kipn problems
 

I'm quite the noob to glass blowing and have never owned a kiln before. I recently bought a paragon f120 with a sentry xpress 5.0 controller. Its a 120v kipn yet ive been hving nothing but problems, ive finally managed to get it to run up to the desired temp but now after about an hour or so it'll go over the alloted temp and then shut off. I don't know much about electricity type stuff and was hoping anyone might now the cause of this. Thank you so much for your help!

Hi there, and welcome.

I know nothing about that kiln, but when my chili pepper with a different controller has had a problem, it has been the relay. Once it would shut down while coming up to temp. That was a problem with the heating element. On my kiln these are things that I can replace myself.

That is the extent of my knowledge, but others will chime in. Good luck!

Thanks for your reply! I havent had any issues getting it up to temp, I did at first but it had to do with the amount of power it was getting, I was able to fix that but now it'll get up to temp and then after a while go over what I set it too and then it shuts off/becomes unresponsive. It can usually run at 1050 f for about an hour or so before going over and turning off.

have you checked the programming?
Is there a clicking noise from the relay?
Hope you can get it sorted out

I have heard that Paragon were really good at walking kiln owners through troubleshoot problems while on the phone and sending out replacement parts quickly when needed and following up with walking you through the repair once the part gets to you.

I would give them a call.

And I second the idea that it might be a program glitch.

Did you get the kiln new or did you get it from someone used?
Could be that a used machine might have an old program running and it is just doing what it thinks it is supposed to.

Good luck and please come back and teach us what you learned about it.

Phill is right, call paragon. They are usually very happy to help. I have found kiln companies to be very helpful. They want your equipment to work.

Thanks you guys! Yes I am going to give them a call next chance I get. It is a brand new kiln with newest sentry controller. There is a clicking from the relay, what does that mean? Sorry guys like I said i know almost nothing but you guys have been awesome. Any additional info would be great, and once I've given a call I will come back with my results!

If it is a brand new kiln, they will absolutely help you. They walked me through checking my controller, which ultimately had to be replaced. They shipped a new one to me, and then walked me through installing it. All was under warranty, and it has been fine since then.

The relay clicks as it turns on and off to regulate the temperature.

Can you list the steps in your program from beginning to end? Maybe we can confirm or eliminate that as the problem.

So from idle I click start and then choose speed, i tend to use speed 3, then i enter the hold time for qbout 4 hours, and then it will say ramp hold so I input 0, then it just says start and begins the heating process. It doesn't have any issues heating up, it will just go over temperature after a couple hours and then shut itself off/become unresponsive

Hmm. I would have to check out how you do the programs on the new Sentry. On my 3 button, there are several segments I need to go through. Mine is a 2.0 I think so pretty old. It has 9 programs that I set myself - nothing pre-programmed, and each one has I think 4 ramp speed/temp/hold segments.

I finally recieved an email from paragon saying that they think its the controller, they've sent a new one in replacement,thank you everyone for your help and responses!