RCBS Promelt Question?

[Jeff82]

I just finished my first session with the RCBS Promelt. Things went pretty well. I thought the temperature needed a bit more regulation than I expected. Otherwise, the bottom pour worked really well; no dripping. I had a really hard time getting the lead to melt. I followed the directions, but the pot didn't come up to temperature very fast, and it took forever to get the lead to melt. I think the pot might have its heating coils at the critical 1.5" mark and had a hard time melting lead below that level. Anyway, does anyone understand what I'm describing? I'm thinking of doing the initial melt in my Lee pot and then transferring the molten lead over to the CCBS pot. Seems like I shouldn't need to do this. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

--Jeff

[kweidner]

just fire it up and wait the 30 or so minutes.... I usually work on other thing while pot and mold come to temp. Your gonna love that pot. I only use lee for annealing.

[leadman]

The coils are up from the bottom about 1" to 2". Once you get the lead melted leave about 1 1/2" in the pot when you quit casting. This will let the lead melt faster when turned back on and extends the life of the coils.
I don't know why but RCBS changed the thermostat for these. My original thermostat had about a 10 to 15 degree range. Went thru this when my original thermostat went bad and they sent one and I installed it. Thought it was bad also and called them again and they sent another out. It was the same way so I called and spoke with a tech and he told me their standard is 50 degrees from on to off to on. I told him that it was not acceptable as you go from cold to frosted in that range.
I made a PID controller and am happy now. If I had just purchased it new I would sent it back, but I bought mine at a great deal used.

Lyman is supposed to have a new pot with a built in PID controller. Be good if it is on the market yet.

[OuchHot!]

First time, you have poor thermal conductivity between the heating element and the lead.....as leadman put it, once you have a plug in the bottom it will heat up a lot faster. My promelt is a very old unit and it had at least a plus and minus 25 degree dead band. Eventually I went PID and find that useful. My promelt replaced a pot on a stove so it was a revelation at that time. I was only using one and two cavity molds for many years and the thermostat was entirely adequate. Nowadays, I like tighter control of a PID.