keith jensen
02-05-2010, 10:15 AM
For those with a short attention span and already have some clue of where this is heading from the title, please skip to the part with the ***** before it.
So I finally had a chance to spend a few minutes getting to know my new 1966 Powermatic 66 table saw. I wired in my phase converter....hit the switch and......nothin'.
I spent a couple of hours troubleshooting with the voltmeter and started to notice something was different between the two heaters (overloads) in the motor starter. When I pushed the reset pin on one side it moved nice and easy, the other side no so much. I then found that if I depressed a small red pin protruding from the top of the "sticky reset" heater the solenoid would fire and lock in place when pushing the start button.
So I immediately thought something was wrong with the bimetal heater, which is a coil style H26 on my Powermatic with the Furnas starter. Another thing that was concerning to me was the blade brake aftermarket install that I knew nothing about.
*********I decided that since in 1966 they made everything to be serviceable that I'd pull apart the heater assembly itself. As soon as I opened it up (and watched the spring fly out) I realized the problem. There was so much sawdust in there that the contacts couldn't even move. There wasn't a spec of sawdust anywhere else visible in the starter so obviously someone has cleaned this out since 1966. So three hours of my time but the fix was cheap at least and now I know exactly how the starter works.
Just thought I'd pass on my experience in case anyone else runs across a stubborn motor starter.
So I finally had a chance to spend a few minutes getting to know my new 1966 Powermatic 66 table saw. I wired in my phase converter....hit the switch and......nothin'.
I spent a couple of hours troubleshooting with the voltmeter and started to notice something was different between the two heaters (overloads) in the motor starter. When I pushed the reset pin on one side it moved nice and easy, the other side no so much. I then found that if I depressed a small red pin protruding from the top of the "sticky reset" heater the solenoid would fire and lock in place when pushing the start button.
So I immediately thought something was wrong with the bimetal heater, which is a coil style H26 on my Powermatic with the Furnas starter. Another thing that was concerning to me was the blade brake aftermarket install that I knew nothing about.
*********I decided that since in 1966 they made everything to be serviceable that I'd pull apart the heater assembly itself. As soon as I opened it up (and watched the spring fly out) I realized the problem. There was so much sawdust in there that the contacts couldn't even move. There wasn't a spec of sawdust anywhere else visible in the starter so obviously someone has cleaned this out since 1966. So three hours of my time but the fix was cheap at least and now I know exactly how the starter works.
Just thought I'd pass on my experience in case anyone else runs across a stubborn motor starter.