![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrBack at the studio this morning, helping rewire another kiln. This one went wonky in March, and Laura replaced the relays, but it still was confused. Temperature reading was bouncing all over the place when it was sitting at room temp, not even firing. One of the old relays had been fried, so she thought we might try replacing the wiring, in case any of it was compromised. This was a much easier fix than last week's. We swapped out four red (control) wires leading from the relays to the motherboard, and I also noticed that one of the power leads from the formerly fried unit also looked a little toasted, so we replaced that as well. Once we put the box back on the kiln and plugged it in, it went through a warm-up cycle, announced it was a stable 65° F., and idled, just like it ought to.
The hardest part of the project was getting the kiln settled and level again. They'd traded the Left and Right kilns, because the left outlet needed replacing about the same time the Right kiln failed, so it was very wobbly on its base, rocking back and forth. We finally had to unlatch the bottom slab from the kiln, lift the body off and get everything straight and aligned (incidentally cleaning out some big rust flakes, which had been part of the problem). Lifted the top bits back on, snapped the latches in place, and programmed a quick test firing. Half hour later, it was already over 225° and climbing nicely, so we canceled the program and declared it fixed. The whole job took less than two hours.
Unlike my last kiln repair project. When last we left this tiny trouble-maker, Johnny and I had replaced the elements, but couldn't trim them to length, nor did the connectors fit over them. Laura, replacing the relays, couldn't figure out the wiring arrangement, as the new units were a different style, and had to wait until Tuesday to call the manufacturer, as, unlike potters, they don't work through Memorial Day.
I wound up buying a Dremel and cutting discs, as none of my wire-cutters would make a dent. (Club Mud had a Dremel, but it didn't work; motor spun, chuck did not. I eventually fixed that as well, with a $6.50 part from the internet.) I also took all the connectors home and reamed them out with a drill bit. Eventually, everything was trimmed, assembled, crimped, and ready to plug back into the control box.
Which was still sitting open on the table. The new relays were wired in, but couldn't be attached to the mounting plate, because of stupid bad design. Skutt designed them to attach to the plate, not with sheet metal screws, which could be just screwed in and out from the front, but with little bolts, that required somebody to hold the nuts in place in the quarter-inch clearance between the back of the mounting plate and the box. So we needed to unbolt the mounting plate, but I didn't have my socket set with me, and the mounting nuts were too tightly spaced for any kind of wrench or pliers.
I ended up taking the whole unit to work on at home. Managed to get the mounting plate unbolted, but had to disconnect the power cord and remove its hardware before I could get it free. Once the relays were bolted down, the whole works went together mostly smoothly (one of the power lead screws wanted to cross-thread, but eventually surrendered). And I could finally put the thing back together, three days after we started our one-day repair. Test-fired it last Friday night, and it was fine. All four electric kilns are now officially (knock wood) working again.
tl;dr: I'm really tired of kiln repairs right now.
The hardest part of the project was getting the kiln settled and level again. They'd traded the Left and Right kilns, because the left outlet needed replacing about the same time the Right kiln failed, so it was very wobbly on its base, rocking back and forth. We finally had to unlatch the bottom slab from the kiln, lift the body off and get everything straight and aligned (incidentally cleaning out some big rust flakes, which had been part of the problem). Lifted the top bits back on, snapped the latches in place, and programmed a quick test firing. Half hour later, it was already over 225° and climbing nicely, so we canceled the program and declared it fixed. The whole job took less than two hours.
Unlike my last kiln repair project. When last we left this tiny trouble-maker, Johnny and I had replaced the elements, but couldn't trim them to length, nor did the connectors fit over them. Laura, replacing the relays, couldn't figure out the wiring arrangement, as the new units were a different style, and had to wait until Tuesday to call the manufacturer, as, unlike potters, they don't work through Memorial Day.
I wound up buying a Dremel and cutting discs, as none of my wire-cutters would make a dent. (Club Mud had a Dremel, but it didn't work; motor spun, chuck did not. I eventually fixed that as well, with a $6.50 part from the internet.) I also took all the connectors home and reamed them out with a drill bit. Eventually, everything was trimmed, assembled, crimped, and ready to plug back into the control box.
Which was still sitting open on the table. The new relays were wired in, but couldn't be attached to the mounting plate, because of stupid bad design. Skutt designed them to attach to the plate, not with sheet metal screws, which could be just screwed in and out from the front, but with little bolts, that required somebody to hold the nuts in place in the quarter-inch clearance between the back of the mounting plate and the box. So we needed to unbolt the mounting plate, but I didn't have my socket set with me, and the mounting nuts were too tightly spaced for any kind of wrench or pliers.
I ended up taking the whole unit to work on at home. Managed to get the mounting plate unbolted, but had to disconnect the power cord and remove its hardware before I could get it free. Once the relays were bolted down, the whole works went together mostly smoothly (one of the power lead screws wanted to cross-thread, but eventually surrendered). And I could finally put the thing back together, three days after we started our one-day repair. Test-fired it last Friday night, and it was fine. All four electric kilns are now officially (knock wood) working again.
tl;dr: I'm really tired of kiln repairs right now.