Don Jung on sun 29 jun 97
Hi all, hope your summer is shaping up to be a fine one.
I'm writing on behalf of a fellow potter who's bought and refitted an
old amaco electric kiln with new elements and is firing it up for the
first time...in a long time (3+ years left sitting around after regular
use for several years).
All was well until it started to smoke in the control box. I've
confirmed all the wiring connections, amps, phase, and fuses are
ok...and that all the elements are ok as well. Individually turned on,
each element turns up very nicely. Turn more than one element on and
the wiring starts to heat up and smoke. Some dark 'goop', resin or
deposits in the conduit seems to be heating up and smoking.
Question: Should we continue to fire it and 'burn off' the deposits or
replace the wiring and conduit with fresh wires? I expected some, but
the amount of smoke is surprising. Replacement is probably the surest
route, but the heat from the wiring must be considerable to make it
smoke like that...shall we up the gauge as well...or is it normal? Any
advice on how to proceed is much appreciated?
Details: 208V, 3 phase, 16.7A, 28x28x28 dimensions, 30A breaker, 30A
ON/OFF switch, kiln sitter & Controller, 6 elements.
thanks
--
Don
email: dojun@axionet.com
Lauren Ball on tue 1 jul 97
> I'm writing on behalf of a fellow potter who's bought and refitted an
> old amaco electric kiln with new elements and is firing it up for the
> first time...in a long time (3+ years left sitting around after
> regular
> use for several years).
>
I got my first kiln from a school paid $30.00 for this old Amco. I paid
$85.00 for a transformer to convert 208V to 220V. I replaced all the
wiring. I found that some previous owner had used some plastic coated
stuff not appropriate for a kiln. Maybe someone did the same to yours.
Wiring isn't that expensive. Just carefully replace one wire at a time,
to avoid confusion. Better safe that sorry. You could end up losing
insulation in a critical spot and end up with a fatal short.
Lauren
| |
|
