Bartlett Controller..HELP

[Diane]

Well...here I am, I finally decided on a new kiln. I went over to Marty's at Centre DeVerre and picked up my new JenKen Oval 13. After a stressfull proceedure of unloading it and getting it into the shop, it's now all set up and ready to go.
Up until now I have been using an older ceramic kiln with a pyrometer and babysat it during firings to TRY to get a good schedule.
Now I have this bright and shiney new kiln with a Bartlett controller but the manual reads like greek to me. (I'm a hands on learner)
Could one of you more experienced users help a newbie by posting or emailing me a real SIMPLE step by step guide to programing. (Kiln programing for Dummies)
Has anyone ever had a thread of firing schedules? I've tried to search the archives but haven't found too much.
Thanks for any help you can give.
Diane

[Tony Smith]

Hi Diane,

Which Bartlett controller do you have? The three button, the 12 button or the 24 button?

Once you undertstand the logic behind programming a controller, it becomes pretty easy.

The basics that you need to think of are the following:

"Program" or "Schedule". A program is the series of steps required to complete a firing. Your controller may have the capability of storing 6 different programs. You might store programs for full fuse, tack fuse, slumping, paint firing, ceramic fiber burnout and shelf drying. In your controller, they would be assigned numbers 1 through 6.

"Step". Each program has a number of allowable steps, which is the number of separate ramp rates, set points, and soaks that each program can hold. You only use as many steps as you need for a particular program, up to the maximum number of steps. Each step is assigned a number.

"Ramp" or "Ramp Rate" which is how fast the kiln increases or decreases in temperature. For instance, your first ramp rate may be 450 degrees/hour. Other controllers use a different rate method which is minutes to temperature.

"Set Point" is your destination or target temperature. For instance, your first set point might be 1150 degrees.

"Hold" or "Soak" time is the amount of time that you want the kiln to hold at a specific temperature, and is expressed in minutes.

To put it all together, every program in the controller has a program number and every step in the controller has a step number. A 4 step fusing program might look like this:

Program 1:
Step 1: 400/1150/30 400°/hr to 1150°. Hold for 30 minutes
Step 2: 500/1480/20 500°/hr to 1480°. Hold for 20 minutes
Step 3: 9999/960/30 As fast as possible or AFAP to 960°. Hold for 30 minutes
Step 4: 125/750/30 125°/hr to 750°. Hold for 30 minutes
at the end of the 30 minute hold, the kiln would turn off.

Depending on which controller model you have, the way the programs or "schedules" are programmed into your kiln varies. The controllers with more buttons are the easiest since they have numeric keypads and you can enter temperatures and times directly. The 3 button controllers have up and down buttons to scroll the temperatures and times up and down.

There are other features in the Bartlett controller like alarm, delay, skip step, review, show ramp and others, but you can successfully program and run a schedule without knowing any of those features.

Tony

[Diane]

HI Tony,
I guess I should have told you in the begining that I have the 12 key controller.
I'm going to give it a try this afternoon.
Thanks for the help
Diane

[Suzan]

I would suggest simply relaxing with your favourite brew and settle down to reading the manual a few times; it's not that long. I also have a 9 key Bartlett controller, and find it easy to use. On the 3rd reading, I'm sure it'll make sense to you. There's a section where they give you a step by step example to follow, which should clarify things.

[Delores Taylor]

Well...here I am, I finally decided on a new kiln. I went over to Marty's at Centre DeVerre and picked up my new JenKen Oval 13. After a stressfull proceedure of unloading it and getting it into the shop, it's now all set up and ready to go.
Up until now I have been using an older ceramic kiln with a pyrometer and babysat it during firings to TRY to get a good schedule.
Now I have this bright and shiney new kiln with a Bartlett controller but the manual reads like greek to me. (I'm a hands on learner)
Could one of you more experienced users help a newbie by posting or emailing me a real SIMPLE step by step guide to programing. (Kiln programing for Dummies)
Has anyone ever had a thread of firing schedules? I've tried to search the archives but haven't found too much.
Thanks for any help you can give.
Diane

Fist hit the stop button
Then enter the button called enter prog number (1-6)
next it will ask you for the number of segments xyz # then hit enter
each segment will ask for
ra (ramp rate) then hit enter
temp? (ending temperature rate for that segment) then enter
hold (0-as many hours as you want) then enter
then it will go through this same drill for all the segments and it ends with the alarm which can be 9999 if you don't want an alarm or you can enter the top end temperature (I generally us 9999 as I'm there to monitor my kiln anyway) then hit the start button and off it goes.

Lets say you have 4 segments (use your own program I'm just using this as an example not a firing schedule you'd actually have)

200 dph to 1200 then a soak of 20 min
300 dph to 1450 then a 10 min soak
9999 to 960 then an 1.5 hr soak
60 dph to 800 then off

Let's say you look at 1450 at 5 min and it's done and you want to crash cool at that point you can then tell the computer to go to the next segment by doing view segment enter,enter (2x really fast) and then confirm it went to the next segment by viewing the segment again. Then you can crash cool.

It's a really easy program and you'll not have any problems with it. I like it lot's more than the controler that's on my evenheat kiln.

Good luck,