I’ve been running my Maslow off and on since July. So far so good, but then two weeks ago noticed a tick-tick-tick coming from my right motor which i knew probably wasn’t good. Sure enough, the right motor stopped working today. I took it apart expecting to see the same gear everyone else on here has seen fail . . . but another gear actually failed inside my motor. As you can see instead of the middle gear in my photo failing, its actually the gear on the right. I had actually already ordered extra gears from maslowsurplusparts in anticipation but it looks like this won’t help me. Any idea where to get these gears from? Do i just have to order an entire new motor?
That’s a bummer. I’m sorry. I wonder if maybe replacing the last gear with the new ones made from stronger material resulted in the next gear in the chain failing.
I don’t think anyone is selling just that gear right now, but the good news is that since I complained to them so much I believe that the motor manufacturers are now using stronger material for all of the gears so a new motor should last longer. Who did you buy the kit from originally?
When you mention “gears”, are you referring to the gears inside the motor case, or the sprocket that the chain is attached to? If the latter, I bet that your motors are not properly aligned with the sled. You may need to adjust the distance between the motors and the plane of the workpiece. Check out this thread: Chains constantly hanging up in gears
@bar I did not, but I did feel like some teeth were seeing some wear. @jwolter I was talking about the gears inside the gearbox - if you scroll up I had attached a couple of photos. My chain - chain sprockets have been good other than a sticky pin in a chain recently that sometimes causes a issue here or there. Since we are on the subject I can give an update:
Since having issues I reviewed your really great work on the Chain Geometry spreadsheet. Sure enough with my heavy sled and 12’ beam I had created a very accurate and precise machine but one that was doomed to failure. It did give me a data point to better understand the possible chain tension needs in the corner though. With my previous setup I was seeing a MIN chain tension of 10.59 in very bottom of corner so if i was getting accurate cuts 3 or so inches from that than likely ~13 lbs chain tension or greater could be what I need to keep good, accurate cuts across the entire board. I then decided to move to a 14’ beam at 27 lbs sled. My Chain tension does go down to 12.4 MIN in the bottom corners but offsetting as much as I can I think i get close to my 13 lbs of tension. So far so good, probably cut 4-5 in corners with little issues. The only issues i’ve dealt with lately are sticky chain at sprocket or some weird angle cutting as sled is slightly easier to left in different scenarios than my previous heavier sled. This just leads to cuts that are at a slight angle/“draft” maybe 3 degrees or so.
