Olympic vs L&L vs Seattle Pottery...

[SVV]

Hi, I currently own a Skutt  KM818 kiln on it's own 50 AMP breaker.  I only low fire to cone .05-.06

I want to  get a smaller (test type) kiln to fire glaze test tiles and maybe a small item or two  (cone .05).

Anyone have any thoughts on a kiln from Seattle Pottery?  They build their own kilns. 12" kiln #30123, cone 10, WDC - 240 v, V6CF digital controller. 12" x13"

vs Olympic 1214HE - test kiln, cone 10, 240 v.  11.25" x 13.5"

vs L&L doll kiln KLH11, 24 key controller, cone 10, 240 v. 11" x 9" (smallest size capacity)

I only have experience with my Skutt which is great but takes a while to fire and cool down plus I don't want to only put a few items in it to fire.

I would appreciate any input.

Thank you,

Sandy

[liambesaw]

I have 2 seattle pottery kilns (formerly crucible kilns) and they work quite well.  But then again, I feel like any kiln will work quite well, they're all essentially the same now, with the exception of l&l which are engineered to be easy to do maintenance on.

[SVV]

Thank you!

[neilestrick]

Little test kilns don't have a lot of bricks, and the lids don't weigh much, so they tend to hold up pretty well regardless of what brand you get. The main things you need to look at are the power requirements. Some run on 120 volts but need a 20 or 25 amp breaker- you can't just plug them into a regular household circuit since those are usually 15 amps. Other test kilns run on 240 volts, so you'll need dedicated line installed for those.

5 hours ago, SVV said:

but takes a while to fire and cool down

If you want to get the same results as your bigger kiln, you'll probably need to do a controlled cooling with the baby kiln. Little kilns cool too quickly for many glazes. And if you run tests that you plan to use in the bigger kiln then you'll definitely want to slow down the cooling to mimic the cooling rate of the bigger kiln.

5 hours ago, SVV said:

Skutt  KM818 kiln on it's own 50 AMP breaker

That kiln pulls 26.7 amps, correct? Check the serial plate to verify, but if so then it should be on a 40 amp breaker. Code says that kilns should be on a breaker that is 25% greater than the draw, but not more than 50%. In both cases that puts your kiln on a 40 amp breaker. They use the 50 amp power cord on all their kilns, but you still need to size the breaker accordingly. The wires and outlet for the 50 amp circuit don't need to be changed since you can go bigger than you need, but the breaker should be changed to a 40.

[SVV]

Neilestrick....I had my garage wired by an electrician for my Skutt. Are you saying the breaker is to big for my skutt? What can happen? I’ve had my Skutt two years this April. Also, I was hoping to plug my new ‘little kiln’ in this same outlet. (Unplugging the Skutt.) I'm only looking at 240 v little kilns.
I only use low fire glazes, would they need a controlled slower cooling in a little kiln?

thanks for your input.

sandy

[SVV]

I’ve been doing more research on this site and came across something that I think answers my question above...”And btw you don't want to install equipment like this on a breaker that's bigger than the manufacturer's requirements, because part of the safe installation of the equipment is making sure the breaker will actually trip and shut everything down should something go wrong. Bigger breaker means it might not trip until serious damage has been done to the kiln. It's a fire hazard too - you want things to shut down BEFORE you've got an electrical fire on your hands.”

thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will have the breaker changed out.

Sandy

[neilestrick]

24 minutes ago, SVV said:

I’ve been doing more research on this site and came across something that I think answers my question above...”And btw you don't want to install equipment like this on a breaker that's bigger than the manufacturer's requirements, because part of the safe installation of the equipment is making sure the breaker will actually trip and shut everything down should something go wrong. Bigger breaker means it might not trip until serious damage has been done to the kiln. It's a fire hazard too - you want things to shut down BEFORE you've got an electrical fire on your hands.”

thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will have the breaker changed out.

Sandy

Exactly. Most electricians don't know anything about kilns, and yours should have deferred to the  manufacturer's recommendations or at the very least read the serial plate to see what the amperage draw was. And you will not be able to plug your new test kiln into the same outlet, because the breaker will be too big. If you don't want to run a whole new line for the test kiln, you could install a 50 amp sub-panel in the kiln room and run the two outlets from that. Depending on the kilns, you may or may not be able to fire them at the same time with that setup, though.

Whether or not you need to slow cool that test kiln will depend entirely on the glazes. If you're running tests of new glazes, I would definitely mimic the cooling of the bigger kiln for starters, then run a test later to see how it behaves cooling quickly. I do a programmed cooling cycle in all 3 of my kilns so I get the exact same results despite them being different sizes.

[SVV]

I had a 40 Amp breaker put in. Thank you everyone for all your help.

Sandy