Orton auto fire express

[skilldust]

I have the 24in Sugar Creek with this controller. The other day I turned it on to HT some 440c blades, put the blades in @ about 800 deg and went about my rat killing. Now it takes about 45 min to get up to temp from there so when I went to it, The contr said FAILED. It was reading 740, I killed the prog and restarted it. It started gaining temp so I walked away again.
About 20 min later I went back, FAILED again, but was reading 1600 or so. Killed prog and restarted.
From the 1600 or so to 1900 it happened twice more, but when temp was reached it helt for 22 min with no problem.
When these were out, I changed programs to 1950 degree for cpm154, it ramped from about 1000 to 1950 with no problem and helt for 22min.
Now, what could be the cause of this kind of behavior? Jerry

 

[TILLER]

I just had the exact same problem. I believe that "fail" means that the controller lost connection to the thermocouple. If i remember right this can mean that the thermocouple has a crack in it, to where it heats up it separates and fails. I searched and found a troubleshooting guide that said to first check the thermocouple connections, so I did, and that solved my problem. All I did was unscrew screw clamps on the connecting block between the thick gauge wires coming out of the chamber and the thinner gauge wires going to the controller, took the probe out, looked at the tip, lightly brushed it off with a scotch brite pad so i could look for cracks, it looked fine, so I put it all back together and it worked again.

Of course a few cycles later it wouldn't heat up at all, so I'm thinking the element is burnt out or something, have a new one coming.