Mark 510 Power Pro Headstock making rattling noises

[kmpres]

Hi Guys,

First post here. Heard about you from Scott's My Growth Rings YT channel.

I live overseas (Japan) which makes it hard for me to keep up with you all in the States. I bought my Shopsmith Mark 510 new in New York in 1986. When my boss transferred me to Japan a year later I took it with me rather than leave it to rust in storage. The company paid for the shipping so it was no loss to me. It wouldn't surprise me if it is now the only Shopsmith in Japan.

I don't use it often but when I do it's a great joy to use. I self-upgraded it to Power Pro some 10 years ago. Been running it on a 220 V transformer as Japanese house voltage, 100V 50Hz, was too low to run the original 120V 60Hz motor. It's been a powerful performer ever since so the upgrade was well worth the time and expense.

Lately, however, the headstock has been making a rattling noise, especially when running the disc sander. If I load the sander heavily with, say, a 2x4, the motor appears to lose synch with the ESC and trips on itself, but it will resume normal running after I lessen the load on the disc. The bearings are still tight and there's no runout or slippage in the spindle. Table saw and drill operations run normally. I don't use the lathe often (too tall for the thing, alas) but I'm sure it runs normally too.

The losing synch thing makes me think it is an ESC problem. It's actually had that rattle since the Power Pro upgrade, but I could find no mechanical problem at the time. Due to my distance I decided to live with the problem rather than send it to the States for service. However, the rattle has been getting louder so now I may not have a choice.

My questions:

• Is it possible to update the firmware in the Power Pro ESC?

• Does Shopsmith still service the Power Pro headstock?

• To what address should I send it for service?

Many thanks for your help!

[JPG]

"Trips on itself"?

I would be suspicious of a loose set screw in the drive train.(Idler pulley?)

[edma194]

Not sure what you are describing but the fan of the pulley on the PowerPro motor create problems if their tiny little set screws don't lock them down tight. I have one unit with this problem unresolve. It's now mounted on my dedicated drill press where hasn't displayed the problem so far.

Interesting that JPG mentioned the idler, that PowePro came to me used with a messed up idler assembly. The drive belt on the PowerPro is very tight and on that one over-tightening ruined the eccentric bushing and idler bearings.

[DLB]

My questions:

• Is it possible to update the firmware in the Power Pro ESC?

Shopsmith doesn't provide software or firmware updates, or the means to install them. I presume it is possible for Shopsmith to update in house, but I don't know if they routinely do so.

• Does Shopsmith still service the Power Pro headstock?

Yes.

• To what address should I send it for service?

Contact Customer Service first. They should advise you on options and will provide the shipping address.

Many thanks for your help!

Welcome to the forum. I cringe at the thought of two-way shipping costs for a PowerPro headstock from Japan to Ohio. First things I would check are the shaft setscrews on the motor pulley and motor fan. These have a known history of coming loose, blue loc-tite can be used to improve that. The fan has the mechanical features for RPM and position feedback between motor and controller.

Check belt condition and tension. Check for rotational free-play between the two upper spindles, I use a disc and small lathe faceplate and rotate them against each other by hand. Play should be almost undetectable. I'd also check axial (in/out) free-play on the quill spindle, I've experienced short service life on two quills with the current bearings though I can't tie that to sanding disc. Similarly, short service life of the PowerPro style Idler bearings has been my experience, especially compared to the old-style Idler bearings and I keep a spare Idler shaft on hand.

If everything checks good, I'd consider the cost of a new Controller and one-way shipping. It's an expensive part to buy when you're not sure, but two-way shipping costs for the whole headstock may be prohibitive. Even in the states, Controller repair is only a bit less expensive than replacement due to labor and shipping. Good luck with all of this.

- David

[edma194]

I cringe at the thought of two-way shipping costs for a PowerPro headstock from Japan to Ohio.

Well, maybe he can just ship the parts to New Zealand where the PowerPros evolved from lower order motor species, which is almost 1000 miles closer to Japan 0than Ohio, or Florida where the Striatech office is.

kmpres, I hope we can help you deal with this without engaging in a lot of intercontinental shipping. First, do you still have your original conventional headstock or the motor from it? If you self installed in the old headstock it may not be worth the trouble to restore the conventional AC induction motor, but that's at least a possibility if your PowerPro issues are hard to resolve. Having another headstock is looking like a good idea for PowerPro owners. I had a spare headstock to use when I did a self-upgrade to PowerPro, so always had the original headstock from my 510 the whole time if the upgrade didn't work out. As it was, that enabled me to build a dedicated drill press with it. Later acquired second PowerPro that was used, and suspected to have an issue for being available at low cost, I encountered a problem that may be similar to yours, covered in this thread. Like some other PowerPro issues it's related to the torque needed to maintain speed of heavy items like the disk sander or table saw blade.

First, remove the belt cover from your headstock and check for misalignment of the motor, idler shaft, and main drive shaft. There is no clear way to get this done, in my self-install I was able to align the belts with a straight edge but it doesn't turn out that well all the time. As discussed in a recent thread, the goal is to get the 3 shafts involved parallel to each other, the motor shaft, idler shaft, and main drive shaft. That could result in some skewing of the belts but I don't know of any clear spec of what is allowable in that case. So first get an idea of what's happening there. Check the belt tension, it should be quite tight, the idler eccentric bushing effects that somewhat, but so do the motor mount adjustment screws. If you did a self-upgrade on the PowerPro you should be familiar with tilting the motor up to remove the belt, and you need to do that to check the setscrews on the motor fan and pulley. There are videos on the self-upgrade that will show you how to do that if you haven't done it before. It wouldn't hurt to take pictures while you're in there.

You can also check for the problem occurring under different conditions. Try with a saw blade mounted, a drill chuck with the heaviest item you can chuck up, or other devices that might tend to load the motor. And you can try those on the auxiliary shaft also, although be very careful about mounting a saw blade unprotected by guards. You can see what happens with tools mounted on both the main spindle and auxiliary spindle at the same time also.

[KD2ORG]

Many thanks for your assistance, guys! I spent all day yesterday digging into my headstock and found the belts in good condition, the bearings tight and without axial play or run-out and the setscrews tight. I did find, however, that the motor was a bit skewed on its mount. I remember having trouble with this when I installed the upgrade. I spent a good two hours realigning the motor and finally got it to where the mounts are parallel with the motor and the belts evenly tight forward and back -- a considerable improvement over what it was before. I also removed the fan and checked the position sensors. Other than a light coating of dust, they appeared to be perfectly normal as well.

I then spent the next two hours trying to figure out why I could not get the headstock back onto the way tubes. The power lines inside the headstock kept getting in the way of the tubes making the heavy headstock difficult to hold and position properly. However, after much huffing and puffing and a good bit of colorful language I finally got it back on the tubes and the machine reassembled. After adjourning for dinner I went back outside, hooked up the power line, flipped the switch -- and nothing. No display nor movement or noise of any kind. I apparently pulled a wire loose while inserting tubes into the headstock so I decided to wait until morning to give my muscles a chance to relax before taking the machine apart again.

Today I'm stalled because of rain, with more in the forecast for tomorrow. Japan is a lovely place to live but the utter lack of space is a real pain at times. I must wheel my Shopsmith outside my shop door to use most of its functions but that means Japan's very changeable weather often interferes with my woodworking activities.

As the mechanics appear to be in good condition the only other cause for my problem would be the Controller board. If I continue to have trouble I will call Shopsmith and have them send me a replacement - thanks to David for the suggestion.

I'll update these pages when I have more to report. Thanks again for your help!

PS. "Trips on itself" -- a technical term meaning the motor windings have lost sync with the ESC pulses. Used to happen occasionally with my BLDC motors.

[kmpres]

Many thanks for your assistance, guys! I spent all day yesterday digging into my headstock and found the belts in good condition and the bearings to be tight and without axial play or runout. I did find, however, that the motor was a bit skewed on its mount. I remember having trouble with this when I installed the upgrade. I spent a good two hours realigning the motor and finally got it to where the mounts are parallel with the motor and the belts evenly tight forward and back -- a considerable improvement over what it was before. I also removed the fan and checked the position sensors. Other than a light coating of dust, they appeared to be perfectly normal as well.

I then spent the next two hours trying to figure out why I could not get the headstock back onto the way tubes. The power lines inside the headstock kept getting in the way of the tubes making the heavy headstock difficult to position properly. However, after much huffing and puffing and a good bit of colorful language I finally got it back on the tubes and the machine reassembled. After adjourning for dinner I went back outside, hooked up the power line, flipped the switch and -- nothing. No display, movement or noise of any kind. I apparently pulled a wire loose while inserting tubes into the headstock so I decided to wait until morning to give my muscles a chance to relax before taking the machine apart again.

Today I'm stalled because of rain, with more in the forecast for tomorrow.

As the mechanics are in good condition the only other cause for my trouble would be the Controller board. If I continue to have trouble I will call Shopsmith and have them send me a replacement - thanks to David for the suggestion.

I'll update these pages when I have more to report. Thanks again for your help!

PS. "Trips on itself" is a technical term meaning the motor windings have lost synch with the ESC pulses. Used to happen occasionally with my BLDC motors.

[KD2ORG]

OK, I found the problem. Two problems actually. First, the rattling noises I've been hearing are apparently caused by the belts having unequal tension. That was caused by the motor not being mounted parallel with the intermediate shaft. The bearings are still tight, though, so I don't believe they are damaged. I fixed the motor position after some effort but when I plugged the machine in to power it up all I got was silence. I thought I'd done some grievous harm to the wiring harness by muscling the headstock onto the way tubes the hard way but that was not the case. I took it all apart again and found everything inside just fine. About that time I finally located my long-lost DIY Power Pro Upgrade DVD and had a look. Wish I had seen it before I began this work, it would have saved me a lot of unnecessary verbiage. However, my self-guided repair work wasn't bad, it just could have gone easier had I not lost the DVD in the first place.

The silence was actually caused by a broken connection inside my old step-up transformer housing. Found a wire tie-point that mysteriously opened without blowing the fuse or extinguishing the neon power-on light. Very confusing, but I'm grateful the windings and other parts weren't damaged. The model I have is not made anymore and it's a hard item to find on the net.

Must now do some life intervention but will resume my repairs in a few days when that's done. Will update this thread at that time.

[KD2ORG]

I've completed the repairs to my Shopsmith and she is running better now than than she has in an embarrassingly long time. Most of my problem was in the Nissyo 100v to 117V/240V step-up transformer that I must use to get the thing to run on Japanese voltage. After fixing a cold-solder joint and replacing numerous worn out switches and parts it, too, is now running better than it has in a long time. Once all that was sorted I could finally finish working on the headstock.

On that, I'd forgotten that I'd left the motor slightly askew relative to the intermediate shaft when I'd installed the Power Pro Upgrade ten years ago. That made the belts difficult to balance properly and,I believe, caused the bearing rattle and "tripping" (for lack of a better word) noises on high loads that I'd experienced recently. However, after removing and reinstalling the motor per the Power Pro DVD I was able to adjust the eccentric bushing and get the motor to run smoothly with minimal rattling. She now accelerates much more smoothly and cuts and sands wood with little to none of the odd noises that I'd experienced before.

One question, though:
How tight are the poly-V belts supposed to be? They appear plenty tight to me but I want to make sure that they won't slip during fast operations like table sawing, shaping and planing. Can slightly loose belts cause the noises that I described above?

Thanks!

[DLB]

One question, though:
How tight are the poly-V belts supposed to be? They appear plenty tight to me but I want to make sure that they won't slip during fast operations like table sawing, shaping and planing.

I adjust mine at the motor mounts with the Idler clamp loose and try to get it where there is about 30 degrees of usable rotation adjustment on the Idler eccentric. This is quite a bit looser than I interpreted from the DIY video. Which was: very hard to adjust the Idler in either direction. Then balance as a final step as described in the manual. There are some other threads discussing how hot the belts and Idler run if the belts are tight. Too loose will slip, of course. I don't know that 30 degrees is the right balance between too loose and too tight, but mine does run cooler and I haven't had slip issues.

- David