URL: Insight-Live.com cloud-based ceramic lab notebook and education platform

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https://insight-live.com/index.php

Ceramic-industry-specific LIMS Lab information management and education system from Digitalfire. This is the software and information to study, understand, adjust and formulate glazes and clay bodies. Replace excel and word documents with a searchable cloud-hosted database accessible from any web browser. View anything side-by-side. Track unlimited specimens and manage large numbers of simultaneous projects. No need to request a quote, just sign up.

Related Information

We fight the dragon that others do not see

There are thousands of ceramic glaze recipes floating around the internet. People dream of finding that perfect one, but they often only think about the visual appearance, not of the usability, function, safety, cost or materials. That resistance to understanding your materials and glazes and learning to take control is what we personify as the dragon. Using the resources on this site you could be fixing, adjusting, testing, formulating your own glaze recipes. Start with your own account at insight-live.com.

Click here for case-studies of Insight-Live fixing problems

You will see examples of replacing unavailable materials (especially frits), fixing various issues (e.g. running, crazing, settling), making them melt more, adjusting matteness, etc. Insight-Live has an extensive help system (the round blue icon on the left) that also deals with fixing real-world problems and understanding glazes and clay bodies.

The New 2020 Digitalfire Reference Library is Here

The Digitalfire Reference Library on desktop and smartphone

It has morphed into a webapp, reflexive and menu-driven (based on Twitter Bootstrap). It now employs permanent URLs. And pages have logical, and hierarchical URLs (e.g. digitalfire.com/oxide/cao, digitalfire.com/material/feldspar). It correctly forwards 5000+ old URLs. Terms from the glossary automatically hotlink throughout (as do code-numbers for recipes, tests and firing schedules). The search field in the menu bar is area-specific (or all-area at digitalfire.com/home). Still no ads and no tracking. The UI displays from server #1, it calls the database API on #2, the email system on #3, media from #4 and insight-live.com from server #5! So it is super fast, flexible and expandable. There are new areas (e.g. projects, pictures, typecodes). Media displays better. Every page still has a contact form, so you can ask any question anywhere. What till you see what's coming!

Fight the dragon with Insight-live

Fight the glaze dragon. Disorganized documentation of your testing? You are playing into his hands. Replace that notebook or binder with pictures, recipes, firing schedules, test results, material and more in your own or a group account at insight-live.com.

These were just lumps - but I gave them meaning

This clay is exceptional in multiple ways, it clay is from Flintoft, Saskatchewan. It holds together in lumps (center picture) but when broken its sandy nature becomes clearly visible. Other sandy clays in the area are similar but when water is added this one is different: It becomes plastic, plastic enough to form well (notice the texture of the plastic material in the closeup photo on the upper left). And it dries quickly with low shrinkage (the drying test disk upper right shows perfect performance). This combination of properties is what brick makers look for. No wonder that a clay similar to this nearby was used at the Claybank brick plant for 75 years.

I ran a series of physical tests to characterize this material (data shown lower left), that brought to light other good properties:
-It is super refractory, a fireclay. The SHAB test bars (lower right from cone 10R and 10 down to 6 oxidation) correspond to the SHAB test results in the chart. Even at cone 10 this has an amazing 19% porosity. With almost no shrinkage.
-The top bar is reduction-fired yet barely darker than the one below it at the same temperature in oxidation. This indicates low iron content.
-This is low soluble salts. Even though they concentrate on the outer edge of the DFAC test disk (upper right), that part fires only slightly darker at cone 10R (inset).
-Centre-bottom: G1947U clear glaze on it fired at cone 10R. It is neither crazing or shivering. This is unusual.

All of this information is preserved in our Insight-live account. Not shown are all the picture-specific and general notes I took. I compared this with about 10 other clays, doing the same for all of them, preserving a treasure trove of data that enables comparing all of them side-by-side.

Links

Glossary	Digitalfire Insight-Live A cloud-hosted ceramics-targetted LIMS (lab info management system) enabling collection, organization and learning from data to develop, adjust and study their recipes, materials and processes.
Glossary	Glaze fit In ceramics, glaze fit refers to the thermal expansion compatibility between glaze and clay body. When the fit is not good the glaze forms a crack pattern or flakes off on contours.
Articles	Changing Our View of Glazes A big secret to getting control of glazes is to begin looking at them as formulas of oxides rather than recipes of materials.
Typecodes	Lab Notebook Software Hundreds of LIMS's (laboratory information management systems) and ELN's (electronic laboratory notebooks) are available, these are only a few picked at random to compare with our Insight-live.com. Many are focused on biotech and medical, others on manufacturing and materials and some are general purpose. The universal purpose is to replace paper, Excel and Word files with a searchable database and organized workflows. They all feature specimen tracking and organization of many simultaneous projects. Most are cloud hosted and many feature multiple packages that can be purchased separately to add functionality (e.g. instrument interfacing, inventory, customer billing). Most do not display pricing, requiring contacting their sales department.

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