Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Pete in Holland MI

Pull the belt off the motor. Does the motor turn freely? Turn it on for several minutes & see that it runs correctly. Does the lower wheel turn freely? Does the upper wheel turn freely? Are the blade guides too tight and binding on the blade?

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Johanna Johanson

Thanks - I'll try removing the belt tomorrow. The wheels do turn freely. I'll check the blade guides then too, but I'm pretty sure they are OK.

Sawdust

Mike L

make sure it is not full of saw dust. Blow it out and see if that helps.

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Jack Guzman from Maine

When you say "tripping" I assume you are talking about a circuit breaker of sorts. If so, breakers fail also. You might look to see if you have a bad breaker.

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

John K Jordan

>>>

When you say "tripping" I assume you are talking about a circuit breaker of sorts. If so, breakers fail also. You might look to see if you have a bad breaker

That's what I wondered. Panel circuit breaker or the thermal overload protection on many motors? Sometimes a red button.

JKJ

good point....what is tripping

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I presumed it was the motor thermal overload. If so, the motor is either running hot from too much load, low voltage to motor (long, small extension cord), or plugged up air flow, ....or, the thermal overload device is defective.

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Johanna Johanson

Only the bandsaw motor reset is involved, not the breaker on the circuit. I can press the reset button and the saw will run for a little while before it stops again. I suspect this is a motor issue.

I keep the area pretty free of sawdust, but I'll vacuum around the motor thoroughly today.

Re: good point....what is tripping

Johanna Johanson

"I presumed it was the motor thermal overload. If so, the motor is either running hot from too much load, low voltage to motor (long, small extension cord), or plugged up air flow, ....or, the thermal overload device is defective."

Hmmm . . . definitely not too much load - hardly any. It's a 220 motor - no extension cord. Tablesaw is also 220 - different circuit - but no problems with table saw. I'll be sure to vacuum the air intake on the motor this morning, but I keep that area pretty clean. So I suspect that the motor overload device is defective.

So maybe I need to take the motor off (ugh!) and take it to a motor repair place????

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Bill Howatt

Does the motor get hot to the touch? Is there any hot/burning smell? If so, it may indicate an internal problem like a shorted winding which means a repair or more likely a new motor since repairing small HP motors often is not cost-effective.

Bill

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Barry Irby

Keeping the area is important, but may not be enough. I have taken several things apart and found lots of sawdust inside in spite of running dust collection and air cleaners. Just partially removed the switch on my Dewalt planer and found about half a cup of sawdust in the enclosure with it and the thermal overload.

I have to periodically blow out the motors on several of my machines. When the thermal overload on my RAS starts acting up I open the housing its in and blow it out and get lots of dust even though its "sealed".

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

William Duffield

That's not the problem with the Steel City bandsaws, which have TEFC (Totally Enclosed Fan Cooled) motors. There's no way for sawdust to get inside.

Could be a bad bearing

Dick Coers

Take the blade and drive belt off. Spin the wheels of the bandsaw and listen. Spin the motor by hand and listen for bearing noise. Turn the motor on and listen again. If no noise, you are still closer to being ready to take it to a shop.

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Lee Schierer in McKean, PA

It could be a bad capacitor. If the motor stays on the start windings very long the reset will trip.

Lee

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Barry Irby

I did not know this was a TEFC motor. Don't have a lot of experience with them, but have never seen dust get inside the motor housing. I would still check the fan housing to be sure it's not clogged up and check any other housings on the motor like the capacitors and Thermal overload switch. But it seems unlikely that a clogged fan would cause a thermal trip after a few seconds.

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Bill Howatt

It also could be a stuck centrifugal switch that isn't getting the start winding/capacitor out of the circuit when it should. Both of these are easily repairable by a motor shop or even a WWer who knows a bit about motors.

Bill

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

William Duffield

I could be wrong; it's happened many times before when I've tried to recall something from memory. It is my recollection from back when I used to sell them that the Steel City 16" and 18" bandsaws are basically the same design, with differences in the scantlings (frame dimensions, wheel diameter, table size, etc.) that determine depth of cut. My Steel City 18" bandsaw definitely has a 220V one cycle TEFC motor. I checked this morning. Even though you cannot clog its motor windings with sawdust or spider webs or stink bugs, it is still possible to clog the fan shroud, which could lead to overheating, but it should take quite a bit longer to overheat the motor than if the problem were due to one of the other possible problems others have suggested Johanna check first.

OT, scantlings

John K Jordan

I've never once (in my memory) heard of that word. This is a good opportunity to look it up:

scantling, noun

plural noun: scantlings

1. a piece of lumber of small cross section.

the size to which a piece of wood or stone is measured and cut.

2. a set of standard dimensions for parts of a structure,

especially in shipbuilding.

3. (archaic) a specimen, sample, or small amount of something.

The word even has a Wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scantling

JKJ

scantlings usage

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

The word appears often in inventories of Period cabinet makers. There will be an entry among the inventory of tools and materials for "poplar scantlings", for example. I presumed it referred to partial boards of the species.

It is a word with scant usage

Re: scantlings usage

William Duffield

Bill and JKJ's research is enlightening. I should have looked it up in the OED before trying to use it, and probably should have confined myself to using it on the Hand Tool Forum. In the shop where I used to work, we usually used it to refer to small measurements that were commonly the same for all or most pieces of furniture we built, for example width and depth of grooves for holding panels, thickness of cock beads, tenon widths, etc. These would be measurements that we knew by heart or for which a commonly used marking gauge was set up, or a plough plane (both iron width and depth stop), or a mortise gauge and chisel, etc., that we would typically use for laying out without the need to reset or remeasure for each particular operation or piece of furniture.

Re: Bandsaw motor keeps tripping

Johanna Johanson

Yep, Lee, it is apparently a capacitor. I had my electrician out this morning to diagnose it. So now I have to haul the motor to a shop. I'll ask there if it's better to repair it or to get a new one.

Johanna, a capacitor is about $10 -15

Keith Newton

Its easier to take it off the motor than to take the whole motor in.

Re: Johanna, a capacitor is about $10 -15

Bruce, a MN Galoot

And it’s usually a DIY job.

Here's a DIY video for capacitor removal

kneale brownson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k4c998kLKc