WHC228@AOL.COM on sat 19 jan 02
I have to agree with John. I have 3 electric kilns that I use. I fire one of
them every day, while the others are cooling or being loaded. Not only are
the controllers more reliable they allow my to have my life. I do not have to
be watching them constantly.
Once the kiln has gone through a few cycles with large witness cones placed
throught the kiln you should be able to zero in on a perfect firing. Since
most of the new controllers supervise three zones in the kiln and are
adjustable through their offset option in the controller, you are able to
controll all zones to be exactly the same.
Bartlett makes a lot of the controllers that are availible on many of the
electric kilns being sold today. They also an add on that will allow you to
supervise what your kiln is doing from your computer. This program is called
KISS. It is easy to use and allows you to do your programing from the
computer. It also generates a graph of each firing. The information that it
collects is stored so that you can compare it to your previous firings. I
can't imagine anyone trying to grow crystals not having both the controller
and the KISS program.
There is a lot of safety features built into these controllers, and I feel
that they are a lot safer than a kiln sitter. I have had too many failures
with them. No fires, but lots of ruined pots.
I always put large witness cones in every kiln. I put in three sets. I do
that to insure that nothing has gone wrong.
Sometimes an element will fail, and once I had a relay fail. Even then the
load of pottery came out because the controller did its job.
I do not live at the same location that my studio is located. I have a
computer at home too. It is set up with a PC ANYWHERE program from SYMATECK
that allows me to ckeck the kilns from home too. When there is a storm I can
just turn on the computer and know what is going on in the studio.
Time and temperature is what bends cone and melts glaze. If it is the same
every tim the results will be too.
Make friends with a controller, and let it make your life better.
Bill Campbell
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