- Joined
- Nov 5, 2016
- Messages
- 1,419
Long story... here's the read's digest version. A couple of weeks ago I bought a pickup load of machining tools, cutters, accessories, chucks, collets, etc. etc. along with a Jet JVM-836-1 milling machine (he delivered with his trailer). The deal was too good to turn down since this stuff had been in his garage stored for over ten years... a lot of stuff had surface rust on it, but for the most part, was only cosmetic and doesn't effect performance at all. Most items are cleaning up very nicely and other that some occasional dark tarnish you would never know that it had been neglected.
On my request, he tested the mill out and from sitting there both the motor and switch ended up being bad. The start capacitor and start windings burned out when he tested it and the switch contacts burned together. Since this was an older machine, the only motor Jet has for replacement was the current mill's model and that, along with all the parts necessary to modify the new motor to fit this older machine and to get things going would have cost close to $1000 (from Jet)! He didn't have the money to get it repaired so this lowered the price a lot more. So I bought everything for a nice price, since he wanted to get his garage cleaned out and just wanted everything gone!
So, rather than spend $1000 with Jet I bought a new 1-1/2 HP motor from Surplus Center and a new Dayton reversing drum switch from eBay for a little less than $300 total. I had to modify things since the original motor, step pulley, motor mounting plate were all metric and I replace it with a standard C faced motor, but that's not an issue and things turned out very nicely. Got everything wired up (with the help of a TechTop applications engineer since this motor had 7 leads instead of 6 and I wanted to make sure I was hooking up the reversing switch correctly) and the mill ran fine for a whole day. Then, when I started the motor after a few hours of operation it made an awful noise while running! Not bearing noise, but electrical growling. Seemed to run at speed, but it was obvious something wasn't right. Shut it right down and started checking all connections, voltages, etc. and everything checked out OK. Put my current clamp on L1 (one leg of 220 volt) going in and tried again.... the meter jumped around between 25-30 amps! (motor drew ~ 2.2 amps after first hooking it up).
Called Surplus Center this afternoon (12/23) and they don't have a customer rep working until 12/28. I'll call again then and see what they say. Hopefully, they will send me a return UPS label and send out another motor. One thing I saw on the motor was the date of manufacture was 2003! For the price I'm OK with that, but I want a motor that works!
Other than that, I was very happy with the motor and it seems to be of very good quality (TechTop). It is made in China, but I was really impressed with it. Farm duty, double ball bearings, thermally protected, very nice fit and finish, heavy lead wires, etc.. I know some will bash motors made in China, but TechTop seems to be one of the better ones IMO.
Not going to open the motor up (although I did open the two cap containers just to make sure no leads came loose with use), because I'm sure that would be an issue with the vendor. I'm guessing that there is something up with the centrifugal switch since it was running great when I shut if off, but later it had issues starting it back up. Seems like if it was something else, it would have raised it's head while it was running. Just a guess...
I'll keep you posted on how Surplus Center backs their products. If they treat me good, no harm no fowl, even though it is disappointing.
Ted
On my request, he tested the mill out and from sitting there both the motor and switch ended up being bad. The start capacitor and start windings burned out when he tested it and the switch contacts burned together. Since this was an older machine, the only motor Jet has for replacement was the current mill's model and that, along with all the parts necessary to modify the new motor to fit this older machine and to get things going would have cost close to $1000 (from Jet)! He didn't have the money to get it repaired so this lowered the price a lot more. So I bought everything for a nice price, since he wanted to get his garage cleaned out and just wanted everything gone!
So, rather than spend $1000 with Jet I bought a new 1-1/2 HP motor from Surplus Center and a new Dayton reversing drum switch from eBay for a little less than $300 total. I had to modify things since the original motor, step pulley, motor mounting plate were all metric and I replace it with a standard C faced motor, but that's not an issue and things turned out very nicely. Got everything wired up (with the help of a TechTop applications engineer since this motor had 7 leads instead of 6 and I wanted to make sure I was hooking up the reversing switch correctly) and the mill ran fine for a whole day. Then, when I started the motor after a few hours of operation it made an awful noise while running! Not bearing noise, but electrical growling. Seemed to run at speed, but it was obvious something wasn't right. Shut it right down and started checking all connections, voltages, etc. and everything checked out OK. Put my current clamp on L1 (one leg of 220 volt) going in and tried again.... the meter jumped around between 25-30 amps! (motor drew ~ 2.2 amps after first hooking it up).
Called Surplus Center this afternoon (12/23) and they don't have a customer rep working until 12/28. I'll call again then and see what they say. Hopefully, they will send me a return UPS label and send out another motor. One thing I saw on the motor was the date of manufacture was 2003! For the price I'm OK with that, but I want a motor that works!
Other than that, I was very happy with the motor and it seems to be of very good quality (TechTop). It is made in China, but I was really impressed with it. Farm duty, double ball bearings, thermally protected, very nice fit and finish, heavy lead wires, etc.. I know some will bash motors made in China, but TechTop seems to be one of the better ones IMO.
Not going to open the motor up (although I did open the two cap containers just to make sure no leads came loose with use), because I'm sure that would be an issue with the vendor. I'm guessing that there is something up with the centrifugal switch since it was running great when I shut if off, but later it had issues starting it back up. Seems like if it was something else, it would have raised it's head while it was running. Just a guess...
I'll keep you posted on how Surplus Center backs their products. If they treat me good, no harm no fowl, even though it is disappointing.
Ted
