Pot warm up time

[soldierbilly1]

I am unable to get the search function to work today (??).

About how long does it take to get your Lee pot, from a cold start, up and running at the right temperature to make good boolits?
My 20 lb Lee pot takes about 50 mins.
I realize it depends on the pot load, the ambient temperature, etc. It takes me about 20 mins for a melt and another 30 to be good enuff to pour. What say you?
Just ball park is OK. thanks for your help.
Bill boy still on the learning curve

[Rockchucker]

Don't have a clock in my shop however my Pro Melt usually takes around 30 minutes. Then again I live in Florida and it's a little warmer here than where you're at

[ku4hx]

My Lyman mag 20 will start to melt the ingots in about 20 minutes, but I allow 30 minutes at least before I start to cast. Since I cast in a cold garage, I sometime wait 40 minutes or so just to be certain the alloy temperature stabilizes.

[41 mag fan]

From room cold to ready to cast right around 25 min, using my Lee

[Gunslinger1911]

Put some kind of lid on the pot - cuts heat up time by a good bit !

[Reload3006]

could be why my drippy is drippy but I chuck a bunch of alloy in there go gather up my molds get a cup of coffee relieve my self come back check then go do something else... now its melted I flux the heck out of it now with sawdust ...don't use paraffin anymore. by then my molds are preheated (i sit them on a single burner hot plate) and I am ready to start casting. lol Find something else to do Have you ever heard the expression a watched pot never boils? well a watched pot never melts either LOL.

[2muchstuf]

Not for sure cause I never really timed it.
30 or 35 min. seems about right .
I always finish up with a full or near full pot .

No doubt quicker than starting with cold ingots then adding more to fill the pot.
2

[mktacop]

I've got my Lee Pro 4-20 controlled by a PID and it takes right at 20min for a full pot to melt and stabilize at 675 degrees.

[geargnasher]

I've got my Lee Pro 4-20 controlled by a PID and it takes right at 20min for a full pot to melt and stabilize at 675 degrees.

+1.

If you don't have a PID controller and have a Lee 20-lb pot, turn it on full-blast until the lead gets mostly molten (about 20 minutes for a full cold pot, 25 if you have a pot full of ingots), then turn it down or it will overheat quickly once the lead melts.

Gear

[runfiverun]

i think mine is in the 20 or so minutes.
my magma is pretty quick i usually plug it in come in the house go through the posts here pretty quickly and go back out and it's usually pretty close to ready to cast.
i usually get impatient with the lee and put the propane torch to it..

[Walter Laich]

30 min and I'm good to go

[stubshaft]

I put a lid on mine and am ready in 20 minutes.

[williamwaco]

Unless you are casting outdoors in zero degree weather or have a fan blowing directly on the pot. Something is bad wrong.

At 70 degrees, my Lee pot will make molten metal from cool ingots in 15 minutes. It reaches casting temprature of around 700 degrees in 20.

At 40 degrees add 5 minutes to those times.

Below 40 degrees, go check out ESPN.


.

[lesharris]

My Lee 4-20 takes about 25 minutes to reach casting temp. Just long enough to prep molds and gather up the rest of the casting equipment.

[HangFireW8]

50 minutes is too long, unless you're outside in the cold wind...

20-30 minutes in unheated garage, depending on the temp and the amount and alloy of lead.

[jonas302]

Not very long I put the mold on top and cover that with tinfoil seems to heat up pretty fast

[prs]

When the 110V Lee 20# pots are full of alloy in the summertime its ready to go in 30 minutes, tops. Last weekend it had been in low single digits F over night and only about 25F and in my unheated out building it took about 45 minutes. The OP may need to check the voltage at his outlet, especially if using a long extension or long run of small gague wire to the outbuilding.

prs

[prs]

"PID controller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controllerCached - Similar
You +1'd this publicly. Undo
A proportional–integral–derivative controller (PID controller) is a generic control loop feedback mechanism (controller) widely used in industrial control systems"



Now, in English, what does this do for my pots and where to look to get them suitable for our needs?

prs

[MikeS]

prs: what a PID controller does is keep the pot at the desired temperature. The temp control on most pots are not that accurate, so using a PID controller makes them hold a set temp much better. They do this by having a sensor that's either attached to the pot, or in many cases just put into the pot like a thermometer would be. With a PID controller it automatically adjusts the heat, so that it's constant, even as the level of the pot goes down, the lead doesn't get hotter, a problem with many pots.

As far as where to get them, that's a good question. I found one on eBay, and the seller changed the sensor to a higher temp rated one, but I don't think there's one that's an off the shelf item, or if there is, I don't know about it. I think that's why so many people make their own controllers.

[fredj338]

About 20min cranked up on high w/ a dbl. alum foil cover. This keeps the heat in & gets things going quickly.

[John Guedry]

I have the smaller Lee and it's ready in 20-30 min.

[jandbn]

For comparison purposes, I use a cast iron pot on a 1000 Watt electric 110V element. The element is plugged into a PID unit. The last time I cast at 35 degrees with a very slight breeze and a covered pot with 18 lbs of WW, I was able to cast about a half hour later at 675 degrees. However, just prior to turning the PID on, everything came from room temperature and there was already cold lead in the pot from a previous casting session to which I had added 9 lbs. of muffins on top of the existing cold alloy.

[azjohn]

prs the info is right here on this site.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=115724

[AR-15 Cowboy]

Mine is new and it takes twenty minutes with one inch of lead on the bottom. There is a real good thread on the PID, that directs you to websites and pricing on one of the boolit forums. Do a search. I'm going to build one next month.