JohnS

Cool, will check. Not sure on the resistance part yet, need to measure. I'mcone step away from ordering a new kiln anyway so if there's any drama at all then it's getting used as a bisque or raku kiln in future!

Ah, it's possible that it never cycled on amd off in the past and I just never noticed. I'm sure I installed the switches correctly last time, it certainly fired correctly last time I used it. I'll give it another bisque and glaze firing this week and this time remember the witness cones... Cheers.

@neilestrick Hi Neil, yeah, that's not the problem here. At risk of repeating everything again basically the kilns elements aren't cycling when it's turned higher than the ceramic setting.

@Bill Kielb Here's some photos and a definitely not professional wiring diagram I just did with colouring pencils to show what mine looks like. I've replaced the switches and stuff before so they've both new/used less than a dozen times. There was a wire popped out from the section where the power comes in, I'm positive that came out when I took the casing off and the only logical place it came from, I think is the L1 position. It's worth noting that my wiring seems different from the duncan wiring diagram slightly (no cable in the P slot on their diagram), however they don't actually have a diagram for the EA820 6, they've got 2 for the 820 8 instead...

@Bill Kielb Sorry, aye, it's the duncan teacher plus 820 Forgot I wasn't posting on the other duncan kiln thread! One dial that has overglaze, ceramic and hi fire. Ceramic is at 3pm and hi fire is at 1pm which makes me think that it'll never reach the high fire temps and that this was the problem.

@Bill Kielb hey Bill, Pots turned out as fine as could be, it didn't reach temperature, the cone 6 pyrometric cone barely bent so while the colours never came out at least they didn't run all over the shelves! I took a look at the kiln today and basically what I'm finding is that the elements kick in as normal up until the 3pm mark, after that they don't cycle on and off. Any ideas what might be the issue there? I took a look at the wiring and everything seems as normal, however I did forget to mention before that when I turned the kiln on for the first time in a while to do that last firing I heard a wee pop and it tripped the circuit, I put it down to dampness in the pottery shed as the kiln fired up on the next try (no wires are melted, elements are all working, nothing visual certainly). Cheers

Phew! Cheers Bill, put my over active mind at rest. "Generally clay fluxed reactions take place in the last 100c, last 200c should be pretty safe." Thats great info to have. Thanks.

Quick question (hopefully) - Using a old duncan electric kiln with kiln sitter I was doing a glaze firing today, wanted to take it slow so I loaded it up at 6.30 and then once an hour I turned it up 1 "hour" (manual kiln with kiln sitter and dial), I did this for the first 4 hours and then whacked it up to the HiFire setting which is what I normally use. However... I went back after 9 hours total and noticed that it was still firing which is unusual as its normally done by then, I realised that I must've went slightly past the HiFire setting as the infinite switches weren't clicking on and off however the kiln was still on. Using an infared thermometer I estimate that it stuck at around 1050c for let's say 6 hours. I've turned the dial back slightly and now the switches are working. My question is - have I just lost all the pots in the kiln? The kiln sitter didn't drop (cone 6), should I switch it off now or let the sitter do it's job? A lot of potentially runny glaze in there and it's the one time I didn't find my witness cone stands so haven't used them! Cheers John

Hey, Aye, so, it does seem like a fast firing kiln, for me I've found this not to be a problem certainly with the clay and glazes I've been using. Cones bend properly meaning that it's reaching it's temperature and for the correct duration, I'm sure that for some folk using certain glazes then the results might not be quite what they're looking for, but if you're happy with how your work is turning out Amd the colours your getting then it's a win! What I tend to do these days is turn the dial to 11 o'clock and leave for and hour and the peephole open, then put them back in and turn to 10 o'clock for another hour, then dial it up to ceramic for a bisque fire. I think I got an 11 hour fire last time doing that. For cone 6, I repeated the initial step but kept ramping up an hour at a time for the first 4 hours then whacking it up to hi-fire, last firing I got 9 hours for a glaze I think. Then it was a case of letting it cool down properly before opening and everything had fired properly/food safe. It seems to be a decent cheap kiln so long as the switches and elements work and you don't mind dialling it up manually for the first few hours. Good luck!

In the off-chance that any needs to replace the infinite switch - I just replaced mine with this and it works a treat. Very easy to fit, just take out one plug at a time and match it up to the new one. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141185298305?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=4uGYTVfwQOK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=iC-XyCNQT4W&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY And very cheap, cost me £8.

They're quite heavy so they don't move around a lot. I put mine on the back seat of a convertible mini and drove about 300 miles from the borders of Scotland to the islands and it never moved. If it can take those roads, it can take anything

A quick way to sort this out would be to buy a thermostatic "gun" from amazon. Mark the clock face around the dial on the kiln and move from where you think is off anti clockwise measuring every 30 mins at each hour (when I did my test I measured every 30 mins and 1 hour at each hour to see if it was increasing). This should give you an idea. It might just be the case that yours is just going on or off and not stopping at the correct heat, or there could be something with the other switch that you have. Give the gun a go and mess around with the settings would be my advice to know once and for all.

Ah right, we have slightly different models so I can't speak as to what's best for that toggle. I know I made a rookie mistake of firing either not enough pieces or pieces that had been half fired before (because, like you, my firing was too quick). So certainly what worked for me was (and my kiln is just an automatic so I'm presuming the switch at the auto position might make it similar to mine) - Set it to auto Stick in a shelf's worth of stuff Make sure that both elements are heating up (my switch was bad and only the bottom element was working for me initially - there's another long thread about that) Use the firing schedule I posted in the previous comment and ignore the UNDERGLAZE HI FIRE settings etc. Just do it manually. Last time I did this it fired in about 9 hours to cone05 whereas before, using the predetermined UNDERGLAZE etc it did it in about 3 as well. I'm guessing that because these kilns are fairly old that the automatic part goes over time. Edit - everything is relevant to the flat bit under your dial equalling the direction of the arrow I.E. If the flat bit is at 12 o'clock then when you put the dial back on then the arrow should be at 12 o'clock as well. Let us know how you get on.

Imagining the dial like a clockface try this firing schedule, last time I used my kiln (I'm getting electrical work done in my "studio" so not used it in a couple of months) this worked for me with this kiln. I started at 10 o' clock and sat there for two hours, increased to 8:30 for an hour and 50 minutes, then to 7 o' clock for an hour and 10 minutes, then moved to "Overglaze" setting for two hours, then to "Ceramic". It shut off after an additional 2 hours and 40 minutes. Everything seemed to come out nicely and gave me around a 9.5 hour burn. After this I invested in a pyrometer so I could dial things in more scientifically.

I think we have the same kiln, but... What's the low manual toggle?

Ha, no problem, after all the help you guys gave it's about time I reciprocated! I've actually got temperatures for each "clock position" for this model that I should post as well, might be useful for people with this same model.

Can confirm the flat bit is where the centre is, mine doesn't have a knob either and I used a temperature gun to work out the heat output at different positions. Flat at 12 o'clock is "off"

Hey, what I'd do is pull the knob off and see where the flat bit is. The flat bit should basically be the location where the arrow should be.

Hey, I definitely can't help with this question, but... I would suggest starting a new question I case people in future have the same issues - a bit easier for people to search that way.

That would be great thanks. Cheers for the answers. Might to try to give it another go tomorrow then. Cheers

Haha, great news! Yeah, I'm kinda thinking the same about a new kiln, but at the same time I don't think I'm a million miles away from getting this working so am keen to give it a bash. Couple of questions if you don't mind: The dial knob is missing on mine, can you confirm that the flat bit is basically where the arrow would be to indicate what it's pointing at? Because there's no knob I'm kinda guessing where things are, so, when I turn the dial (anticlockwise) I eventually get 3 *clicks* but they don't seem to line up with overglaze, ceramic and hi fire, do you get the same with yours and if so at what point do they click. And if you set it to off, does it actually go off, mine doesn't, the orange light would stay on. Lastly When I turned the dial to what I thought was ceramic I fired to cone 05 but it reached temp in about 3 hours, I tried doing it at overglaze as well and got the same result. I then tried turning it to probably about 11 o'clock and got it in about 13 hours. Were you getting this issue as well? I just ordered a thermometer gun style thingy (technical term) and so am going to measure the actual heat but I'm sure there's a proper method for doing this so going to open a question to the guys and see what the best way to do this is. Cheers for your comment! John

Hey @Catatonic, did you ever get a firing schedule that worked? I've only just now got my kiln up and running after having a dodgy relay, which the guys kindly helped me with here, and now looking to get bisque firing, but like you I found that setting to ceramic shuts off after about 3 hours. Any joy? Cheers

Catatonic - Unfortunately due to an electrical issue that's become apparant when hookin up the kiln it's gonna be a wee while until I can report back (raging!). I'm from Skye, where it doesn't rain as much as people think! Good luck!

Cheers Bill, this kiln is defo a starter kiln and we'll see what happens.

Hey Bill, Thanks for the reply, Yeah I did think that it didn't make sense to bisque to that cone and was only going to test it out to rule it out. I've attached an image to show what it says on page 11 of the manual, although it mentions the 3 cone method on the previous page, which I understood, the table that it shows doesn't actually say that, it says "commonly used firing cones" and then shows 6-10 which isn't suggesting that you use 3 of these as for stains it just says 04. That is the confusing part. Also, the other confusing part in the second image is that it specifically says "firing stages will automatically advance unless power is interrupted" suggesting that no user input is needed, if you have the manual version of this kiln it tells you to start on low for 2 hours then move to high etc, again the confusing part of this is that the wording for the automatic version suggests you don't need to manually do this (hence the automatic). I'm not doubting you or anyone of course and I'll definitely be trying all methods kindly provided here as well (it does look like people are using different models though). My 06 witness and pyro cones literally just arrived but have to wait on others so I'll give it a go today or tomorrow and see what happens Cheers John