I just finished my oven TODAY. I will run through what I think you need to look at. My oven's inside dimensions are 4.5" wide 4.5" tall and 27" deep. It is ran off od 220 and reaches 1600 degrees in less than 15 minutes, it aint pretty but it works darn good. The following is what I purchased for it, the only thing you would need to change is the element because you are running 110v instead of 220v, which I will show you.
To help you as much as possible I would need to know the size of your oven, and the amount of 110v electricity you have to run to it, I will assume you have a 20 amp dedicated circuit for it. Here is what I would suggest.
I would get the following from auberins, who ever pointed you in the direction of the items you listed is, well... just plain wrong. Here is what I would get and I will explain why.
1. The PID - I would suggest going for the Ramp/Soak option, it will cost you another $40 but it is well worth it.
HERE is the link for the PID The reason you may need the Ramp/Soak, you can program this PID to hold at a certain temperature for a set time and then automatically ramp up(this makes it easier to heat treat the more advanced steels), this one allows 30 different set points and you can create an almost infinite number of programs using this. I bought this one and def do not regret it. These 30 "steps" can each be programmed to a set temp and from then on out all you have to do is select the step programmed with the temp you need and presto, no more changin the temps everytime you need to heat treat a different type of steel, this alone is worth the $40, I am working on a list of all the steels I plan on using and programming these heat treat steps or temperatures, that way I only need to reference the sheet and select the steps I have assigned. Side note here, please heed this advice, when you wire the PID to your power source, you need to get a 1 amp 250v SLOW BLOW fuse(they are the small glass cylinder type) and fuse holder from radio shack and wire it to the hot leg(it will cost $6 for both of them and you will get extra fuses) this will keep the PID safe from a jump in the amperage in the line which WILL happen sooner or later
it can be caused by a simple fluctuation in power from turning on a switch in the house. Auberins will not warrant the PID if you burn it up. Also I built a make shift box for my PID, no need to buy one if you can fabricate something to just hold it in place.
Thermocouple:
You DO NOT NEED the ceramic coated kiln thermocouple, you need
THIS ONE
It saves you $4 and it is all integral and plenty long, just hook it up and go, no cutting needed. The reason I say this is it is rated for 2000 degrees which is plenty high for heat treating, you may get close to that with some stainless steels but I dont think you will ever surpass it, its the one I use, it works very well.
SSR:
You need a SSR that is rated for 25 amps,
you also need the heat sink because you WILL need to run as much amperage through the element as possible, anything over 10 amps auberins recommends the heat sink, as do I there is no reason for the 40 amp rating unless you have a 30 amp dedicated circuit and you plan on pushing that much through a 110v element... which would cost you a fortune.
Hereis the link for the SSR and
HERE is the link for the heat sink. Just as a note, the Heat Sink will come with a paste, you need to spread it evenly on the top of the heat sink where the SSR sits, this paste is a thermal paste that assists the heat transfer between the SSR and the heat sink.
Duralite Sells all the elements and high temp wire you will need.
Element is
HERE You need to get the highest rated element you can get for 110v, I would get the 110v 2000w rated element, this one will pull 17 amps into your oven and will prob heat it fairly quickly if your oven isn't very big.
High Heat Wire: You need this wire to run from your SSR and neutral wire to your element, you will need at least #12awg. You can find it
HERE
Now for the tricky part, connecting the high heat wire to the elements. The element connection needs to be inside the oven, the high heat wire connection needs to be on the outside face of the oven. You can use a bolt, or you can do what I did. I used 2 4" pieces of 1/4" OD Stainless Steel tubing as crimps. On one end I crimped the element and the other I crimped the high heat wire, this gives you a good permanent connection from your elements to the high heat wire. If you ever have to change your elements you will just have to use a new high heat wire or just leave enough slack in your high heat wire for a just in case(this is what I did, that way you can just cut it off at the crimp and recrimp a new element to a new piece of tubing), but the connection I feel is better, you will need a vice to crimp the tubing to the wire and element, just do it all before you even start to install the element.THE TUBE HAS TO BE STAINLESS, Its the only thing rated at a high enough temp to handle all your HT needs, my SS tubing is 440c you can get it at any knife making supply or amazon (I get mine from amazon) its the same thing a lot of people use for their lanyard(thong) holes in their knives.
As far as finding fire brick. Look up Refractories in your areas yellowpages or yellowpages.com If you cant find any call your local chimney repair center, they may be able to get them or point you in the right direction. Dont buy the bricks online unless you have NO CHOICE(You would be better off driving 50 miles to a from to get them then have them shipped), everywhere I have seen them they are almost 2x what I paid locally(I paid $3 a brick locally) and then they will charge you a ridiculous amount of money to ship them and you have to worry about them getting damaged(they are very brittle).
If you have any more questions just ask, its still really fresh in my mind... dont know about next week...LOL
I will be making a video of my heat treat oven here shortly to help the new guys out, I had a lot of trouble figuring mine out and it is really not that hard, just intimidating as heck and when things get like that we tend to over think them.
Just to clue you in on why 220v is better, just in case you dont know. There are 2 MAJOR advantages. Voltage is the rate at which the current is traveling, amperage is the AMOUNT of current. So essentially when using 220v in an oven you are feeding it the SAME amount of current(20 amps) just at a faster rate... which is in turn FASTER and no more expensive to run its actually cheaper given the rate at which your oven will heat up. 220v will produce the heat a LOT faster while keeping the electrical consumption down. The 110v element is emitting half the wattage as the 220v element rated at the same amperage. Here is some advice, YOUR OVEN NEEDS A DEDICATED CIRCUIT. It needs to be one outlet wired directly to your panel even if it is 110v, you are going to be pulling 17 amps through this circuit, that is the MAXIMUM you want to pull through a 20 amp circuit(its actually slightly higher than 80% which is what is recommended, but you should be fine). If this is the case, listen up... you can get 220v very readily from your 110v wiring(AS LONG AS ITS RATED FOR 20 amps 110v its fine for 20 amps 220v).
DISCLAIMER::
If you do not know your way around an electrical panel find someone that does such as an electrician, I, nor BladeForums.com can not be held responsible for anything that happens due to the advice I am offering, it is only advice I am in no way a licensed electrician so take it for what it is worth.
The 220v only uses 3 wires, just like 110v the only difference is 220v has 2 hot legs and a ground instead of 1 hot, a neutral, and a ground. So what you CAN do is simply change the breaker to a 20amp 2 pole breaker and the outlet to a 220v 20 amp outlet(if your electrical panel has 2 spots free side by side, using the same wire. All you will have to do is unhook the neutral from the neutral bar inside your panel and hook it to one side of your 2 pole breaker and hook the other(should be black) wire into the other side of the 2 pole breaker(Presto chango you have 220v power) your ground should remain plugged into the ground bar inside the breaker. The oven will wire the same exact way as with 110v but instead of having a neutral you will simply have 2 hots. You STILL treat one hot as the neutral and one as the hot, so the SSR will control one leg of the 220 and the other will be directly connected to the element. This conversion would cost you about $45, that would be for the 2 pole 20amp breaker, 20 amp 220v outlet.
Again this is merely advice, please talk with a licensed electrician if you are uncomfortable doing this, the inside of an electrical panel can and will kill you if you dont know what you are doing, its kinda like The Rock, it doesn't care what your name is.
