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Is it possible to fry a phase angle controller? I installed one [properly grounded] and without any pot attached it runs up full as soon as power is applied. Adding a pot seems to make no difference. How I may have fried it: with a pot hooked up it was not supplying power. I jumped the pots wires to see what would happen and it fired right up, now just goes to full. No I did not jump the 220V wires! I am hitting up amazon but wondered if I did it in.

Thanks,
T

I would guess you have your pot wired wrong for one and possibly the wrong pot for the controller.

I had the pot wired wrong but without the pot, should the controller pass power to the element?

I got an answer for that, which is yes, the pot will bleed power at the low setting. I learned something, now I will go make something .

So, is it working properly or not...??? It would help if you would include the make and model number of the SSR you are working with...

If you need a answer to a question., It helps to supply information.
1. When you were testing the controller, was the heating element connected?
2. What was the output voltage and/or current when the pot terminals on the SSR had nothing connected or were jumpered?
3. Depending on the answers to questions 1 and 2. I'll ask questions about the wiring on the pot's three terminals next.

Well shady has all the right questions posted. And I assume you figured out if the pot is wired backwards it works backwards now the question remains are you using the correct 2 post's on the pot and yes did you have the element hooked up. Once you ask a question it would be courteous to post the results to your findings so someone else may benefit at a later date. would also keep us from wondering if you got electrocuted or burned your neighborhood down lol.

Thanks for the replies, the neighborhood is safe, I am unshocked and working to better understand my setup.

The controller and POT I got from Stilldragon and they have been extremely helpful in the troubleshooting. Very courteous.

I had the POT hooked up wrong and now have that corrected, using the center and left leg of the three. All the way to the left I meter 0 on the POT, all the way to the right I get 520.

When I checked ground I had 120 from each leg so full 240 to the element. I have never tested anything without the element attached or water in the boiler.

It heats water, fast. My confusion came from having heat to the element ASAP, even when it was on the lowest setting, as soon as I threw the breaker. And seemingly full on heat to the elements when there was no POT connected to the controller. I am still not fully confident I have good temp control. I would think my next step is to time cold to boil on the lowest setting and then on the highest setting to see if there is a heat difference.

I apologize if I am not answering all the questions asked fully, I'm still [haha] learning.

To close this thread out, I replaced the phase angle controller and kept the same pot; now on power up at the low power setting there is either no or very minimal leakage. At full power the element heats right up. By jumping the leads for the POT on the old PAC I fried it. Now I am running right and at $19 it was a pretty cheap lesson. First AG batch gets running this week.

Thanks again,

T