Shopsmith Forums

After cleaning my SS once, I knocked some clips off, allowing a wire to touch the sheave. It didn't take long to short out and blow the breaker. Just a thought.

dlbristol wrote:After cleaning my SS once, I knocked some clips off, allowing a wire to touch the sheave. It didn't take long to short out and blow the breaker. Just a thought.

If you have a GE motor, the internal motor wiring sleeves/coating does break down and can cause problems. Have you operated the motor with motor belt disconnected? Have you use compressed air to blow out the sawdust/crud from the motor? I would mount the sanding disc and rotating the disc, turn the Speed Control Dial down to SLOW before operating the motor with the motor belt connected.

thanks guys. we are just now getting out power back in clinton after the tornado hit our area. hopefully soon ill get to look into it further and hunt down the problem.

to try and answer a few questions asked

our house was built in the late 70's i believe

i have tried hooking up to a heavy duty surge protector and straight into the wall outlet with nothing else hooked up but the SS

motor makes no funny noises while revving up

someone suggest turning the speed dial with the power off - no way. i just went thru the whole ordeal of stripping the replacing the speed dial cuz i did that a few weeks ago

will post back soon after i play around with it. thanks again for all the speedy replys

TH workshop wrote:thanks guys. we are just now getting out power back in clinton after the tornado hit our area. hopefully soon ill get to look into it further and hunt down the problem.

to try and answer a few questions asked

our house was built in the late 70's i believe

i have tried hooking up to a heavy duty surge protector and straight into the wall outlet with nothing else hooked up but the SS

motor makes no funny noises while revving up

someone suggest turning the speed dial with the power off - no way. i just went thru the whole ordeal of stripping the replacing the speed dial cuz i did that a few weeks ago

will post back soon after i play around with it. thanks again for all the speedy replys

Power off is not the problem! Shafts not rotating is! Manually rotating them while slowly adjusting the speed control down is ok. You can tell when you are going too fast since the dial will get stiff to turn.

FWIW The 'dial gears' only rotate the outer ring.

P.S. It is not the number of things plugged into a single wall receptacle(outlet) that matters here. It is the number of things plugged into ALL the outlets that are protected by that breaker.

P.P.S. Why are you connecting it through a 'surge protector'? The motor will withstand some pretty hefty 'surges'. The surge protector 'protects' from voltage 'surges' that come from the power company. They will not help the motor startup current surge. If anything, it might make it worse due to the small wires they typically use.

well i finally got to play with it last night. i really wasnt in the mode at all but it was gonna be the only time this week i would have. i removed the belt drive cover and just blew air in with my compressor. also blew air thru the hole on the opposite side of the speed dial were the removable logo is. used some faith and prayers and it worked like normal lol. i turned it on and off a about 4-5 times and it did just fine. its hard to believe that just sawdust did this. it was a month ago i had just taken the whole headstock apart and did a very detailed cleaning. i have only made about 4-6 cuts on the table saw since then and thats it. very odd but as long as it works now im good.

thanks for all the replays and suggestions

I back to my days of computer repair. What was the last thing you did before it stopped working?

I think you said you replaced the speed control assembly. Did your SS work okay before that? If so I suspect the problem is either something on the speed control shaft is binding, which caused the speed control to strip and is now causing too much of a load and tripping the breaker. Or something you did fixing the speed control like pinching a motor wire running up to the switch which is near the speed controller.

The fact you blew out the dust and now it works after a through cleaning less than a month ago makes me believe it is probably a pinched wire that has it insulation rubbed off. When you blew in there it moved enough not to be touching any thing.

I'm guessing it is just barely touching the housing and when you start the SS all is fine but vibration makes it touch the side of the housing causeing a short and tripping the breaker and everything comes to a stop.

By blowing in there you probably moved it far enough away from the housing that it isn't vibrating into the housing and magically you aren't tripping breakers.

If I'm right sooner or later the problem will return. If you want to make sure pull the plug remove what covers that you can so you can run the wires from the motor to the switch and back to power feed. It is my guess you will feel a pinched wire some where along the way.

Glad to hear you are back up and running. I would like to make a few suggestions, echoing much of what has already been said.

1. If you use an extension cord, it needs to be at least 12 gauge (thick) wire. I have never seen a standard surge protector with wire heavy enough to handle the kind of amperage the SS will repeatedly draw so it is advisable not to use one. After all, unless you have a PowerPro there are no electronics to protect.
2. If you are using a surge protector just to get more outlets on the same circuit, you are likely overloading the circuit with other resistance besides the SS, especially on motor startup. That's going to put a strain on your breaker and cause failure more quickly. If you have an open slot in your panel it's preferable to install a new circuit that's dedicated for your SS. That's something I hope to get done pretty soon, myself.
3. It's amazing how easily impacted saw dust will affect the insulating and cooling properties of the motor. My original motor burned up as a result. Whenever you have the belt cover off, take a compressor or leaf blower and blow out the motor as best you can.
4. Lastly, if you are ever trouble shooting power issues, you can follow the procedure Dusty and JPG pointed out of using the sanding disc (or face plate) to rotate the spindle while turning the speeddial up to fast (and only while rotating the spindle). Once at fast, the belt will be near the outer edge of the lower sheaves and you can walk it right off. Then you can turn the motor on without any load and see if the problem is mechanical or not.

Of course, I'm no expert so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.

thanks alot of good info that im sure ill be using in the future.

TH workshop wrote:thanks alot of good info that im sure ill be using in the future.

Not too soon I hope!;)

I share the concern that 'merely' blowing it out 'fixed' things.

Did you resolve this issue? I’m having the same problem.
If so, how did you solve it.
Many thanks