How to properly configure a cartridge heater with a temperature controller.

I'm trying to configure a heating controller to manage a cartridge heater with a solid state relay system and a thermoprobe. These are the four components I am using: 
https://www.mcmaster.com/#4314k6/=1ddfj0u
https://www.mcmaster.com/#7456k17/=1ddfiuo
https://www.mcmaster.com/#3648k24/=1ddfj1f
https://www.mcmaster.com/#3614k551/=1ddfj2e
Are these components compatible? I tried hooking things up as shown in the image.
Thanks!

Kevin - ok, it appears you're doing a couple of things wrong here.You are using the correct thermocouple for your controller so that is all good.The temp. controller and heater seem all rated to use 120V mains power (can you confirm??) so again all good there.However your controller does not put out a voltage to supply your heating element.  It only has a set of contacts.  So it looks like you have connected a switch contact (not power) to your relay (the "Opto22" thing) which in turn is connecting a switch contact (not power) to your heater.  So your heater will never heat up at all, is this what is happening?Your contacts on the Temperature Controller are rated at 8A (Amps).  The heater element you are using uses only 3.1A so you don't really need the Opto22 relay at all.I've heard good things about McMaster-Carr but it seems impossible to find data sheets on their website.  So I hope you got one with your items and can work this out.The temperature controller will have a Normally Open (NO) contact and a normally closed  (NC) contact.  These may be separate or may have a common contact (labelled C).  I've shown this on a diagram here.  You'll notice that your power is also wired  to the heater via the Temperature Controller contacts - they will switch power to the heater (via the Normally Closed contact) until the temperature reaches the set point, when those contacts will open.  Your controller may be wired to operate the other way round - in which case you'd use the C and NO contacts.  Again, without a datasheet, I can't be specific.  Try it as shown, and if the heater still doesn't heat, try the NO contacts.  Please note that the position of my contacts below may not correspond to your controller; if I'd been able to find a datasheet  I could have given you better information.  The NC / C  / NO are what you should look for.From the way you have wired this I am assuming (and may be wrong) that you don't know much about power wiring.  If that is the case, please be VERY careful and only work on it when disconnected, in fact preferably get someone qualified to wire it for you.Just a final note - I cannot verify what power input the temperature controller uses, if it is 12V or 24V the the below will be wrong.  Again McMaster-Carr's non-provision of data sheets stumps me here.....Please let us know how you go.

Hey David, thank you for your quick and detailed reply. I just had a few questions about the setup:1. Do I have to split the active wire to plug into both the A and NC ports? 2. Also, for the neutral, do I split that and connect one side to the heater and the other to N or can I just plug both the neutral and the heater together into the N slot?

I split the active cord and put both the neutral and the heater cord in the N slot, and now it heats up but when it goes above the set temperature and the load turns off, the heater does not stop heating. 

Hi Kevin, thanks for the replies.  I'm in Australia and the time difference is a pain.....Yes you would have to split your Active (live) wire to go to both the Active mains input to the controller, and to the NC connection.If you wired it as above,  and it was heating, it should work.  Bear in mind that you have a 375W heater and it will have a bit of thermal inertia, ie it will continue to dissipate a bit of heat even after the controller switches it off.  You should hear a click as the relay turns off at the set point temperature, and the display should show the temperature rise slow and then reverse until the temperature goes under the setpoint, then it should turn on again.  This would probably take a few minutes.   You can check if there is still power on your heater with a multimeter.If you have a datasheet for the controller and could post a scan or a link here, that would be a big help in advising you more specifically.  Even some photos of the sides of the controller with the wire terminals might help.And to answer your questions above, you can twist wires together to make your split connections.  So twist the Neutral and one heater wire into the N power terminal on the controller, and the Active (live) wire with another wire (that goes to the NC) into the A terminal on the controller,  BUT DO THIS WITH IT UNPLUGGED from the mains power!!!Cheers // David

I think this is where the manual is: http://www.watlow.com/products/controllers/te...rs/series-cv-temperature-controller Here's the datasheet: https://www.instrumart.com/assets/Watlow-CV-Series-Datasheet.pdf
I got it to work! The only thing, like you said, is that the heat cartridge continues to dissipate heat and gets a lot hotter than I set it to before coming back down. Would you recommend getting a lower power cartridge heater? I also think that this temperature controller is On/Off and not proportional or PID controlled, what type would you recommend getting if I only want it to overshoot by around 5 degrees Celsius. Thank you so much for all your help, I really appreciate it  and learned a lot!

Kevin... thanks for that, makes things a LOT easier.OK, glad I was on target with the overshoot.  The ideal if you want really precise control is to use proportional control (as you guessed, what you have is on/off), so as the heater gets nearer the setpoint temp the power is reduced.  But that means buying a whole heap more gear, so lets see what we can do to get things better without doing that.1. Alter your setpoint.  Do a bit of investigation first. Say your setpoint is 200 degrees.  Set that and see what range you actually get.  Lets say that after it switches off it goes up to 220 degrees, then drops slowly down to around 200 degrees and then switches on again.  So then if you set the setpoint to 190 degrees. It should go up to 210 degrees and then down to 190 degrees.  Just with that you've reduced your error from 10% to +/- 5 %. Same range, sure, but nearer your target temp.2. Use a less powerful heater.  You may be able to buy one, but there are a couple of tricks you can use here.  Firstly if you put a diode in series with the heater you will reduce your wattage by 1/2.  Make sure the diode is correctly rated (preferably about 5A but the cheap and easily available 1N5402 (or 1n5403/4/5/6/7/8) rated at 3A average, will probably work OK.  If that helps but not good enough, the second trick is to get a lamp dimmer, but make sure it is rated at 500W or more, in series with the heater.  You can then adjust the power of your heater down to almost zero and see what setting works best.  Dimmers are usually quite cheap too.  But note that if you put something else in to be heated, you may need to up the power some more to compensate for the extra thermal load.3. The other thing you can try is to put your thermocouple as close to the heater as possible, in contact if you can.  This will limit the thermal inertia and as soon as the heater reaches the setpoint temperature it will be switched off.  This should limit the rise of the metal thing you are heating.  This may not be easy but I'd suggest you try the screw right at the top of the goodie if you can for starters.See how you go there, unless you have really critical requirements the above should get you out of trouble.  Let us know how you go.  And thanks - this has been an interesting one!

I just bought a new temperature controller (Extech 48VFL) to hopefully have better control of the temperature. Would you be able to take me through the setup (wiring and settings) of it? The rest of the components (heat cartridge and thermal couple) and the same. http://www.extech.com/resources/48VFL_96VFL_UM.pdf
http://www.extech.com/resources/48VFL_96VFL.pdf
Thanks!