[Infinite switches breaker tripping]

13 hours ago, neilestrick said:

@Olivia Try disconnecting two switches at a time and see if it only trips with one of them. A meter won't find the short. You have to isolate it to figure out where it is. However having a meter is good for future repairs.

Gave that a go. I isolated each one, disconnecting the others completely. Same result. When the switched is turned on, even to low, the breaker immediately trips. I wonder if it’s worth buying one new switch to test. 

[Infinite switches breaker tripping]

9 minutes ago, neilestrick said:

If it trips immediately, there's a short in the kiln somewhere. If it's happening with all of the switches, then the problem is probably not one of the switches being bad, but rather in the wiring somewhere. It could be the switches are wired wrong in some way. How many elements does the kiln have?

Thanks for the reply.
It has 2 elements per switch, and 3 switches. I’m also not convinced it’s the switches, but I’ve triple checked the wiring and it seems correct. I bought it from someone who was storing it outside I believe, and they weren’t sure when it was fired last. I think I need to buy a multimeter to find the short.

 

[Infinite switches breaker tripping]

Hi! 

I bought an old kiln. It looks really good, barely used.  It’s an Estrin kiln. 240v, single phase, 25 amp. 

I have it wired from a 30 amp breaker. When energizing the lines (plugging it in), everything is good. There are 3 infinite switches and a kiln sitter. The moment any one of the infinite switches is turned on the breaker trips. 

To troubleshoot, I bypassed the kiln sitter, but the breaker still trips. Since it instantly trips, I think it’s a short somewhere, but I inspected all the lines. Everything looks good. 
 

Do faulty infinite switches act like this when they fail? Or should I keep looking for a short somewhere?