blueguell Posted June 19, 2015 Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 I have a paragon A88b kiln which is a fairly old manual kiln. The first and third elements do not heat up. They are not damaged (checked with multi meter ), but they are not getting power to them. When checking the voltage at the connection to the elements, 1 and 3 read 0.something and 2 and 4 read around 118v. The outlet that it plugs into is reading 253v. I looked up the wiring diagram and everything looks right. I guess my next move is to replace the old wiring. Just wondering if anyone has any other thoughts on this situation before I dive into this. Thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pres Posted June 19, 2015 Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 Have you checked connection between blocks on outside of the kiln where elements are connected to the elements inside to check if there is break in kiln wall? Sometimes that happens and is a bugger to find. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilestrick Posted June 19, 2015 Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 Unhook all the wires connected to the elements, and check each element continuity with your meter. If all is good there, very carefully turn the kiln on and turn on the switch that feeds those elements and make sure there's power coming out of the switch. If there is no power there, check that there's power going into the switch. If power is going in but not out, then you need a new switch. If there's no power going into the switch, then you'll need to check the sitter. Basically you need to trace the power back from the elements and see where it stops, possibly all the way back to the circuit breaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueguell Posted June 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 Thanks for the advice guys. So I am about to go into Forrest Gump mode and tell a story that is so long I probably wouldn't read it. If you just want to see how my issue was resolved, scroll down to the last couple paragraphs this is where the story begins .... I started throwing my senior year of high school(2003) and was fairly decent at it. Once I graduated, I didn't really have access to a wheel so that was it for me. Then In 2005 I bought an old wheel and a paragon A88b. The wheel was not able to center more than about 2lbs of clay without the belt slipping, and at the age of 19 I didn't really have the income or the ambition to fix or replace the wheel. So again I gave up on my little hobby. Fast forward 10 years to about 3 months ago, I was flipping through channels on the TV and saw someone throwing on a wheel. This gave me the little spark I needed to buy a new wheel. I ended up buying a speedball clay boss and 25 lbs of clay from clay king. Com. I then finally hooked up that old kiln I bought 10 years before, but I had never fired. Usually for me things never work on the first try, so I was shocked when the kiln actually worked. I bisque fired a load and then did a low fire glaze load to 04 and everything was going well. Then I decided to step up to some cone 6 glazes. First cone 6 firing went great. The next time did not though. I set the sitter and after the final step up to high i went to check on the progress every hour or so. I then noticed the first and third coil weren't glowing red. I had to stop the firing. Not knowing too much about diagnosing the actual problem I decided to replace all of the elements and any broken bricks while I was at it. So $300 later I had basically a new kiln. When I fired it up the first time, all the coils turned bright orange within minutes. I reloaded the glaze load that failed the previous week, and fired that. Everything went just as planned. Then the next day I loaded up my next bisque load. After I reached the point where I had cranked it up to high I started to go check on it every hour or so. Well after the first hour I looked in the peep hole and my stomach sank. Again the first and third coil weren't lit up. So I killed the load and after it cooled I removed the first and third coil. Both looked fine. So that was it for me. I had given up on that kiln. Within 10 minutes I was on Craigslist, kiln shopping. Well I guess it was my lucky day because an ad was posted 2 hours before that for 3 kilns and 300 molds for $300. This sounded too good to be true but I had to check it out. So I go meet the seller and check out the kilns and what do you know, one of them is the same exact model I had just given up on. The other 2 were about 3 times the size of the one I had. The smaller one and one of the larger ones were in good shape. The other big one was pretty rough, but hey, it was basically free at the price for the lot. Well the seller did not have an outlet to check if they worked, so I brought along a multimeter to check the coils. They all checked out good,so I bought them all (plus what must be about 500 plaster molds, couldn't even fit them all in my 10 ft trailer.) So, I get them all home and plug in the small one since I already have a breaker wired up for it. I could not test fire the larger one because that one requires a 50 amp breaker. So I crank the dials to high and turn the lights off and wait to see them light up. First the bottom coil lights up, then the second one from the top starts to glow, and then, nothing. Well that was about my breaking point. I was just so confused. So that brings me to my previous post. Now here is my update. On my way home from work today I stopped at the home Depot and picked up a 60 amp breaker so I could test the larger kiln. I got that all wired up and decided to just check the smaller one one last time. So I plug it in, crank it up and kill the lights. First the bottom coil starts to glow and then to my disbelief the third one starts to glow and then the second and the first. So 10 years, $600, and too many curse words to count later, I am now set up to make coffee cups again. Haha. Thanks for the help guys and sorry for rambling. This was too long to proof read, so sorry for any mistakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowerdry Posted June 22, 2015 Report Share Posted June 22, 2015 I read the whole thing and enjoyed, but then, I'm retired. Welcome to the forum, "Blue", and welcome back to clay. (those are some expensive coffee cups). Wishing you much joy in your clay journey. When you have some time it would be great if you put some info on your profile so we can get to know you better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
High Bridge Pottery Posted June 22, 2015 Report Share Posted June 22, 2015 Not sure what relays you have, my old kiln used to get one of them really hot and I think it had a fail safe and would stop working at about 1000 degC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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