The noise from my Hammer A331 - Is it normal?

[Joel Wesseling]

I ran the planer today for the first time. The machine has the standard cutter.

The machine has a chugging sound. It vibrates the dust shroud with table raised and is loud enough to believe it is unreasonable. With table down the sound is reduced but still noticeable.

I looked at videos. There is one by Felder that compares Standard Cutter head vs Spiral. Neither machine has this sound.

Here's what it sounds like but this one is worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvTpBLNHVt8

Any ideas?

[Jamie Buxton]

There's a handle on the infeed side that engages or dis-engages the rollers that feed the wood through the planer. Does the noise change if you dis-engage the feed rollers? Noises in the few hertz area are likely to have something to do with the feed roller drive system.

My other thought was that maybe you're missing a planer knife or some of the gib screws. Those would definitely create a lot of vibration, but it would be much higher frequency than the noises in your linked video.

[Andy Giddings]

Joel, if the machine is new (or even if its old) have you tried calling Felder tech support?

[Joel Wesseling]

Hi,

The noise is present with and without feed rollers engaged.
Hard to indentify where its generated. Ill have to take some covers off for closer examination.
I'll take a look at the knives and screws as well.

It was a trade in and I was told it has 10 Hours on it. I will call the sale rep but hoping I can find a quick fix first.

[Erik Loza]

The way jointer/planers work (any brand), there is a drive wheel that gets engaged when you put the planer into gear. If the machine sits for long periods of time with the gear lever in the "on" position, you can put a dent in the polyurethane tire on the drive wheel. "If" this is the issue with your machine, it will just go away on its own with time as the poly tire moves back into shape. In cases where I have seen this, it usually only manifests itself when the planer drive is engaged. Can you pull the access cover on the back and see what the tire looks like?

Erik

[Brian Lamb]

Erik is correct, Felder uses polyurethane coated drive wheels and if the feed is left engaged, they get a divot and make this thumping noise. If the wheels are old enough, they won't always revert back to smooth, so must be replaced. these are considered a wear item, and a safety, if something jams the wheel gets sacrificed to prevent damage to the more expensive parts. I would replace both urethane wheels... in fact my AD741 needs new ones.... been about 15 years and they are just so old they are falling apart.

[Glenn de Souza]

So following this information, would it be advisable to leave the machine in jointer mode, or at least with the planer drive wheel disengaged, when finished up using the machine?

[Brian Lamb]

Always disengage the feed when you are not using it, at least on any machine that uses poly drive wheels, which is a lot of them.

[Joel Wesseling]

The noise is present with and without feed rollers engaged.

I removed the cover and had a look at all the wear items. Everything appears to be almost new.

I removed the drive belt and ran the motor. The motor seems to run smooth but the cabinet is vibrating creating a 5-6 hz chugging vibration that causes other metal parts to vibrate.

Any A331 owners here?

[Warren Lake]

Erik

I dont think so for any machine have two combos 50 years old left in gear their whole life or 98 percent of it, they could not care less. You are just using power to turn the transmission when you dont need to in jointing.

Ill email Rod Sheridan he posts here a fair bit and has the same machine, maybe on a job right now but he responds well. Pretty sure that is the same machine he has and he knows them well.

[Jamie Buxton]

I removed the cover and had a look at all the wear items. Everything appears to be almost new.

I removed the drive belt and ran the motor. The motor seems to run smooth but the cabinet is vibrating creating a 5-6 hz chugging vibration that causes other metal parts to vibrate.

Any A331 owners here?

Yes, I have an A3-31. It does not have a 5-6 Hz chugging vibration.

[Joel Wesseling]

Yes, I have an A3-31. It does not have a 5-6 Hz chugging vibration.

Does your machine have a drive belt that is a cogged V type?

[Jamie Buxton]

Does your machine have a drive belt that is a cogged V type?

Why do you care? You've already said that the vibration continues when you remove the belt.

[Brian Lamb]

I removed the cover and had a look at all the wear items. Everything appears to be almost new.

I removed the drive belt and ran the motor. The motor seems to run smooth but the cabinet is vibrating creating a 5-6 hz chugging vibration that causes other metal parts to vibrate.

Any A331 owners here?

Well, I'm pretty sure if you disconnect the drive belt all you remove out of the equation is the cutter head, the feed roller mechanisms are still there. They are powered off the motor shaft using the poly wheels. Can you post a video on youtube of yours making these noises? The video you linked to in your first post was definitely the poly wheels. So without some idea of what you are experiencing, anything we come up with is pure speculation.

[Warren Lake]

looked at the video why is his table turned up so high, ive always dropped mine to the bottom for one thing with no dust collection it will fill up there. I can hear the noise you talk about but dont see what is causing that. what difference does it make with poly wheels ? then why doent it do it with just the planer running and tables up?

[Brian Lamb]

That video is not his machine.... but I don't understand your comments. The table is high (assuming you are talking about the planer table) because in that video it appears to be set to plane a relatively thin board, like 3/4" or less, so the table would be near the top. You can't "drop it to the bottom" and plane a board, makes no sense. Polyurethane drive wheels power the mechanism to feed the boards, if they get divots or lumps in them from being left engaged, they either make this sort of lump-lump noise, or they tend to quit spinning right where the divot is and then they are destroyed as the steel wheel they rub up against melts them.

Now, some planers have feed mechanisms with different ways of driving the feed rollers, some are all mechanical with belts, chains or gears, some have electric motors on variable speeds to drive the feed rollers. So there are machines without poly wheels, but that's not what we are talking about here.

[Warren Lake]

they were talking disengage the feed when not using the planer. When I use the jointer I put the planer table to the bottom that was what i was thinking but ive always just left the planer in drive. Clearly these machines are made differently Ive never heard that and hopefully they tell you in the manual.

[Joel Wesseling]

Sorry, 2 amendments are necessary.
1)When the motor is running without the belt the 5-6 chugging is gone.
2)The sound in video I posted is clearly a different problem than I have but it is happening at a similar pulse rate.

[Joel Wesseling]

Yes, I can tell now in the video that its the poly wheels. Thanks Brian.

The feed roller is powered from the motor shaft but is manually disengaged.

[Joel Wesseling]

Why do you care? You've already said that the vibration continues when you remove the belt.

The hammer bandsaws have a wide flat grooved belt, shown to me at felder. I assumed the planer would have the same type.
second, I goofed by saying that the chugging noise was present with belt off.

[Joel Wesseling]

I'll check with felder on Monday if I can't come up with something tomorrow.

[Brian Lamb]

OK, so sound is completely gone without the cutter head spinning? Check to see if the bearings have been lubed, not too much, not too little, it's kind of a fine line, too much grease will over heat the bearing just as fast as no grease at all. Make sure that any mounting nuts on the cutter head are tight... I vaguely remember another member having issue with a loose nut on one end of the cutterhead fairly recently on the Felder Forum.

Check for any obstructions in the dust hood, or around the feed rollers.... if all else fails, Felder should have some answers for you. It might again, be very helpful if you have video with audio of what is happening.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, place the machine in jointer mode. if it's mobile make sure the feet are all supporting the machine, adjust as required.

If it's stationary adjust the feet so the machine is level in both planes.

Disconnect the planer drive.

Remove the fence assembly from the machine, adjust the bridge guard to cover the cutter.

Start the machine, does it still have the resonance?

Regards, Rod.

[Joel Wesseling]

I communicated with Felder and will continue to work with me until it is solved. They gave me some suggestions, specifically to check for a loose pulley that could be rocking back and forth - all looks fine.

I played around with belt tension. When only the motor weight is resting on belt the noise disappears. I can plane wood with this amount of tension, but deep cutting with cause the head to stall.

When I tension the belt the noise reappears and becomes progressively louder as the belt gets tighter.

I'll be trying a new belt next.

[Joel Wesseling]

There is a used A331 for sale on this forum. Someone should grab it quickly. Its an Amazing Machine.

[Joel Wesseling]

New belt, noise is eliminated. Amazing!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Congratulations on finding the cause!

[Joel Wesseling]

Thanks Ken. Rod and Brian - thanks as well, I did play around with the suggestions.

[Brian Lamb]

Glad you found the problem and it wasn't a costly fix....