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Question for kiln experts about a really old kiln

S

stockremovaldroid

Joined
Dec 14, 2020
Messages
2
That is an old burnout kiln. Those old fellows are designed to heat up on high and then hold around 1300°F. Accuracy wasn't needed for what they were designed to do.
It appease to run in three heat levels - OFF - LOW - HI. The only way to regulate it would be to flip the HI switch on and off manually.
It will do carbon steel HT only. The stated top ranges will be hard to hit and will greatly shorten the coil life if you try. I would work and could be converted to PID control, but when the coils burn out it will be a big deal to rewire.
The back of that thing is an electrocution nightmare!
The coils are going to have to be carefully avoided with metal blades or there will be trouble!

If it was free, then make a cover shield for the back, add a simple PID control, and use it until it burns out. Then you can re-wire it with a more normal coil.
 
I have some normal coil laying around from an oven build that I never finished so I might try to just rewire this now in order to be able to hit the higher temperatures needed for stainless steels. The fire brick looks sufficient for that, right?

And I'm working with an electrician and he said the same thing about the back! Said he wouldn't touch it until there's a cover over it, I can't believe they just ran with that kind of stuff back in the day.

Thanks for the response! That gives me some clarity.
 
I'm currently using a 110v pottery kiln that i wired a PID and SSR to control. Installing the controls was pretty straight forward, I wired the SSR into the main power wire before the switches so I can turn the elements off and still see the temp.

Mine barely gets hot enough for AEB-L (1950°) but it has normal wire elements.

If you already have that kiln, I'd probably do as was already suggested and buy a PID/SSR kit off of Amazon or ebay for ~40 and run it until it burns out and then make new coils for it.
 
The back looks cobbled together in a rebuild. I would NOT use it for stainless HT, as the bricks are not made for that.
 
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