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Well, the Mustard must have taken offense to the Mayo I put on it...towards the end of sanding the maple vase I'm working on, the lathe stopped working. It ran fine all night, then started not turning on sometimes when I'd hit the switch. At first it was intermittent, then it wouldn't spin up at all.
My first suspicion was the remote switch, so I opened up the control panel and bypassed it. It still didn't work. I monkeyed around with it a bit, and saw if I wiggled the main power switch a bit, it would start up. So I rewired things to bypass the main switch, and instead wired the remote switch as the main. Still didn't work. So I unhooked the remote switch, and completely bypassed both switches. Still no go. By now I'm worrying about the controller. As I started re-wiring things back to where I started (with both switches inline), I discovered that one of the three leads coming off the speed control potentiometer had broken off (and another was hanging on by a thread).
I went ahead and pulled out the potentiometer so I can replace it tomorrow. After looking at it a bit, I'd say it's got some of the wimpiest soldering leads I think I've seen on a pot. (And I'm including those inside some pretty cheap Asian guitars I've worked on.)
The manual doesn't say what value the pot is supposed to be, and the stamping on the case doesn't give any real indication, either. Here's what Google says based on the codes on the back. (Any of you guys know the value offhand?) I guess I'll dig out my ohmmeter and figure it out before I go to Radio Shack tomorrow. Two of the leads are broken off at the case, but I think I can get to enough metal to get a reading. I hope I can find something with a little beefier soldering leads.
I figure I'll be calling PM Customer Service on Monday and getting a backup sent out to me. (And maybe a spare on-off switch, too. The working side of that doesn't seem real stout, either. A spare would be handy.)
My first suspicion was the remote switch, so I opened up the control panel and bypassed it. It still didn't work. I monkeyed around with it a bit, and saw if I wiggled the main power switch a bit, it would start up. So I rewired things to bypass the main switch, and instead wired the remote switch as the main. Still didn't work. So I unhooked the remote switch, and completely bypassed both switches. Still no go. By now I'm worrying about the controller. As I started re-wiring things back to where I started (with both switches inline), I discovered that one of the three leads coming off the speed control potentiometer had broken off (and another was hanging on by a thread).
I went ahead and pulled out the potentiometer so I can replace it tomorrow. After looking at it a bit, I'd say it's got some of the wimpiest soldering leads I think I've seen on a pot. (And I'm including those inside some pretty cheap Asian guitars I've worked on.)
The manual doesn't say what value the pot is supposed to be, and the stamping on the case doesn't give any real indication, either. Here's what Google says based on the codes on the back. (Any of you guys know the value offhand?) I guess I'll dig out my ohmmeter and figure it out before I go to Radio Shack tomorrow. Two of the leads are broken off at the case, but I think I can get to enough metal to get a reading. I hope I can find something with a little beefier soldering leads.
I figure I'll be calling PM Customer Service on Monday and getting a backup sent out to me. (And maybe a spare on-off switch, too. The working side of that doesn't seem real stout, either. A spare would be handy.)