I have a table saw that is offline right now and haven’t been able to bring it back to life. Is there any good place to take that kind of thing? I know supposedly Home Depot does repairs, but honestly I wouldn’t trust them with my tools.
What do you think is wrong with it? What are the symptoms? You might find a DMS person who would be willing to help you repair it.
It died while eating a piece of PVC when I slipped. I thought I had tripped the override, but when I went to press it, it would not depress. Replaced the override with a new one, but no luck. The switch, plug, override, everything in the system has solid continuity (I checked with multimeter). However, it simply won’t turn on.
This maybe a stupid question. Have you checked if it has brushes? I could see those getting jarred or damaged.
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Will the motor spin while not under power? Is there a hum when you power it up?
Many answers already in the request for help repairing thread:
Sorry, no help from me on a repair shop; curious myself.
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Honestly I don’t want to take apart the motor myself.
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Not to argue with you, but normally, the brushes are just two screws (one per) and they pop out. It’s not really “taking it apart” as it is taking a piece out.
In any case, the free rotating question could tell you if the brushes are too jammed up.
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Well, I would really appreciate a hand with this project at least. I don’t find the manuals very helpful and couldn’t find any videos online about troubleshooting my issue. If I bring the saw in, can anyone give me a hand with these troubleshooting steps?
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Well Mike asked a couple of questions that are easy remote troubleshooting steps…
Also no hum or any indication of life. The switch definitely closes, but the motor makes no attempt to do anything.
I’m sorry, I have been trying to answer all the questions. Also, I don’t know who Mike is. I looked at the motor and don’t see two screws which obviously remove anything. I vaguely know what brushes in a motor look like, but not exactly. The motor spins freely when off, and the blade has little/no resistance. When I press the switch, it clicks open but otherwise absolutely nothing happens. I have tested continuity in the entire system.
I can’t promise to be up there to help you with it, I haven’t been up at the space much since COVID, but I can promise that during the pre-COVID days when I was up there a lot, I never had problems getting help with something.
In fact thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve ever walked up to someone, asked for help, and been told no?
If it were my table saw, and I hit a road block, I’d bring it up there, and then wonder around looking for someone old or knowledgeable and pretend to be helpless. It tends to work especially well on @procterc if he’s around.
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Lol ok. Sounds like a plan. Yeah, I understand COVID makes everything hard. I am at least happy the Makerspace is open now
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No spin would indicate the motor seized.
Hum would indicate a probable short in the windings (unlikely given the source of the failure).
If spins by hand and no hum, that sounds like electricity is not getting to the commutator in the motor. That role falls to the motor’s brushes (which are often a solid block with a braided copper wire and/or spring attached - not an actual brush).
Assuming electricity is getting TO the motor wires themselves (which it sounds like you have checked), the motor brushes being knocked loose such that they are no longer making contact sounds like a great diagnosis.
p.s. “Mike” is me (aka Hank Cowdog). I’d offer to help but I’m currently in Colorado.
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Ok so I tried removing and re-plugging the brushes. No effect. I blew in the hole to try to clean it out, but the brushes themselves and the holes didn’t look particularly dirty. What’s the next step?
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Thanks for the videos, they were helpful in locating the brushes. Unfortunately removing the brushes didn’t seem to reveal the problem. The brushes themselves were plenty long, unlike the second video. Once I put them back in and retightened them, the saw still behaves the same.
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I’m brand-spankin-new to DMS and am not yet acquainted with the way of doing things… I am planning on being down there around 10 in the morning (Saturday) to get my access card and sign the waver and maybe meet some folks. I’ll bring some troubleshooting tools to see if I can help. I think I saw that you could bring the saw in? I’ll wear a cap that says FMSC on it…Doug
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I’d try to isolate the brushes connection and the outer winding connections and ohm each of those out, that would tell you if one or the other is shorted or open.
They may have a thermal overload fuse on the outer windings that blew and you could have ohmed just across the brush/internal windings.
You’ve got the easy thing out of the way, now it might be time to ask the people at DMS and try the next 10 things.
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