Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Power Tools). This thread is read-only.
Hi everyone, this is more out of curiosity than anything else. I have owned an 800w “wickes” hand held belt sander for a number of years and it has been excellent for the money, its not professional quality gear but has done everything asked of it. Today I was using it upside down mounted in my vice which I’ve done many times, I was sanding small pieces of plywood for a project when it went “bang”, it sounded very like an electrical bang but no smoke or smell. I switched it off and looked it over but could see nothing and thought maybe it had caught something. I gave it a flick of the switch and it spun seemingly as normal, so I switched it on full, it spun faster and faster and faster till I chickened out ! I thought about it for a moment and decided it was in my head, surely nothing could make it do that, I tried again and it just got faster and faster till I chickened out again !
So has anyone come across this before ? is there some sort of “limiter” that has blown inside ? does anyone want a race ? haha.
Never head of that happening before
Is it a dual action sander or something? Maybe something mechanically broke in the “transmission” and its not orbiting dual action as it should and more spin action.
Loan it to your neighbor and let him use it on a project 🙂
Nope its a simple belt sander, hand held, and I think it might be possessed >:D or perhaps its tapped into an unknown energy source and I’m about to be sucked into the vortex.
Whatever it is it’s damn weird and a bit scary 😆 i’ve never heard anything run so fast !
Your description sounds like a capacitor going bad
Could u put some pictures of it and if it was a capacitor than it would smoke and a very shitty smell
Maybe it finally got broken in….. 🙂
Kato wrote:
Your description sounds like a capacitor going bad
^^ This sounds about right, we had a capacity go bad on our tenderizer at work, let’s just say spinning metal death trap
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Capacitors do not always smell or smoke when they pop, in the past 32 years I’ve experienced probably 100 or more capacitors of varying types go bad with nothing more than a discharge of stored voltage…which is where the loud pop comes from.
Depdning on the type of capacitor, if that’s what went bad, it would cause the increase in speed as well.
Thank you guys ! very helpful, I’ve never come across this before. I do know a bit about capacitors through repairing guitar amps, so I know the hurty stingy ouchy thing that goes with them :'( I’ll pull it apart today and take a look.
If I find anything interesting I’ll post pics or let you know.
Well……I pulled it apart and found the Capacitor, its a 0.22uF, but the exact one is no longer stocked anywhere, I’ll have to pay a visit to my local electronics guys. It’s still strange how such a loud electrical “bang” could leave no signs of damage or smell, everything looks perfect.
Just to let you know, got a new cap for it today and all is well, so thank you guys for your help.