Idiot Electronics Question - IR Flash

[ZooCity]

So one of our old IR flashes took a dive recently and will climb up far above it's set temp on the controller.  It's a unique specimen that I purchased from the former Morning Sun facility in Fife, WA, painted near M&R blue and branded with the moniker "Turco".  It was originally a pneumatic shuttling flash, now relegated to manual shuttling. 

Standard IR panel with very basic components and wiring as most IR flashes have. Essentially power to a switch to an SSR with a snubber/arc suppressor,  Watlow 93 controller in the circuit over to the IR panel. 

I purchased a new thermocouple at first, just to cross that off the list, but that didn't resolve it.  Unless I'm missing something on hooking it up to the Watlow controller?

Resistance seems to check out across all components except the snubber/arc suppressor (100ohm/600v) reads at zero.  The SSR contacts look squeaky clean, presumably thanks to the snubber/suppressor so I didn't bother testing it which is a little involved for me.  However, it could be that it needs a new SSR. 

My idiot question is- is it even possible that replacing the dead reading snubber/arc suppressor will solve the issue?  I think the answer is no, that it only provides a level of protection to the SSR. 

I can keep putting cash into it here or there until it's completely new componentry and/or works again or I could just scrap it but I hate to do that since the panel is reading good and it's too simple to be broken beyond repair, in my eyes.  I'm hitting the very low ceiling of my electronics troubleshooting abilities and the only electronics guy I've found in our area will do a house call, maybe take some components with him and never respond or return the parts (hence this flash no longer shuttling, dude took the dayton timer and never returned it) so local, professional help is basically out of the picture.   Still, our rarely used yet still required manual press needs a flash.  If I can't sort this out I'll be rigging up the frame of this unit to hold our Reno.   Any input appreciated!

[ebscreen]

SSR shouldnt have contacts? Or any moving parts for that matter.
Don't require arc protection for that reason.

Overshoot would point to thermocouple, temp pid, or mechanical relay
failure. SSR failure would be open, I've seen relays get "stuck" shut for
lack of a better term.

Is it overshooting then going back down? Temp controllers have to autotune
sometimes, and it can take a while to learn. Most have an "over temp" warning
as well that would indicate failure outside of the controller.

Most definitive would be to meter both sides of relay/ssr while in operation, looking
for signal voltage at correct times, and panel power on/off at the same.

If it is a mechanical relay my money is on that. Replace it with a ssr, theyre cheap.

That said, Ive never had a manual flash with temp control,  usually from the plug to the
switch to the panel, temp control is how fast you can load and print the next shirt.

[Ross_S]

You probably checked this already but check all the connections and make sure they're tight and not loose.  I had the same problem years ago and found a connections was loose and it fixed my problem

[jvanick]

what kind of thermocouple does it have?  if it's 2 twisted wires in front of the panel, you may want to un-twist them, scuff them a bit with an emroy cloth or super fine sand paper, and then twist them back together.

[ZooCity]

Told y'all it was an idiot question!

It turns on and just climbs, very quickly, past it's set temp and keeps on going.  I would use it as is, without temp control working but it's going north of 1400˚F and that feels sketchy.  I mean, will it stop getting hot at some point or just keep on flying up in temp until it burns out some components?

So it is an SSR but has the snubber on it.  Presumably because the IR panel is 208v and incoming is 240v?  Not sure on that and I got confused.  Checked the Watlow manual and the Quencharc snubber is recommended for the wiring layout used with SSR. I will try metering the relay with the unit on and see if I can figure that out but I thought SSRs typically outlast the machine?

Thermocouple is a sheathed type K with a probe.

I'm going to go through the Watlow manual and see if I just need to re-teach the controller with the new thermocouple.