PID ??

[JKR]

Ok guys. What’s a PID and why should I have one on my casting pot?

JKR

[Don McDowell]

They keep the lead at a pretty consistent temperature making it much easier to keep consistent weights

[Nuclearcricket]

A PID is a controller to monitor and maintain the temp of your lead melt. There is a thermocouple (temp probe) inserted into the melt and it is hooked up to the controller. You program in the temp you want and set the pot temp control to the highest point and the PID turns the pot heat coils on and off to maintain a constant temp of your melt. I have found that the different molds I have each like a slightly different temp to get them to cast well. Its nice to be able to adjust the temp in small increments till you get the temp your mold likes. The temps are also repeatable so if you know that X mold likes to run at 760 and Y mold likes it better at 755, you can put that in and when its ready your melt will be at the required temp.
They are not hard to build, a saw, file, some wire and a handful of components. You can also buy one all ready built and just ready to plug in and turn on. The best educational information I have found on the PID is over on the cast boolets web site, https://castboolits.gunloads.com/. I think that there are some folks over there that build them and have them for sale.
I think that once you start to use one you will like it, I know I do.
Sam

[Steveu]

I built one for my RCBS pot when the t-stat quit working. Got the parts off of amazon, hardest thing was finding a box to put it all in. There are a lot of different versions of how to make one. I tried to keep it as simple as possible. I searched for "PID's for brewing" and got a lot of good info. One thing I did was to take the pot apart and put the thermo couple where the old temp probe was. Used pop rivets to put it back together. It works great, especially with the auto-tune function. I cast isotope lead @ 675 and 95% are +/- .5 grain. It's the best I have ever cast!

Cheers,
Steve

[Kurt]

When my second Wagge gave up I ordered the RCBS easy melt https://www.amazon.com/RCBS-Bullet-Casti...B07BY5S8FL it was just a little higher in cost than a Lee and I have one of them also I have a put full of pure lead for round balls and I will admit that that Lee does just as good as the new RCBS with the PID.
But this easy melt is a good furnace and holds the temp very good but I cant unplug it till the temperature drops and even with the cooling fan it has will take around two hrs unless I dump what is left the pot full into the ingot mould, but then starting the next casting session with ingots it takes a lot longer to get them melted down then it does with a pot full of alloy hardened from the last session so I just let it take longer to cool down and unplug the pot.

[Don McDowell]

I like my Lyman mag 25 when your down with it just unplug it and all is well
If I want to change alloy or drain the pot for an occasional cleaning just put the ingot pot underneath the spout and drain it.
The only thing with this one is I had to set the temperature to 820 to get the alloy to what my thermometer says is 775