Minimax FS41E no power

[Corey Pelton]

Hey everyone!

I'm hoping someone might have some insight in to why my FS41 E, out of the blue, has decided to stop receiving power. I was using it last night, planing down some stock, and had shut it off to do some other work. When I came back and tried to turn on the machine, the knob (the round black knob to the right), normally has a bit of resistance to it, as I flip it back to power it on. Now that knob doesn't have any resistance, it just has a slight click. Checked the power source, its powering my other 220v machines fine, so doesn't seem to be a source electrical issue.

Any ideas?

FS41E_NoPower.jpg

[Steve Jenkins]

That red stop switch isn’t locked in is it

[Jeff Bartley]

Or one of the micro switches on a door or somewhere else could be preventing the circuit from getting power?

[Corey Pelton]

The front and back safety buttons are on (yellow showing) when I try to turn it back on. I did pop off the front panel to take a look, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. No loose wires or anything.

Yeah, it's odd. The black ring switch, just lost the resistance it once had. It's almost loose now, like its disengaged (magnetic switch?). The wires hooked to it are fine. Wish I knew more about electrical switches to properly diagnose. I'm in need of the machine, as I really don't feel like hand planing the rest of the stock that needs flattening, hah.

[Mike Kees]

Corey is that not the typical Euro setup ,two "switches" .First switch Off and on .Then switch #2 twist the black switch you are talking about.

[Corey Pelton]

So, it was just something I overlooked. I had been planing but after shutting down, I switched back to jointer mode. That’s when the power went dead. So tonight, I went back to planing mode, fired right up. Looks like I didn’t have the planing bed low enough, and the switch’s safety feature disabled the power in jointer mode. Good to know.

Quite happy it it was something so trivial, but embarrassed I didn’t check that first, hah. Sorry for the wasted post!

[Larry Frank]

Glad you posted this and your fix.

[Michael Koons]

Not a wasted post at all. I have driven myself batty trying to find the reason a tool wouldn't start. I've convinced myself I had checked everything only to have some really stupid thing be the issue.

I will say, it's such a relief when you finally figure out what it was!