Teknatool DVR Motor R&D

[Skizzity]

So, Teknatool developed the DVR motor in early 2002. Teknatool approaches Mr. Folkerth in late 2005 to use the DVR motor in Shopsmiths. The following year the first motors are received for evaluation, to high praise. In August of 2010 the PowerPro headstock and Mark 7 are released. Shopsmith had 4 years to do R&D on this motor.
Is 4 years enough time to do R&D on a unit before it is released for consumption? In those 4 years "inverter heat" never came up? Wouldn't you want to test routing capabilities on a new machine? We have seen that this is an issue for some owners. There is no mention of "inverter heat" in the PP error messages(E-30). There is no mention of "Running times" in routing mode. R&D never found this issue?! I find that hard to believe and if they didn't find it....how extensive was the R&D, really? The Mark 7 is billed as being capable as an under-table router.
Shopsmith, you messed up releasing a product to consumers that wasn't ready. Yes, I am angry that my PowerPro is not performing the way it should and the way it is advertised. I want a motor that works the way it should.

[reible]

I hope you are on the phone with shopsmith talking this over. Just posting here is not likely to give the results you are hoping for.........

At this point we have no idea if this is an issue or just a problem with your unit. Even if you have 10 other people seeing this we still don't know if it is a design issue or a batch of bad components.

I have two of these powerpro units. I don't use them in router mode often and then never for long periods. My unit might have this problem as well but I don't know one way or the other. So far I have not seen an error code for anything. Again one or two units working doesn't say if the design is good or bad.

We just don't have the information to let us know what the deal is. Shopsmith on the other hand would have a lot better idea then we do. How many calls are they fielding on this? If a lot of people are seeing an issue then perhaps there is a design problem. But it just as likely that some components are bad or solder joints that are failing, or????

I spent a lot of years working on issue like this as an engineer, you need to get the shopsmith people working on this and figuring out what is going on, we just don't have the necessary information.

BTW some here have advocated blowing more air across things, from work I and others have done that could actually make maters worse. Unless you know what you are doing and I mean really know you are better off letting shopsmith work this out.

So by all means call them twice a day or what ever it takes........ ask to speak to the boss if you are not making any headway. But concentrate your efforts where they count.

Ed

[everettdavis]

As stated Teknatool released the DVR motors that they put in Nova lathes 10 years before Shopsmith put them in the PowerPro. I don't find much on the Nova lathe heating up or having a duty cycle. It may be out there, but I haven't seen it frequent issues searches.

I go back to the mechanical and opposing belt tensions being just a tad too tight which will cause it to load and generate heat in the drive sleeve bearings and a host of other things, if there is not a component failure in a series of manufactured components that weren't fleshed out in QC during manufacturing for a batch of components.

Everett

[tomsalwasser]

Thank you Skizz for posting your issue with the PP. This is what the forum is for. Those considering spending their hard earned money on a PP would not know about things like this without people like you who use their PP fully and tell about it. Please do keep us all posted with your results. I know SS will pull out all the stops to make this right for you.

Tom

[Ed in Tampa]

Doesn't the fact the PP has a formal temperature code say the manufacture knew it was a possibility?

Doesn't the fact the manufacture says that is normal operation for high speed lengthy runs, suggest they know all about the problem?

Doesn't saying it is normal operation say they do not intend to fix anything

Read the PP ad on SS web site they mention heat issues by saying they did not experience any problem. Why mention you did not experience heat problems if they were never an issue?

Would not this be akin to selling a car and saying it never has transmission problems at 35 mph and the tires do not normally thump at low speeds.

Come on do you really see this as something no one knew about?

[charlese]

My thought is there was something wrong in both the last two PowerPros that had overheating problems. Skizzity was having such problems before the recent POP and Quit.

Heat must have been at least a concern for the R&D effort. The following statement was taken from the PowerPro advertisement Where they brag of planing a mile of boards over several weeks time, only an hour at a time.

"We set our Mark V-powered Shopsmith Thickness planer for the fastest feed rate and a 3/64" depth-of-cut... then started feeding our boards through the planer. We continued this process over several weeks in one-hour increments without stopping until we had fed a mile of white oak through our planer... with no bogging, no complaining and no overheating !"

I don't know what headstock speed is needed to get the fastest feed rate on the Pro Planer.

BUT - they never mention running it for long periods at 10,000 RPM.

[BigSky]

I would have thought that all of this testing would have been successfully completed BEFORE the PowerPro was fielded. Were there any Beta testers? If there was, were any of them members of the active users community?

[JPG]

I would have thought that all of this testing would have been successfully completed BEFORE the PowerPro was fielded. Were there any Beta testers? If there was, were any of them members of the active users community?

Ask Ed.

If he did, I doubt under table routing was on his to do list.

I question the scenario where planing was done in ONE HOUR spurts over several days. Question is, why an hour 'limit'?

Maybe they needed to rout rather than plane(or maybe they did and discovered an hour limit would be prudent). Yes conjecture!!!!

[wa2crk]

Everett
You may be correct in your assumption that the Nova lathe does not have the overheating problem. But it is also not programmed for 10k RPM.
Bill V

[Ed in Tampa]

I would have thought that all of this testing would have been successfully completed BEFORE the PowerPro was fielded. Were there any Beta testers? If there was, were any of them members of the active users community?

Seriously does anyone really believe Shopsmith didn't know about the heat issues?

I'm amazed by some of these comments.