Sentry Industries Sentry 2.0 Display Lights, How to Get IdLE to Display, Repeat Firings

Display Lights

Single Center Light: Time

A lower center dot appears during time display. It sepa- rates hours from minutes (i.e. 1 hour, 30 minutes displays as 01.30). During temperature display, the dot disappears.

Power Output Lights

The Sentry turns on the heating elements intermittently through relays. The power output lights in the right side of the display appear when the Sentry sends power to the re- lay(s).

■Single Zone Kiln When the Sentry sends power to the relays, all three lights appear.

■Two Zone Kiln The top light shows power to the relay for the top section of the kiln. The bottom light shows power to the bottom. Ignore the center light.

■Three Zone Kiln The top light indicates power to the top section relay, the middle light to the middle section, and the bottom light to the bottom.

°F °C

Single Right-Hand Light: °C

When temperature is displayed in °C, a light appears in the lower right. In °F it disappears.

How to Get IdLE to Display

The controller displays IdLE when you first apply power to the kiln. Operations begin from IdLE . You can’t fire the kiln until IdLE appears.

■If you press STOPduring a firing, AbRT will appear. To get back to IdLE , press ENTER.

■If the display shows an error message such as FAIL in- stead of IdLE , see pages 22 - 23.

■CPLT (firing completed) appears at the end of a firing. To make IdLE appear, press any key.

Firing Completion Message

When the firing has completed, four messages will cycle one after the other:

1CPLT (complete)

2Firing time in hours and minutes (amount shown does not include Cone-Fire slow cooling time)

3The temperature the kiln fired to in Cone-Fire, or the temperature of the last segment in Ramp-Hold

4The current kiln temperature

Note: If the alarm (see page 6) sounded, and then the kiln fired to completion, you will see ALAR in- stead of CPLT . Press ENTER. CPLT will appear.

Repeat Firings

To repeat the last firing, press ENTER from IdLE . The kiln will begin firing. This works in both Cone-Fire and Ramp-Hold. But first, make sure you are repeating the cor- rect firing by using “Program Review” (see page 6). For re- peat firings that you don’t want to inadvertently change, see “Program Lock,” page 20.

Thermocouple Inspection

The small rod protruding into the firing chamber is the temperature sensor, or thermocouple.

CAUTION: Bumping the thermocouple can push it out of the firing chamber. This could cause an overfire! The controller does not contain an alarm to detect this type of failure.

Thermocouples come in different widths. The wider the thermocouple, the farther it should extend into the firing chamber. A ¼” diameter thermocouple should extend into the firing chamber about 1”. A 1/8” thermocouple should ex- tend into the chamber ½” - 5/8”.

Keep shelves, posts and ware 1” - 1 ½” away from the thermocouple. Keep an extra thermocouple on hand, espe- cially if you fire hotter than 2000°F/1093°C.

If you are using a portable, separate controller, you will need to install the thermocouple onto the kiln. See the sepa- rate TnF 2 installation instructions.

The “LId” Display

Reasons LId appears in the display:

■The kiln is equipped with the optional safety switch. (The switch turns off power to the elements when the lid or door is open.) LId appears in the display while the lid is open during firing.

■On the back of the Sentry circuit board, at the top right

side, is a small two-pin terminal. If the connector on that terminal is missing, LId will appear in the display dur- ing firing. The elements will not turn on. (If the two-pin connector is missing, you can buy another from a com- puter supply store.)

■The safety lid switch is defective or the safety switch wire is broken.

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