Arnold Howard on thu 5 aug 99
I was wondering what you thought of electronic controllers.
Do you find them frustrating in any way?
Were they frustrating when you first learned to use them?
Do you have any questions about them?
Some controllers can fire a kiln in up to 16 ramps (16 changes in
firing speed, with up to 16 soaks, in either heating or cooling). What
firing would be that complicated? Anything besides crystalline glaze?
I appreciate your input.
Thanks,
Arnold Howard
Paragon
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amy parker on sat 7 aug 99
At 11:32 AM 8/5/99 EDT, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>I was wondering what you thought of electronic controllers.
Arnold Howard
Arnold - I purchased my first kiln with an electronic controller, thinking
this would be the easy way to fire - just program it & forget it! Well,
there was nothing in the manual that described what kind of a program one
should use! I tried the "automatic cone" settings & found that they must
have been designed for thin slip cast ware, as they gave disastrous results
with my thrown and handbuilt pots. Thanks to the generosity of several
people on this list, I was provided with firing schedules, temps & ramp
rates, hold times, and the logic behind the decisions for these schedules,
which was invaluable. I think that the biggest problem with controllers is
the lack of a book that explains all of this, and one that translates "6
hours on low, 2 hours on 1st med, 2 on 2nd med, etc" into degrees and
rate/hr rise.
Have no idea what you would use 16 ramps for, but I'm sure if I had them I
would find something to do with them!
>
amy parker Lithonia, GA
amyp@sd-software.com
Cheryl L Litman on sat 7 aug 99
I have a wall mount controller added this year to my Skutt. I have a
Skutt at camp with an integral controller.
I don't like not being told what the defaults of the thing are:
1. ie how it handles a power failure. At home I forgot to turn my timer
to 20 and it shut off the kiln. I tried to just reset the timer and
press start again. It refused to go back to where it was and it also
refused to start a new session because the kiln was so hot. I probably
didn't catch the trip for an hour so it had cooled substantially. I
don't see why it wouldn't just jump back into the program starting at the
temp currently in the kiln.
2. At camp I need to force the clay dry in the kiln. I have them make the
heavier larger projects on Monday, put them in the kiln to candle
overnight, added Tuesdays smaller projects and wanted to do a shorter
candling before the ramp to final temp. When I shut off the kiln to load
Tuesdays work and then went to start the kiln, the temp already pretty
much reads 175 which is my candling temp. When I checked on the kiln an
hour or so later, instead of candling, it was already in the ramp
portion. It was designed to interpret that the 175 it was starting with
must mean the first portion of the firing had started and was interrupted
therefore it should go to segment 2. I don't see why it can't tell the
difference between a power failure and a hot kiln. Skutt says to blow
air over the kiln to cool it 50 degrees or so below my first temp.
3. I'd like the convenience of not having to program segments just
because I want to add a candling to my cone fire. I would like an option
(for camp - I don't force dry at home and don't need to candle) that lets
me do a 2 segment cone firing - 1 being a candle and 2 being a cone
firing to cone x. Minor annoyance. Just don't like having to play with
more entries than I need to.
Cheryl Litman
Somerset, NJ
email: cheryllitman@juno.com
On Thu, 5 Aug 1999 11:32:43 EDT Arnold Howard
writes:
>
>----------------------------Original
>message----------------------------
>
>
>I was wondering what you thought of electronic controllers.
>
>Do you find them frustrating in any way?
>
>Were they frustrating when you first learned to use them?
>
>Do you have any questions about them?
>
>Some controllers can fire a kiln in up to 16 ramps (16 changes in
>firing speed, with up to 16 soaks, in either heating or cooling).
>What
>firing would be that complicated? Anything besides crystalline glaze?
>
>I appreciate your input.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Arnold Howard
>Paragon
>_____________________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.yahoo.com
Cheryl Litman
Somerset, NJ
email: cheryllitman@juno.com
___________________________________________________________________
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Barney Adams on sat 7 aug 99
Hi,
I think the controller can be a very big benefit especially if you dig into
whats going on to the clay/glaze during the firing cycle. The ramps allow
you
to play with each part of the cycle. Diffrent effects can be attained with
the same glaze by varing the firing characteristics. That means you have to
learn about your kiln and do tests and apply cones and such. The controller
becomes a tool to aid in this goal.
Barney
Arnold Howard wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
> I was wondering what you thought of electronic controllers.
>
> Do you find them frustrating in any way?
>
> Were they frustrating when you first learned to use them?
>
> Do you have any questions about them?
>
> Some controllers can fire a kiln in up to 16 ramps (16 changes in
> firing speed, with up to 16 soaks, in either heating or cooling). What
> firing would be that complicated? Anything besides crystalline glaze?
>
> I appreciate your input.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Arnold Howard
> Paragon
> _____________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.yahoo.com
Gary & Carla Goldberg on sun 8 aug 99
> I was wondering what you thought of electronic controllers.
I have an the Orton Autofire electronic kiln setter and I love it. I
usually use the pre-set settings that come with it. I found this
especially helpful when I started since I was so new to the "firing it
myself" end of things. Now I will program in stuff only if I want to
fire to a different cone than the ones pre-set.
I'm still learning about the firing part, so I don't soak (hold) the
kiln since I don't really know what I am doing.
I'm sure some on the list might find it unconstitutional not to know all
these things, but what I like best about it is that I can concentrate on
making things more and let the kiln do the thinking for me. One day I
will get around to learning the firing end of things.
Bottom Line: 2 Thumbs Up!
Carla in Alaska
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