Re: Dead Pro Planer feed motor
Posted: Fri May 27, 2022 2:27 pm
To bring this thread to closure, I received the new feed motor from Shopsmith on Tuesday, just four business days after I ordered it. I connected it electrically, and it ran fine. Which eliminated a nagging concern that my controller might have been damaged as well.
To swap out the motor, you have to remove the circlip "snap rings" that retain the output gear on the motor shaft. I have an inexpensive set of snap-ring pliers with interchangeable tips, but none of them were small enough to fit the 1 mm holes in the little circlips. Not being able to find any cheap pliers with tips that small, I ponied up the $30 for a good professional-grade Knipex tool from McMaster. The pliers arrived yesterday, and then it was a simple matter to swap the motor last night.
The only downside I've found to the new motor is that it's about 1-1/2" longer than the old one, and even the old one had a tendency to stick out and get in the way of stuff. But for now, I store my shop vacuum beneath it, and that still fits ok.
The new motor had hand-written red tape "labels" stuck on it that proclaimed it to be "FAST FEED" and "120 V". However, the OEM label (below) says that its a 90 V motor and is rated for 107 output RPM. The voltage discrepancy doesn't concern me, as a slightly higher voltage should just cause it to run proportionally faster. That would bring the output RPM up to 107 * 120/90 = 143 RPM. Or then again, maybe the handwritten label was referring to the controller input voltage, and the outspeed really is as shown on the OEM label. If I'd thought about it, I could have put a tach on it before reassembling everything.
But here's the weird thing. The old motor is rated for 3300 motor RPM, and has a 18.48:1 gear reduction. So its output shaft speed should be 3300 / 18.48 = 179 RPM. Which is at least 25% faster than the new "fast feed" motor. I'm not particularly concerned about that, however, as I rarely if ever plane at either extreme of the feed-speed range.
So some $320 later, my machine is back together and ready to plane wood for a few more decades.
To swap out the motor, you have to remove the circlip "snap rings" that retain the output gear on the motor shaft. I have an inexpensive set of snap-ring pliers with interchangeable tips, but none of them were small enough to fit the 1 mm holes in the little circlips. Not being able to find any cheap pliers with tips that small, I ponied up the $30 for a good professional-grade Knipex tool from McMaster. The pliers arrived yesterday, and then it was a simple matter to swap the motor last night.
- Old and new.JPG (162.01 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
The only downside I've found to the new motor is that it's about 1-1/2" longer than the old one, and even the old one had a tendency to stick out and get in the way of stuff. But for now, I store my shop vacuum beneath it, and that still fits ok.
The new motor had hand-written red tape "labels" stuck on it that proclaimed it to be "FAST FEED" and "120 V". However, the OEM label (below) says that its a 90 V motor and is rated for 107 output RPM. The voltage discrepancy doesn't concern me, as a slightly higher voltage should just cause it to run proportionally faster. That would bring the output RPM up to 107 * 120/90 = 143 RPM. Or then again, maybe the handwritten label was referring to the controller input voltage, and the outspeed really is as shown on the OEM label. If I'd thought about it, I could have put a tach on it before reassembling everything.
- New label.JPG (105.89 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
But here's the weird thing. The old motor is rated for 3300 motor RPM, and has a 18.48:1 gear reduction. So its output shaft speed should be 3300 / 18.48 = 179 RPM. Which is at least 25% faster than the new "fast feed" motor. I'm not particularly concerned about that, however, as I rarely if ever plane at either extreme of the feed-speed range.
So some $320 later, my machine is back together and ready to plane wood for a few more decades.
- Installed.JPG (160.39 KiB) Viewed 1257 times