Quote:
Originally Posted by LarryC
looks like a manual setup with no controller. If so, you will have to babysit it throughout the annealing process and manually control the heat. This is really a lot of work to do well.
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Hello, so Like Larry states, you will have to do this manually and babysit.
On a digital controller depending on the glass and what you are trying to do, you would set something up like a 6 phase firing. slumping or full fusing - that changes the temps in the program
The difference between the digital controller and the manual, is that the digital controller lets you program all the ramp and temp settings and hold times for the 6 phases all at once then the controller runs the job. A manual controller makes you do it by hand, I step at a time.....
so for 6 ramps on a digital controller you would setup the 6 phases on the controller just like a computer program, which is basically all it is.
phase 1 is usually warming up the glass slowly to keep it from cracking. so phase 1 might look like 250/hr ( for rate) 1050 for temp, 30 min hold so that the glass soaks up the heat at 1050 for 30 minutes.
so on a manual kiln you have to think like a computer program.
phase 1 is going to set your dial to a setting that takes it up to around 1050 then you have to watch it for 30 minutes, then at the end of 30 minutes, you have to manually change the settings to meet whatever they are for phase 2. I see on your kiln, it's high low and then settings 1 - 5.
Whatever one of those settings takes the kiln up to 1050 is the one you would pick and then leave it sit at that temp for 30 minutes. You would basically then have to do the exact same thing for each of the 6 phases and set your dial to take it to those temps for that phase and monitor it by hand for the hold times.
That means basically whatever a 6 phase digital controller is doing, you are going to duplicate on the dial of your kiln, one phase at a time, which also means you have to be in front of it for most of that. Of course on a program that lets things soak for an hour, you can actually walk away from it for 55 minutes LOL
One thing you might want to search on - some kilns allow you to replace the controllers. That's usually cheaper than replacing the entire kiln. you may be able to swap the manual controller out for a digital one. Check with Paragon on that.
Also before ruining a bunch of glass, turn your kiln on and monitor it while heating and note what each of the settings takes the temps to. when you set to 1 what's the temp. When you set to 2 what's the temp on the meter on the front.....etc. That will help you a lot in determining what settings to use and also give you a good idea on what firing schedule to use. Most of the glass manufacturers provide firing schedules with their glass. I know bullseye and spectrum system 96 both provide on their websites.