Olympic kiln replaced all elements and relays still not firing properly!

[Moo]

So just replaced all elements and relays in my 3031HE Olympic kiln after having an E1 code I hired an electrician to help with the relays and I installed the new elements, got it all hooked up and fired it that evening after he left and 13hrs later it’s still trying to fire and was only at 1488 was not throwing an error code stopped the firing and called electrician back out went over the wiring and did a paper test on the kiln elements none of the elements in the middle of the kiln scorched the paper just the top 2 and the bottom ??? Ran the paper test until the kiln reached about 300 degrees and still no scorched paper in the middle elements electrician wants me to keep kiln firing and see if it throws an error code , anyone have any input ?? All the elements are new , relays are new and 90% of the slide on connectors are new what else could it possibly be ? 

[neilestrick]

@MooRunning it longer won't help if the middle elements aren't getting hot. There's probably something wrong with the relay- either it's dead or it's not getting the signal to switch. If the control wire for the relays is daisy chained across all 3 relays, then it's not a control issue. New relays can die if the wires going into and out of them are old and causing them to overheat, or if you simply got a bad relay (I once had an entire batch of 16 that were defective). First swap the bad one with one of the good ones and see if the middle section works then. If it does, then you know you've got a dead relay. If the relay wires haven't been replaced in a while, it might be time. If they're discolored at all then definitely replace them.

[Moo]

Ok I’m glad I ordered extra relays !! I have some spare wire too!  I’ll have my electrician come back out and we can swap the relays and change out the wires if they look rough , how often should I change out my elements and relays to avoid my kiln being down like it is now ( kiln has been down for 2 weeks waiting for parts to come in ) I have been told every 100 firings to replace all elements  I do about 100 firings  ( cone 06) in a month or 2 that seems like a lot of parts to replace in a short time I just replaced relays and elements in the end of Oct 2019 , also do you have any suggestions on parts or any upgrades I can do to get more firings out of my kiln before replacing parts ? Thanks! 

[Bill Kielb]

1 hour ago, Moo said:

Ok I’m glad I ordered extra relays !! I have some spare wire too!  I’ll have my electrician come back out and we can swap the relays and change out the wires if they look rough , how often should I change out my elements and relays to avoid my kiln being down like it is now ( kiln has been down for 2 weeks waiting for parts to come in ) I have been told every 100 firings to replace all elements  I do about 100 firings  ( cone 06) in a month or 2 that seems like a lot of parts to replace in a short time I just replaced relays and elements in the end of Oct 2019 , also do you have any suggestions on parts or any upgrades I can do to get more firings out of my kiln before replacing parts ? Thanks! 

You likely should get about 150 mixed bisque and glaze firings out of a set. Easy to measure resistance brand new, write it down and as they age the resistance increases. After about 10% increase they need to be changed because they just don’t have enough power to complete a glaze fire fast enough. Pretty easy to do the math once you know what a good set of elements should measure. It’s important to know with reasonable accuracy though as they will change from ..... let’s say for example 20 to 22 ohms. As far as relays going bad, it’s disappointing your electrician did not just figure out if they were all working. Relays are pretty tolerant and robust so they tend to function for a long time before failing. It’s not impossible to get a bad one though, but fairly rare.

Using solid state relays should get a bit more firing out of an element set, but at this point is not a drop in substitute nor something most can tackle. Prefiring new elements properly is probably the easiest way to maximize element life at this point.

See top five ways from Skutt, has pretty good suggestions :https://skutt.com/images/Top-5-ways-to-Extend-the-Life-of-your-Kiln-Elements.pdf

last add: I once installed 240 volt pilot lights across each relay for a guy so he could easily see if all his relays were firing. Old school neon lights so they would add negligible load to the kiln and still be a reasonable indication that each relay was working. Back in the day we would call this a tell tale to make intermittent problems more apparent,  There might be an led pilot out there today that would work. It was cheap and pretty visual for him but only indicated that the relay was working.

 

[neilestrick]

1 hour ago, Moo said:

Ok I’m glad I ordered extra relays !! I have some spare wire too!  I’ll have my electrician come back out and we can swap the relays and change out the wires if they look rough , how often should I change out my elements and relays to avoid my kiln being down like it is now ( kiln has been down for 2 weeks waiting for parts to come in ) I have been told every 100 firings to replace all elements  I do about 100 firings  ( cone 06) in a month or 2 that seems like a lot of parts to replace in a short time I just replaced relays and elements in the end of Oct 2019 , also do you have any suggestions on parts or any upgrades I can do to get more firings out of my kiln before replacing parts ? Thanks! 

If you're only firing to cone 06, you should get a lot more than 100 firings from your elements. In a mix of cone 06 bisque and cone 5/6 glaze we expect to see about 150 firings. At just 06 you should get double that or more. I've got a customer I was just talking to last week who has just under 500 firings on her elements at only cone 06 firings. Relay life depends entirely on how cool they stay when firing. The design of the kiln determines that. I see some brands that kill relays in 200 firings, others that go 500+ firings. There is evidence that downdraft vents will increase element life a bit.

[Moo]

I called Olympic this morning and was told the relays could not be bad and it must be wiring , I sent them some photos and they can’t give me a clear answer on the daisy chain from relay to relay would like to post a pic of it here but won’t let me post 

[neilestrick]

@moo A relay could definitely be bad, or it could have failed during the first firing. Swap it with a good one and see what happens.

[Moo]

I swapped relay , electrician had power in and power out backwards , electrician is back and is arguing with Olympic , Olympic is saying that Line 1 and Line 2 are irrelevant and doesn’t matter how they are hooked up on the relay as long as they are hooked up on power in , electrician is saying there has to be a line 1 and line 2 on each post and there cannot be 2 line 1 or 2 line 2 on a relay , thoughts ?? 

[neilestrick]

Power in and Power Out can be switched, it doesn't matter. You just have to make sure that the power in is properly distributed from the main power. That is, the left tab is from one hot, the right tab is from another hot, but it doesn't matter 1 and 2, 2 and 1.

 

[Min]

From Olympic. Page 3 and 4

http://www.greatkilns.com/media/wysiwyg/PDF/RELAY_REPLACEMENT.pdf

BTW I use one of my kiln mostly for ^05 bisque, it has a counter of the number of firings I get,  215 and still firing fine.

"would like to post a pic of it here but won’t let me post" try reducing the size of it. 

[Roberta12]

I do know that I have had a problem or two with a thermocouple wire coming loose as I was putting everything back together.  It escaped my notice until the kiln wouldn't fire.  I think I had a relay wire that was faulty one time, as well.  Maybe just one more thing to check?