Kevin Groenke
10-10-2007, 10:05 PM
I lurk occasionally and only seem to post SS related items, my apologies.
There does seem to still be a fairly balanced audience here, and being early adopters I figure that our experiences may be of some assistance to others.
So:
Hey folks,
Last Wednesday we had a 5hp single phase SawStop go down. The saw went instantaneously from running fine to struggling to spool-up and tripping the breaker(gggrrrrnnn pop). I suspected the start capacitor and a call to SS service affirmed the diagnosis and the start and run capacitors were on their way overnight.
Friday morning as I was installing the capacitors on saw #1, saw #2 went down with the EXACT same symptoms. I thought, "well at least this one will be working in minutes". Finish the repair, flip the switch....... gggrrrrrnnnnn pop! Uh oh, I don't have a functioning tablesaw and there's like 30 students who need to make 1000's of little mdf blocks, and half a dozen site models.
So, we get the design/build site saw out of the closet, and I spend much of the afternoon with Tony/Chad at SS, trying to figure out what's up. Ultimately we bypass all the electronics by running a cord directly from the motor to the plug. Same thing, gggrrrrrnnnnn pop! - BAD MOTOR. SS is sending two motors under warranty (5yrs).
I'm out til Tuesday, but pull a motor as soon as I get a chance (don't know why I didn't stay late on Friday to do this?). All I find is a crack on the centrifugal switch, but it seems to open and close fine. I put the motor back in the saw (really easy remove/install btw, like 5 minutes to pull this motor). Hit the juice.... SAW STARTS!!! Off, back on.... gggrrrrrnnnnn. WTF??? So, I open the back of the motor and sure enough, the centrifugal switch is open instead of closed. Fortunately this motor is designed with the centrifugal switch outside of the main case so it can be changed without opening the motor (I don't think I've ever seen this before, it's cool). Once I made this determination by completely removing the first motor, I was able to diagnose, remove and re-install the centrifugal switch without taking the motor out of the saw, nice. So, I pulled the switches, tig welded the point of failure and re-installed. Eureka, the saws start, stop and start again... BACK IN ACTION!
Back to SS, I call Tony and let him know what I found. He's interested, but doesn't seem to have a problem sending whole motors when the switch is the only bad part. I'm told there are no field serviceable parts in the motor. Oh well, I guess we've got two back-up motors for our tablesaws.
Apparently SS upgraded the motors fairly early in production, but here is a potential failure you may want to watch out for.
Cheers,
KG
Kevin Groenke Director, DesignFabLab
University of Minnesota
There does seem to still be a fairly balanced audience here, and being early adopters I figure that our experiences may be of some assistance to others.
So:
Hey folks,
Last Wednesday we had a 5hp single phase SawStop go down. The saw went instantaneously from running fine to struggling to spool-up and tripping the breaker(gggrrrrnnn pop). I suspected the start capacitor and a call to SS service affirmed the diagnosis and the start and run capacitors were on their way overnight.
Friday morning as I was installing the capacitors on saw #1, saw #2 went down with the EXACT same symptoms. I thought, "well at least this one will be working in minutes". Finish the repair, flip the switch....... gggrrrrrnnnnn pop! Uh oh, I don't have a functioning tablesaw and there's like 30 students who need to make 1000's of little mdf blocks, and half a dozen site models.
So, we get the design/build site saw out of the closet, and I spend much of the afternoon with Tony/Chad at SS, trying to figure out what's up. Ultimately we bypass all the electronics by running a cord directly from the motor to the plug. Same thing, gggrrrrrnnnnn pop! - BAD MOTOR. SS is sending two motors under warranty (5yrs).
I'm out til Tuesday, but pull a motor as soon as I get a chance (don't know why I didn't stay late on Friday to do this?). All I find is a crack on the centrifugal switch, but it seems to open and close fine. I put the motor back in the saw (really easy remove/install btw, like 5 minutes to pull this motor). Hit the juice.... SAW STARTS!!! Off, back on.... gggrrrrrnnnnn. WTF??? So, I open the back of the motor and sure enough, the centrifugal switch is open instead of closed. Fortunately this motor is designed with the centrifugal switch outside of the main case so it can be changed without opening the motor (I don't think I've ever seen this before, it's cool). Once I made this determination by completely removing the first motor, I was able to diagnose, remove and re-install the centrifugal switch without taking the motor out of the saw, nice. So, I pulled the switches, tig welded the point of failure and re-installed. Eureka, the saws start, stop and start again... BACK IN ACTION!
Back to SS, I call Tony and let him know what I found. He's interested, but doesn't seem to have a problem sending whole motors when the switch is the only bad part. I'm told there are no field serviceable parts in the motor. Oh well, I guess we've got two back-up motors for our tablesaws.
Apparently SS upgraded the motors fairly early in production, but here is a potential failure you may want to watch out for.
Cheers,
KG
Kevin Groenke Director, DesignFabLab
University of Minnesota