I have an old manual L&L kiln that has an analog pyrometer, 3 thermocouples attached to a central gauge, which recently pooped out on me. I came to realize that I don't need to have them in at all times, since I only need to check the temperatures occasionally in order to turn the switches up or down. They were never really accurate anyway, since I could fiddle with the dial and the needle would fluctuate wildly, but gave me a general sense of where the kiln was.
At first I looked for a digital version of the thing I was using, but then since I couldn't find one, I thought that I ma