How much energy (kW) does an RCBS Pro Melt furnace use?

Well, I finally got around to casting bullets yesterday after years of wanting to do so. Except none were never actually cast yesterday.

The reasons for the long delay are many. I work too many hours. Hopefully that’s changing soon, but for now, and for many years, I worked too much. Which means I really didn’t have time to cast bullets. I had enough available supply of bullets and working too much means little time to shoot, and so I went through them slowly. Also, not as much time to reload. If I had a backyard shooting range, I would shoot a lot more…but I don’t.

And, my wife can’t be around when I cast bullets.

Yesterday was the day great things were supposed to happen. I began with adding an outlet for the burglar alarm. An additional one was needed, as the new system installed over the summer needed an additional plug and had been plugged into the strip since the summer. With one plug needed and two in an outlet and this being within cords length of my RCBS Pro Melt pot—time to start casting!

Plugged in melting pot, turned on fan, blew circuit! Well, circuit breaker in fuse box didn’t turn off, turned it on and off and nothing. I will put in new outlets, I won’t put a new circuit breaker in a fuse box. Had to call an electrician the first time ever in 11 years here. Pained me to do it! Turns out that it was a GFCI outlet in the garage that had blown, not the circuit breaker. It cost me $228.21 to find that out. Plugged melting pot back in and used another outlet, tripped GFCI outlet again. Electrician stated brand new (turns out I got it from Midway in 2016) has a short. It’s really commendable of RCBS to replace this after all these years but they said they would, as it’s unused and I retrieved my Midway receipt online.

But, how much energy does a melting pot use—so I don’t have a repeat of the above? Well, that won’t happen again, as I’ll not forget about the GFCI outlet in the garage. Also, I might have reacted abruptly yesterday as I made the mistake of telling my wife I replaced the outlet and then proceeded to blow a circuit breaker—those of you who are married can already hear the “see, I told you so”.

The electrician confirmed my work was not the problem. In fact better than what was originally installed in an 11 year old house. I attach wire to the screws which is a superior method to the backstab approach when this house was built 11 years ago (not a fan of new construction!).

So, when the new pot arrives, the circuit breaker is 15 amps. On this circuit are three outside outlets, none of which are in use. The GFCI box in the garage, with one plug containing something to do with the battery for the alarm, and then four outlets in the basement, one for a never in use sump pump, one for the water heater, and I’ll have the fan plugged into this and running as well, and then 3 plugged in cords relating to the burglar alarm in two separate outlets, the second outlet having been added yesterday, and the fourth unused plug for the melting pot.

The additional great news is the backstab outlets really don’t last more than 20 or 25 years, so guess what I get to think about doing over the next decade or so? Surprise answer here: maybe sell the place, LOL! Easy enough to replace them, but an irritation nonetheless, and yet more incentive to purchase a place that’s existing, more soundly built, and might have land for my own shooting range!

My Pro Melt, a very old one, has an 800 watt element. We use 220V here in Darkest Africa, so the current drawn when the element is switched on, is just below 4 amps. You should try to see on your pot what the specification for the element is, then you can calculate your amperage drawn from your grid.

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Originally Posted by hermans

My Pro Melt, a very old one, has an 800 watt element. We use 220V here in Darkest Africa, so the current drawn when the element is switched on, is just below 4 amps. You should try to see on your pot what the specification for the element is, then you can calculate your amperage drawn from your grid.

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There it is, 800 Watts. Didn’t see that on the decal attached to it.

Divide 800 watts by 125 volts and the result is your amperage draw on the circuit. Your working load for any circuit is 80% of it's rated amperage. For a 15 amp circuit it's 12 amps.

Also, GFCI receptacles do not like loads that are "cycling on-off". I've had to replace ones that fed circuits that protected livestock water heaters.

At a different house years ago, I think I had to use my promelt(2011 vintage) on a non-GFCI circuit, it's definately not on a GFCI now.
As you have learned, only 1 GFCI outlet is needed to protect the whole circuit. Depending on the appliance, some with heating elements aren't compatible with GFCI/AFCI. And the problem can be magnified when you have other stuff running on the same circuit, i.e. motors.
Your "brand new" Promelt may operate just fine on a circuit that is not GFCI protected, or on the GFCI circuit with other stuff unplugged.
So if you really want to know, unplug everything on the circuit and just run the promelt.

Not related to your problem but I can remember a long time ago when the neighbor (a mile away) was welding in his shop it would cause static on the TV. This was before GFCIs. Electricity is fun.

15 amp gfci’s are notorious trouble makers. They are very sensitive to amp changes, for good reason.

And to add to that today’s generation of electricians parallel multiple circuits off a gfi, which continues the problem. The best method is to never run a circuit off a gfi, but I digress.

12 amps is awful close to 15 amps…somehow you need to be “upstream” of that gfi, or better yet be on a 20 am circuit, then your problem will go away.

If your promelt is faulty, well then the gfi is doing its job!


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Don't hook it up to a GFCI outlet ... our refrigerator will trip ours , the cycling on-off works havoc with them .
You want the pot on a clean line with no other appliances running on it , you realy don't want any lights on it either ...You want all 15 amps available for the melting pot ... they pull a lot of juice when they cycle on .
Gary

First, don't use a GFCI protected outlet for any lead melting furnace.

Second, you got all these circuits on one 15 breaker?

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Originally Posted by mrcvs

So, when the new pot arrives, the circuit breaker is 15 amps. On this circuit are three outside outlets, none of which are in use. The GFCI box in the garage, with one plug containing something to do with the battery for the alarm, and then four outlets in the basement, one for a never in use sump pump, one for the water heater, and I’ll have the fan plugged into this and running as well, and then 3 plugged in cords relating to the burglar alarm in two separate outlets, the second outlet having been added yesterday, and the fourth unused plug for the melting pot.

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Your electrician should have told you, you can't do that all on one circuit.

I'm not sure where this 12 amp number came from?

A Lee 4-20 pot pulls 6.0 amps (I have measured it when I built my PID).
A (800 watt) Promelt pulls about 6.7 amps.

Here you go Jon:

https://forums.mikeholt.com/threads/...ng-rule.11741/

SquareD and other CB manufacturers trip curves start to trip @ 80% of their rating.

Some casters may have there casting pot, hot plate and a fan plugged into the same circuit. At start up everything is running at max current draw. That 80% rating applies to continuous duty, but after you've used your favorite circuit for years, the outlet loses some of it's grip on the plug and the outlet has had speared connections.

If you use circuit breakers a lot up at the top end of their ratings, they sort of wear out.
They'll start tripping at lower and lower amounts of draw over time and need to be replaced.

I had one that I had to change out every year or two from running a 120V welder on it.
I don't know what the draw was, but I'm guessing it was up in the high teens.
The 20 amp breaker was tripping out sooner and sooner the older it got.

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Originally Posted by JonB_in_Glencoe

First, don't use a GFCI protected outlet for any lead melting furnace.

Second, you got all these circuits on one 15 breaker?

Your electrician should have told you, you can't do that all on one circuit.

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Everything on there is on one Circuit, and was code when the house was built 2012-13. The only thing added was one outlet as the burglar alarm now requires three plugs for various components, instead of two, meaning I added one box and use one of those two outlets.

A 15 amp circuit will technically handle 1800 watts. Most lead pots are between 600 and 800 with only the older ones hitting the 800 mark. But figuring if yours is 800 then that leaves 1000 watts available for everything else on that breaker. I always go buy 1500 max on the breaker and I never pop them. So do the math on the rest of the items on the line. But I can tell you right now that a security system should be on a dedicated breaker.

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Originally Posted by Rickf1985

But I can tell you right now that a security system should be on a dedicated breaker.

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My research indicates you are correct. I’m surprised to find out this to be the case and even more surprised to discover the alarm doesn’t have a dedicated circuit, installed the time the house was built. Yet another corner cut by a national builder! That should have been caught at the time of construction.

Couple things to consider here. One is the alarm was most likely not put in by the builder, it would have been done by an alarm installer after construction was done. And second, I am sure as far as code is concerned the alarm system is just another electrical item on the line and nothing else so no special treatment as far as they are concerned. But generally alarm systems are set up so they do not go down if any other circuit is overloaded and pops the breaker. Most good alarm systems also have power backups to keep them going if power is cut. But that is all in the installation and not by code and depends on the quality of the alarm and the installation.

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Originally Posted by mrcvs

Everything on there is on one Circuit, and was code when the house was built 2012-13. The only thing added was one outlet as the burglar alarm now requires three plugs for various components, instead of two, meaning I added one box and use one of those two outlets.

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I can't speak for code, but all the outlets you mention in the quote below on one 15 amp breaker, is just crazy, IMHO. I'd split that up into 3 or 4 circuits. If you have a sump pump (that never or rarely runs), you may, at some point, want to put a dehumidifier down there and you probably wouldn't want that on the same circuit as the sump pump. I assume your water heater is gas fired, but needs 120v for electronics? because electric water heaters usually need 240v and need their own circuit ...and if you ever put a frig or freezer down there. ANYWAY, The amps just start piling up for that one 15 amp circuit.
That's my 2¢

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrcvs

So, when the new pot arrives, the circuit breaker is 15 amps. On this circuit are three outside outlets, none of which are in use. The GFCI box in the garage, with one plug containing something to do with the battery for the alarm, and then four outlets in the basement, one for a never in use sump pump, one for the water heater, and I’ll have the fan plugged into this and running as well, and then 3 plugged in cords relating to the burglar alarm in two separate outlets, the second outlet having been added yesterday, and the fourth unused plug for the melting pot.

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