Help with a brand new Cone Art Kiln

[Forest River Pottery]

I just Purchased a GX2327D  Cone Art Kiln. I just completed all safety firings in accordance with manufacturers ops manual. Followed all Bartlet instructions for all firings. I fired to Cone 6 to set elements in Accordance with ops manual. 2232 degrees F.  No error codes. Diagnostics indicated TC were detween 50 and 60. %.  Temperature in all 3 sections indicated all the same at the same time. Shut off at programmed schedule. Therefore non eventful. Perfect. Heres where it gets confusing. I had placed on all shelves cones 5,6,7 As per manual. All shelves indicated in essence a perfect firing. In my kiln it so happens  2232 was a cone 6.5 almost a full 7 on one middle shelf. Bottom shelf indicated it didn't even reach temperature. At all! All elements were glowing during first test and all peeps were glowing during the final test. 
I trusted the digidal meter readings and Have move forward with a production firing. One cone on that shelf did fall over. So therefore I evaluated the Cones as such; cone 5 had a malfunction. Maybe water not sure. Cone 6 fell over and cone 7 Which made my decision to move forward with a production firing, was slightly bent. So here I am looking at the diagnostics during this firing all temperatures and all three sections are sitting exact but my thermal couple TC three is only firing at 26% TC two at the moment is firing at 100% and TC one is firing at 57%. My question is; Is this normal? The thermal couples are reading the temperatures and they indicate all the same pretty much, but the percentages below the temp show a completely different story. Is  there something wrong with the actual lower section of my kiln. It seems the other two sections are compensating for power hence the TC two firing at 100%. I will have to change out that TC 2 way early in its life and change out that TC3 or am I reading the diagnostics chart incorrectly? Or is there another problem. Elements?  Please help. It’s a long weekend up here in Canada and I don’t have anyone to call.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Forest River Pottery

[Bill Kielb]

Depending on the load AND the elevation AND the extra envelope losses from top and bottom each section likely fires differently. That is why a three zone kiln is more even than a single zone. They ought to be at different percentages responding to the zone load. So not saying you are perfectly calibrated that’s usually a job to tweak for the first few firings.

Try not to get too hooked on FINAL temperature, cones bend by temperature plus time (Heatwork) basically 108 degrees per hour in the final 200f degrees of the firing (center column of Orton). The Orton cone chart shows this for three different ending speeds. The controller will try and adjust for the rate achieved in each section and overall heatwork.

I am not sure you have any problem, fire with cones all zones with normal loading to dial this in as close as practical.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Bill Kielb

[neilestrick]

@Forest River Pottery Typically the bottom and top work the hardest, and the middle works the least. The fact that the middle is running at 100% doesn't make much sense unless it's really early in the firing, in which case it's possible. I would check that all the thermocouple connections are secure. Make sure a TC wire hasn't broken under the screws in the TC block. Also make sure the middle and bottom thermocouple wires aren't swapped somewhere along the line. Typically that would cause an error pretty quickly, but ConeArt are kind of unique with the floor element and graded elements. Have you checked the resistance and/or continuity of the elements to make sure they're all correct and not broken?

[Forest River Pottery]

Thank you Neil and Bill.  Its a brand new kiln and working out the qwerks. I took all advise. 
3 firings in and works like a charm. I did get hung up on the details. Secondly I have no idea how to use the cone offset feature or the thermocouple off set. The manual does not help at all. Either of them.  They just don't go into it. I also find the manual generic in its info so even programming the genesis 2.0 was a bit different. All in all, figuring it out and loving it! Again thank you.