I’m guessing there isn’t much interest in hosting an Evenheat Kiln at ASMBLY? It sounds like the fire hazards are low due to all the safety mechanisms they have, but it’s still a potential source of up to 2200F in heat, and it would take up space, which may or may not be available for it:
This (or a similar model) could be used for all sorts of professional level heat treating. My use case is largely around CNC-ing knives.
Am I the only person that would take advantage of it? 
I (for one) would be very interested in adding a modest heat-treating capability.
While I don’t have a use case at the moment, I’m all for expanding the capabilities of our shop. As far as space goes, it seems relatively small and unobtrusive, and we could probably find a spot somewhere.
At one point, we were discussing adding a ceramics area to the shop, and @Jon mentioned this:
Now I’m not sure if the cost-prohibitiveness of it was tied to the actual cost of the kiln, or the electricity it uses, and I’m sure a small heat treating oven would use a lot less than a large ceramics kiln, but I just thought I’d bring it up.
I would be happy to buy and host. I don’t have space for one myself, but wouldn’t mind sharing what I have in order to have access to one, if that makes sense.
I figured the lease + insurance would be the limiting factor, too, but I’m new so I don’t know for sure. Regardless, I guess at some point someone would be pulling out a >1,400F chunk of metal from the kiln to quench it, and I could see where that could be considered a hazard. Although we do have a welder, plasma cutter, etc…
I linked to the LB series above, but I really meant to link to the KH 418, which is the best selling kiln they have, works on 120 V, and I would hope 18" of depth would be plenty for people.
Something like that KH418 seems like it would be a lot less worrisome than a ceramics kiln. How long does a cycle run? If we’re talking single-digit hours it’s probably OK. I wouldn’t want to leave even a small kiln running overnight / unattended.
The cost-prohibitiveness of ceramics turned out not to be quite as bad as we originally thought after running some numbers. The one weird thing to keep in mind is that the bulk of our electric bill is demand (peak kW) rather than consumption (total kWh) charges, so running a thing once a month costs almost as much as running it constantly. Not a dealbreaker, just be aware of it.
Asmbly would be much more likely to accept a hosting agreement for a kiln like this if it came with a class curriculum and teaching commitment. It sounds like we might have enough knife folks to get a project class put together?
(Question origin is the varied mentions of electrical service, and issues of breakers tripping). Does the space have the capacity to run a kiln? Meaning, it could be run without tripping it or other equipment?
For fair disclosure, I know just enough about making and heat treating knives to be dangerous. That being said, according to the KH 418’s specs it is not rated for continuous use, which is 3+ hours. So I would assume that means it’s usage would be restricted to 3 hours at a time or less. Likely less, unless you were doing a slower ramp speed to your target temperature (edit: I said “speed” earlier) (<800F / hour) plus an hour at your target temperature.
Reading more this evening, it looks like the LB 18 is the most common sold Evenheat, not the LH 418 like I thought. That does require a 240V setup, however. On the plus side, the width and height are 10" wide x 6.5" high. Versus 6.5" wide (edit: I previously said 10" wide) x 4.25" for the KH 418. It also is not rated for “continuous use” / “3+ hours”.
I’m not sure what the requirements would be for ceramics if that’s an expected use case for the kiln. Would 10" wide x 6.5" high x 18" deep be sufficient?
On teaching: Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to do this due to other commitments. Plus, like I said, at this time I only know just enough to be dangerous
We have three 72kW services (303, 304, 306). Our last electric bill shows two of them with peak demand under 10kW and the third is in the ballpark of 12kW.
That puts us under 20% utilization of our electric service last month. We go higher in the summer when we’re cranking the ACs, but I think we’ll outgrow our floorspace before outgrowing the electrical service.
I don’t think an LB18 would be super useful for ceramics, but it could be interesting for enamelware or fusing glass.
Ceramics fire cycles are something like 6-15 hours. That’s a long time to leave a kiln running in a dusty shop, and a lot of heat for the AC to fight in the summer.
Sounds good. Looks like the LB and the LH 418 are the same price, and the outside dimensions are only a few inches in difference (the biggest different being the X dimension being 3.5" different between the two), so its just a question if we are OK with using a 240v connection to go from an internal dimension of 6.5"x4.25"x18" on the LH 418 (which runs on 120v) to 10"x6.5"x18" on the LB.
Just as a random data point, it looks like the dimensions the Tormach can do are 18" x 9.5" x 16.25" (X,Y,Z). Outside of the Z axis, that pretty much matches the internal dimensions of the LB (10" across, 18" deep, 6.5" high) exactly.
I would be interested in using that piece of equipment for glass work and ceramics as well as heat treating metal!
I think the issue is total cycle time. The EvenHeats aren’t supposed to run for more than three hours at a time. If ceramics can be done in that amount of time, they could work, but it sounds like they need more time than that.
I would definitely use it
Was there every any advances on this front, as far as logistically getting it approved to have in shop? Would love to see it’s addition, personally.
And I am still OK with spending the money on one to host it.
I think the last time we were on the topic: