Randy McCall on sun 28 nov 04
I have a manual Skutt 1027 Cone 10 that is about 25 years old. I just =
replaced the elements and fired one time=20
and it fired perfectly. Today I was doing another glaze firing and it =
completely quit firing at about 1800 degrees F. I use a pyrometer in =
addition to cones. The kiln sitter nor the timer tripped. The breaker =
on the switch box had not tripped. I did notice the light that is =
always on when the kiln was turned turned would not come on. I tried to =
reset everything, but no power seemed to be getting to the kiln. =20
I am going to get another breaker tomorrow and see if the breaker went =
bad.
Does any one have any other ideas? I would appreciate any suggestions =
or know what I need to check and how I need to check it.
Randy
Pottery Web Site
memberts.tripod.com/~McCallJ/index.html
Andrew_M_Casto@PROGRESSIVE.COM on mon 29 nov 04
Randy,
I just replaced elements on that same kiln as well. In the process, I
discovered that if I did not trim the ends of the elements short enough
(inside the control boxes) the metal connectors would sometimes touch the
shell of the control boxes. This produced various affects (sparks
etc), none of which desirable, but one that acted just like what you've
described. I was testing the kiln to see how well it worked, and out of the
blue, it just shut off. Switches were still on, breaker had not tripped,
but the orange light was out. When I opened it up and adjusted the ends of
the elements (cut them off shorter) the problem went away. I'm no electric
kiln expert (as you can tell I'm sure), but this worked for me, and I
haven't had the problem since. For what it's worth.
Andy
Randy McCall on tue 30 nov 04
Andy thanks for the comments. I took the switch cases off and inspected =
the wiring. I found that the black wire in the cable that goes to the =
main switch box had severely corroded and broke. I had seen some =
corrosion where it hooked to the kiln sitter when I had changed the =
elements, and should have done something about it then. I am going to =
rewire the cable and see if it will work again. Hope it didn't burn =
anything else out. I may have to replace the plug that goes from the =
center to the top as it looks somewhat burned.
This kiln is probably over 25 years old and I don't think the elements =
had ever been replaced. I think that the main cable probably needs to =
be replaced on these old kilns when you get to replacing wires as it is =
probably one item that suffers from a lot of stress. It really works =
great when it was working. =20
I have also sprayed it with itc 100 so I am interested to see how it =
does after I get the cable replaced.
Thanks again.
Randy
Pottery Web Site
memberts.tripod.com/~McCallJ/index.html
Arnold Howard on tue 30 nov 04
An element end or a disconnected wire that touches the kiln's switch box can
produce a loud bang. I've actually seen a 1/2" hole blown through the switch
box from a short.
Sincerely,
Arnold Howard
Paragon Industries, L.P., Mesquite, Texas USA
arnoldhoward@att.net / www.paragonweb.com
From:
> I just replaced elements on that same kiln as well. In the process, I
> discovered that if I did not trim the ends of the elements short enough
> (inside the control boxes) the metal connectors would sometimes touch the
> shell of the control boxes.
Andrew_M_Casto@PROGRESSIVE.COM on wed 1 dec 04
Randy - Funny that you would have to replace the connector between the
boxes - I did that as well, and sprayed with ITC. The kiln works great now.
Skutt makes a new connector kit to go from box to box - I just called them
and told them what type of kiln it was - I think it was about $14. They
won't give you a new plug though - it's a wiring kit to hardwire the rings
together. One thing to watch out for though is that the directions that
came with the kit were instructions to disasemble all 3 plug connectors
(for 3 ring kiln) and hard wire the whole kiln together...I had half the
wiring out of the boxes before I realized I only needed to replace 1 plug.
Just a heads up...Good luck with it.
Andy
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