The feed rollers stopped rolling on my DW735. The cutter head kept on rolling but not the feed rollers.
The sprocket for the feed roller just broke. I took it in to be repaired as I didn't know what had happened at the time and I was in the middle of a project. The sprocket was in four pieces.
First time for this - and I've had the planer for 15 years or more.
Now how to prevent this from happening again? I never plane more than 1/16" at a time.
I have the version of that planer that has the knives that can be resharpened. A 733 I believe. The sprocket breaking is a relatively common problem. Not sure there is anything you can do to prevent it and if you got 15 years, it served you reasonably well. Mine broke and I replaced it myself, with the help of YouTube.
Also, mine started to put what looked like snipe on the boards at random intervals. The drive chains had developed some slack. Took a little ciphering, but I figured out the bushings had worn out and there was some play in them. The bushings are made of some sort compressed graphite or some composite that has been impregnated with graphite. Once I got mine out it was obvious they were wallowed out. They are basically a cube with a hole through them. In some the hole was a oval and in others it was still round. Replaced them and all is well.
If your planer is in the shop for the sprocket and it has the same sort of bushings it might be wise to have the shop replace them, "while they are at it". Come to think of it, that might be why the sprocket broke. The wear in the bushing lets the chains develop slack. The slack might be enough to let the chain skip a tooth and shock the sprocket enough to break it. I replaced the bushings and a sprocket and the chain, but I really don't think there was anything wrong with the chain. (I am a cheapskate and fixed it myself, but had to use an impact driver to get one or two of the screws out. The shop might be a good idea)
To bore you even further, there is a YouTube video of a guy repairing his similar planer. It is long and tedious and he fabricates little gadgets to support the chain which he thought was stretched. He ends the first part to wait for parts to come in. In the second video he has had the revelation that the bushings were shot and he did not need the gadgets at all. It was painful to watch, but maybe worth it.
The DeWalt 733 and 735 are totally different designs. The 733 and 734 are very similar, differing in blade sharpenability. There might be some shared components between the 733 and 735, but I don't know because I've never been inside a 735. While I have repaired a 733 more than once for broken sprockets, worn bushings and stretched chains, I've never heard of those problems with the 735. Is there a chance of mistaken identity somewhere in this thread?
I have the 733 which is similar to the 734. The 735 is obviously different and I know nothing about how much they changed the technology. I suspect it has similar sprockets and chains and bushings. They may have upgraded the bushings to bearings, but even if they did the quality of the sprockets may have remained the same and mine was a pretty poor piece of metal.
While typing, I wondered about the parts and went to eReplacementparts,com and looked at them. The bushings, sprockets, and chain look pretty similar. Did not spend much time on it, but I would be suspicious of the bushings after fifteen years.
