This Weekend's Safety Lesson: Drive Belts

[Vaughn McMillan]

Had two incidents this weekend that I figured might be worth mentioning, so others maybe can avoid them.

I got a little Delta Snipemaster Planer a month or so ago, and while using it Saturday, I heard the motor slow down a bit and smelled a whiff of burning rubber. I shut it down, unplugged it, peeked around inside (but didn't open it up), saw nothing amiss, so I figured it was just a bit of belt slipping, and I continued planing away. A bit later I was using it again, and it did the same thing, but worse. This time, I noticed a few globs of hardened melted plastic on the inside, so I took off the side panel and found what's in the picture below. This is what's left of the cheap little (clip-on) plastic cutter head drive belt cover after it gets loose and straddles the drive belt for a few board feet of curly maple.

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This pic shows where the plastic cover is supposed to be. I think it'll be just fine without it.

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Incident #2 started while running the table saw last night. At one point, I saw a small spark in the area of the motor as I was running the saw, but the saw didn't skip a beat, so I figured it was either a speck of sawdust that had gotten in the wrong part of the motor (a stupid thought, in retrospect), or a figment of my imagination. I continued using the saw off and on for another hour or two with no incidents. Then today, I was setting up to do the first cut of the day, and needing to change baldes, I unplugged the saw, removed the ZCI, and started cranking the blade up. While doing this and looking through the hole in the table top, I noticed I could see the the power cable, and it was moving as I moved the blade...neither of which I'd seen before. The power cable is supposed to be below all that stuff.

I have a contractor-style table saw with the typical motor hanging off the back. The saw also has a built-in mobile base, and I tend to move the saw quite a bit, usually just rotating it in place temporarily to get outfeed clearance for longer cuts. (Most of my cuts are short, so I tend to point the outfeed at the garage door for those, but for longer cuts I spin the saw around 90 degrees.) Here's a pic of the back of the saw...you can see the motor, the belt, and the belt cover:

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The power cord and switch on the saw are of the left-hand side, but the outlet it goes into is to the right of the saw. Because of this, I run the power cord around the back to the right side, and into the outlet. Here's what happens when you somehow get the power cord flipped up above the motor, and it gets past the belt guard:

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Apparently, one of the times I moved the saw, I swung the power cord around in such a way it got caught up above the motor. Bad idea. And finally, this shot shows that the belt was fully through both the black and the green wires. Now I guess I know where the spark came from. :rolleyes:

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I have a long and exciting past with electricity. Like the time I decided to make two 50' extension cords out of a single 100-footer, and didn't realize until it was too late that the cord was still plugged in. I learned that a pair of Craftsman sidecut pliers can be instantly made into a nifty wire stripper with the properly applied voltage. :eek:

The middle pic (above) also shows the new (yellow) power cord, firmly zip-tied to keep it from getting where it shouldn't.

Seeing Dale's post and the fun he had with belts this weekend, I'm thinking it must be something in the phase of the moon or something.

- Vaughn

[Fred Anderson]

Vaughn,

Make sure you leave enough slack in the cord so that you allow the motor to move when you tilt the blade to 45 degrees.......could lead to another event otherwise. :)

Fred

[Bill Lewis]

BTDT with the cord and the saw, though not that bad, just the outer jacket was damaged. A simple, but ugly fix with some tape and wire ties.

BTW, I also have a pair of modified wire cutters, that now can be used for strippers too.

[James Ayars]

I learned at a young age to be "afraid" of electricity. When I was around 8 years old I wanted to see what happened if I touched the spark plug on a running lawn mower.:confused:

I learned that what happens is you experience a great deal of pain. Since then, I'm careful even when just plugging something into a socket.

Glad the cut elecrical cord did not result in any long term damage to the saw or to you. I liked your attempt to make to 50 footers from a 100 foot.:D
James

[Vaughn McMillan]

Vaughn,

Make sure you leave enough slack in the cord so that you allow the motor to move when you tilt the blade to 45 degrees.......could lead to another event otherwise. :)

Fred
Same thought crossed my mind, Fred, but the yellow cord is actually coming from the switch , so it won't move when the motor is tilted.

- Vaughn

[Byron Trantham]

Seeing Dale's post and the fun he had with belts this weekend, I'm thinking it must be something in the phase of the moon or something.

- Vaughn

I just read Dan's post and I think you are right about the moon. :p I posted one the other day about a pulley coming loose on my TS! I would have never expected that.:mad:

I used to own a Delta 12 1/2" planner and after about six months of use the belt pulley came off, destroyed the belt housing (plastic) and the belt. Called Delta and they said "Oh yea, our factory forgot to put loctite on the pulley set screws!" They replaced all the parts under warranty. Oh well.:D

[Dan Forman]

YIKES!!! Glad nothing worse happened. I had an interesting event once when my Bosch belt sander ate its own cord while I was doing some rather gymnastic sanding moves.

Dan

[Bruce Page]

Whew! Glad that you found the frayed cord before you got bit!
I have a pair of dykes that resemble your side cutters…as they say, it was an event. :eek: :o