DW 735 High current draw - Low power

[Gary Pennington]

Planing a piece of oak a couple months ago and had a knot blow up and stall my 735. There was a screech and the smell of burning rubber. I hit the switch and shut it down maybe a second or two after the blow out. I cleared the pieces out of the cutter head, wiped down the feed rollers and all seemed well. I turned it on and it seemed to be OK. I was pretty shaken with that episode so I finished the little bit of planing with a hand plane and completed my piece.

Now, with more planing on the horizon I'm going over my equipment and the 735 just seems to have no power. I put an ammeter inline with the power cord and it's drawing around 11 amps no load. With 15 amps being full load, I'd think it should run unloaded at maybe 10% or 1.5 amps. I've pulled covers and looked over everything I can see and replaced the drive belt but it just has no pep. I can't plane more than 1/32 off a 3" piece of oak. The blades are fresh. Anyone have any ideas or do I need to haul it to a service center? Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

Gary

[Myk Rian]

Check the brushes and also the commutator while they are out.
You can get to the brushes from a small panel on the back, and one inside the planer.
Screwdriver covers hold them in.
Also, make sure nothing is jamming the fan.

[Tim Janssen]

If you can wait till tomorrow morning I can take some current measurements on my 735.

Tim

[Dan Friedrichs]

Gary,

I just went and measured the draw on my 735, and it's 7.5A (no load).

Just a thought: I seem to remember that the blower fan can be easily unplugged once you have the top cover off? Perhaps try unplugging that and measuring current draw, just as a means of eliminating one of the possible sources of the problem.

[Gary Pennington]

Thanks guys.

Myk-I'll check the fan. I've read it can be removed so may do that depending on what things look like. I did check the brushes and they look great--no unsual wear pattern but I didn't look at the commutator, will do that today. I didn't measure the brush length, but I'd guess around 5/8".

Tim-Thanks. Will be interesting to see what different machines draw.

Dan-Geez, I never would have thought the draw would be that high no load.

After everyone is awake I'll pull the drive belt off and recheck the draw. Then unhook/remove the fan and recheck.

Gary

[Gary Pennington]

Pulled the fan cover, it was galled, evidently that was the "burning rubber" smell I mentioned in the OP. Must have been a chunk stuck between the impeller and the housing. It wasn't there today--must have been ejected the next time I started the machine. Pretty sure the galling isn't a long term thing, I've never had a melting plastic or other hot smell other than at the blow out.

Checked the brushes-there's 3/8"+ to the change mark. The commutator looks good. Motor spins freely with the brushes removed.

Removed the drive belt. Cutter head spins freely. Ran w/o belt-draws around 8.75 amps.

Cleaned up the blower housing and reassembled everything. Now pulls around 10.5 amps no load down from 11 yesterday. Ran a 3' piece of 3" WO thru-at 1/32" it sounded good but was pulling 15 amps, the max my inline meter will handle. Removed the meter and took a 1/16" cut without the planer sounding like it's going to stall. Must have readjusted something in the tear down/ reassembly this morning. Can't imagine what it was, but I couldn't get more than a 32nd without it sounding like it was going to stall yesterday.

It's definitely better but still doesn't have the pep it's supposed to have. I'll dig deeper if anyone has thought of other possibilities.

Thanks, Gary