4 of the relay. Also check the lid switch if you have one, this kiln will not start without the lid down. There should be an adjustable lid switch that connects when the lid is closed. It may have bent or be slightly out of adjustment. And not to forget to mention, ( not likely but….) the new crimp has to be crimped around bare wire, not just the outer plastic of the wire. A nice tight connection that cannot be pulled out of the connector.

This is a pricey fix to restore depending on parts. I would double check element resistance first. Since this tripped the breaker, something likely arced and depending on what, could be expensive. First step in my mind, make sure the elements are good. What resistance do they measure?

It looks like the blue and yellow connectors were replaced, can you tell me if this is true? He definitely needs crimpers to replace these so they are lasting, the top one does not appear crimped. Could be the picture though. If these are all crimped well and you have a six tab relay then I think we will suggest a very simple fix with terminal extensions. Can you let us know: Are they all factory crimped or crimped well? Do you have a new six tab relay?

I certainly would agree local platelet alignment could affect something but it’s a bit too mysterious and implies unrepairable for me. How to align them without redistributing smaller particles as infill also something of a mystery. I always wondered why the Hammer and Hammer drawing did not have platelets aligned around the 90 degree corners in the direction it was bent? Anyway, simple in my mind is better than what could or might be possible or could influence to happen onward to infinity. If I bend something it will crease, the material has changed locally into some realignment to some extent (The outside of the bend has stretched and the inside has compressed and or buckled). I am not sure the material remembers who or why it was bent, just the effect of the extent dependent on the properties of materials. That its current structure is a reflection of its prior handling and its properties I guess could be termed memory. Memory implies there is no path to normalizing things again it may just reappear because it remembers. IMO I don’t prefer the term in clay it does not clarify how one should manage the material to avoid the “memory” so for me it is ok, but in my experience can add mystery to handling and shaping clay. I think more useful is how to avoid, what to avoid and what work might really be required to fix the material distortion. On the other hand, Memory for me is effectively descriptive and helpful in heavily cross linked plastics such as pex piping which will tend to return to original shape even after severe distortion. Go figure, maybe just me.

There are several models of this so a picture of the equipment tag may help. These kilns all contain interval timer relays which make troubleshooting a bit more difficult. Here is a place to find your wiring diagram https://corp.paragonweb.com/support/kiln-wiring-diagrams/. The timers are obsolete or replacement is fairly pricey so for those electrically savvy and with a bad timer the common suggestion is change the kiln to operate with good ole infinite switches. This kiln has relays, but they are high voltage relays that use the normally closed set of contacts as well as the normally open in their sequence. End result, a little tougher to troubleshoot and folks sometimes try a 12v (low voltage) relay of today’s standards only o immediately burn up the relay. The infinite switch fix becomes a fairly easy all line voltage fix with available cheap parts.

This is for a six pin relay so not really helpful with the eight pin you received. This also does not contain the wires you have in your kiln as none of the common pins have two wires crimped in them like the drawing shows. Not to worry, post a nice clear photo of the relay and wires and we should be able to sketch out something for you to confirm

Post your model kiln for some ideas on troubleshooting. Timer setting, is this a teacher plus kiln or kiln with timers …….

The link I provided should be the Evenheat schematic(s) for the various configuration for your model. According to all the diagrams, terminal 4’s crimp needs to contain 2 wires (red and black) terminal 8 needs to contain 2 wires (red and white) or this will not work electrically, at least for very long. If they are sending relays with 8 terminals instead of 6 this could be confusing. I believe they have a solid state model that does use an 8 pin relay, I don’t see it in any of the diagrams for your model though. Check your wiring against the schematic to be sure though.

I think your diagram here https://www.evenheat-kiln.com/_files/ugd/3a9418_3f21adacb8c84a608e3481349c72110a.pdf. Looks like all crimps have been replaced at one time or another. What I don’t understand is the extra connections to the normally olosed set of contacts on the relay. This is not shown on the diagram, can you describe or show where all these lead? On most relays the normally open contacts will be rated for high amperage - 20-25 amps something like that. The normally closed usually will be a fraction of that, say 2-3 amps. Most kilns don’t use them yet your kiln has wires to them. Interesting. My best guess is someone got the double pole double throw relay and crimped extra connectors on instead of combining the wires as shown in first drawing. In the drawing below a red and black are combined on terminal #4 and a red and white are combined on terminal #8. The way this is currently wired is likely a dead short or running full element current through very low rated contacts as soon as the power is turned on. You can use a relay like that, but two of the connections need remain unused. The normally closed set remain unused. Just looking, the top two relay connections are not colored as published either and the missing green is part of the lid safety circuit.. Tracing all these out and matching them to the diagram is probably wise before firing it again.

I guess to each their own. I think lots of explanations sound complex, most materials don’t really care though. I find treating clay just like we do in construction, the basic properties of materials, has greatest clarity and predictability of outcome. Residual stress sounds good but does not have any meaning to me, it does not add any clarity. When I compress am I adding stress? Residual? What is residual? Memory is too abstract for me as well, one side is stretched, the other compressed. Fold a piece of paper, see why there is a crease there and why it’s difficult to completely remove the crease without altering the local properties of the material to match the surrounding material. Clay has plastic limits like most other material, exceed them and the results are predictable. - to me, memory is a cool thought but again does not really add clarity to what is happening. Two semesters of hydraulics and hydrology help but definitely not the end all for clay. Still has worked well for me constructing roads, sidewalks earthen dams, sub grades, buildings …. Sneaking up on half century now.

While technically possible by temperature rating, ALL the components in the circuit would need 75c rating which for older kilns may not be the case. Kilns are pretty underpowered to start so the old rule of thumb of 3% voltage drop can be punitive IMO. I usually discourage the smallest wire solution and encourage the larger, whether for future expansion or just to limit the voltage drop to less than 1% If possible.