Kerry Burton
Member
- Messages
- 1,163
- Location
- Orem, Utah
At our last turning club meeting, our esteemed president was slated to demo some basic bowl turning techniques. He put a good-sized chunk of green wood on the club's Powermatic 3520A, at a low speed, and started roughing it down to round.
Whenever he "leaned into it" the lathe would spin WAY down and all the torque would disappear. If he "let up" it would eventually speed back up again ... but after 3 or 4 repeats in even fewer minutes, he threw in the towel.
I was filming from one end of the lathe, so I couldn't see the digital readout on the controller box, but someone in the audience mentioned to me later that each time it would show what appeared to be an "overload" indicator.
Anyway, the 220 plugs were bared, inspected and reassembled; the controller was cracked open and peeked into; the circuit breaker was thrown and reset ... all to no avail.
One of the club members said that his PM had acted that way before. At some point in the power cord / connection he found that one of the wires was only attached by a few strands. He figured that when a load was introduced the supply couldn't satisfy the demand and the controller shut things down.
Does that sound like a reasonable explanation? The "quickie" inspection didn't find anything, but perhaps a more thorough one will. Anything special to look out for?
Our poor president; he had to do the rest of the demo using a white board, a couple of pre-prepared bowls at different stages of turning (whew!) and some hand-waving. I dare say it won't be one of the more-requested club videos....
Whenever he "leaned into it" the lathe would spin WAY down and all the torque would disappear. If he "let up" it would eventually speed back up again ... but after 3 or 4 repeats in even fewer minutes, he threw in the towel.
I was filming from one end of the lathe, so I couldn't see the digital readout on the controller box, but someone in the audience mentioned to me later that each time it would show what appeared to be an "overload" indicator.
Anyway, the 220 plugs were bared, inspected and reassembled; the controller was cracked open and peeked into; the circuit breaker was thrown and reset ... all to no avail.
One of the club members said that his PM had acted that way before. At some point in the power cord / connection he found that one of the wires was only attached by a few strands. He figured that when a load was introduced the supply couldn't satisfy the demand and the controller shut things down.
Does that sound like a reasonable explanation? The "quickie" inspection didn't find anything, but perhaps a more thorough one will. Anything special to look out for?
Our poor president; he had to do the rest of the demo using a white board, a couple of pre-prepared bowls at different stages of turning (whew!) and some hand-waving. I dare say it won't be one of the more-requested club videos....