I was cutting a palm trunk with an electric chain saw for trash and it was rough going due to binding and crappy cutting. Suddenly smoke came out of the grill from the coils on the third cut. I stopped cutting. The saw seemed to run ok after that. Thought it was best to give it some time to cool. After an hour I plugged it back in and it would not start.
What happened? Why did it run before cold? May it just be a single wire that can be fixed - or is it another goner with fried coils?
press the reset button
The brushes are possibly stuck in the brush holders and not free to touch the commutator. It doesn't take much.
Or worn out if the saw has been used much. Most of these units are considered disposable no matter what they cost, they may not have replaceable brushes or even have brushes that are accessible. Have seen some of these universal motors that needed some sort of factory jig to get assembled, pull the armature out, the brushes snapped out of their holders and there was no way to pull them back in to reseat the armature. Instant junk. So be careful with disassembly. There might also be a "thermal fuse" in there that seems to have made its way into a lot of consumer products. If the product gets too hot, the fuse opens and you're literally cooked, until you can find one to replace it with. A cheapie ohmmeter would be the way to track that one down.
Stan
It has no reset button.
Ok will look for that - hopefully they can just be dislodged.
I think it should be "la chain saw". "Chain saw" is feminine in Spanish, so the correct definite article would be "la", not "el".
Have a nice day.
It is/was a cheapie (say $35 at BigLot) Has had been used to cut several large trees. I was hoping for a thermal fuse - automatic reset when it cooled down. I do have a HF ohm meter that I use a lot. I have another one with a bad switch - I can bypass - and use with caution. :-) Thanks for the info.
Sounds like shorted windings. A motor will still run a little while with a single shorted turn. But that turn gets real hot and shorts out more turns and then it's dead. Sorry.
Makes sense. I did get my moneys worth - RIP
Next time, run it for a few minutes no-load before shutting it back down. It will pull in cool air and not melt.
She's fried. Smell that burnt varnish? It's a big clue.
I agree. I burned up a Chiwanese hammer drill like that. I had kept it running after drilling lots of holes in concrete and it was smoking, but the running after the drilling cooled it down some. I didn't let it run long enough to cool down after the last hole, and when I tried to use it the next time, it was dead shorted.
-- Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
If it was gasoline instead of electric. Would it be "ga" chain saw?
Gee, whiz. Who made chainsaws feminine? Liptistic, high heels I can see. Chainsaw? That's an insult to El Saw-dero who is the macho operator of El Chainsaw Mucho.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
I think it should be "la chain saw". "Chain saw" is feminine in Spanish, so the correct definite article would be "la", not "el".
Have a nice day.
Took it apart - everything looks normal except the carbon brushes look worn. Testing the ohm from the wires to the two brushes gives me OPEN circuit in the coils. Does this prove that it is fried so I do not need to put it back together? There are no visible fuses.
I wish there were a way to short out that windbag gummer.
The field coils are open? Hmm, I suspect a thermal fuse. If there's a silver pod somewhere in the windings, it has probably gone open. You can probably get a replacement, or just short it out for a quick test. Kind of rare for an overheated motor to fail open, generally they would develop a short somewhere. Probably the heat built up after shutdown and got hot enough to trip the thermal fuse. These are common in these type of appliances. The fact they are one-time cutoffs sounds like planned self-destruct as opposed to planned obsolescence.
Jon
These masculine/feminine languages like French and Spanish seem a bit odd. German at least makes sense, they have a neuter for inanimate objects. Who decides this stuff, anyway? I took French, and spark plugs are feminine - La bougie. How'd they decide that one?
Jon
Hey, that's the nonworking brand I have. ;)
I used that 14" beater for ten years around here. They're great little saws. Mine still runs but the plastic holding the bar in position is half broken. The replacement is an HF brand I got for something like $27 after discounts.
-- Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
How good is the HF saw?
I pulled out the Remington the other day to cut some fallen branches that are too light and whippy for a gas saw. The case is wired together because half the screws stripped and the oiler failed, I have to dip the bar in a can of oil.
jsw
When I worked in regional office, I got the reputation as Mr. Fixit. Most of the female staff had "safety" oscillating fans at their work stations, which, of course, never were turned off, thus injesting airborn dust, lint, hair etc. I would get a call, "Gerry, my fan quit" so I would tell them to bring it to my desk and I would look at it. When no one was looking, I would plug it in and turn it on.If it would run slowly it would get bearing cleaning/lubrication. If it showed no life, I would unplug it and insert a paper clip through the cooling slots to short across the thermal fuse burried in the windings, plug it in and the fan would run fine, at which point I unplugged it, removed the paper clip and used red permanent marker to label it "BURNED OUT SAFETY FUSE" and tell them to turn it in for a new one. I never botherd trying to explain that their fans would last longer if they turned them off when they didn't need them.
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