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Kiln wiring


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Hello, am Edward from Africa, Am really glad to be on this educative platform.  Am here for the first time and am already  appreciating  your contribution to various questions... Kindly assist me solve my current puzzle am really burning inside out  with a dilemma, I've constructed a   kiln from scratch. It has 20 heating elements. Each element has the power rating of 2400 watts drawing power from a 240V. I designed these elements.They have the same resistance. My problem is  that when I connect the coil in series or parallel the heat produced is very low as they do not heat up red hot. When I connect a single element to the power source,the element really heat up very well. How do I connect the 20 elements so that I get an even heat distribution? ( I want it to operate on a single phase)

Please assist me. I will really appreciate your contributions.

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13 minutes ago, Dick White said:

Two similar elements connected in series will generate one/half the heat of one element alone. Two similar elements connected in parallel will generate twice the heat of one element alone.

Thanks  White. Will the 10amps breaker work for all the 20 elements? 

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It sounds like your power source is not able to supply all elements in parallel. A 2400 watt element with 240v across it draws 10 amps. 20 of these in parallel would be 200 amps. That would be 48000 watts of heating energy. Very large home kilns are approx 12000  watts of energy. Each element right now should be 24 ohms as you have designed.

So my sense is when you connect several of these in parallel whatever power supply you are using has a severe voltage drop and they do not heat up as expected. I would combine these in series parallel to get down to 12000 watts which means an overall resistance of about 5 ohms. Unless you have built the biggest kiln ever, 48000 watts is too much. At 12000 watts your power supply will need to be capable of supplying 240 v @ about  48 amps without significant voltage drop.

Edited by Bill Kielb
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