What the ....

[dbb-the-bruce]

So tonight my Sieg 2.7x HiTorque bench mill from Little Machine shop all of a sudden refused to stay on. I wasn't doing anything demanding and it just shut off. Hitting the green on button would fire it up but it would shut off as soon as you released the button. I could run it just fine as long as I kept the button pressed. So clearly something got messed up with the safety/emo feature with power fail lock out (if the power drops out for a sec, it won't just resume when power comes back - a good feature).

So I pulled the front control panel off and poked around and found this:



That's two male connectors at the bottom of the switch block. The blue wire with the plastic insulator shroud pulled back is supposed to connect to the lug on the switch. It's the connection that's required to keep everything on after a momentary contact of the green on button.

It was built this way! the only thing making the connection kind of work was the insulating sock and lack of space. The clear part was kind of tight enough to mostly make sure that the crimp on tab was touching the lug on the switch!!

Well, this explains why I had occasionally had unexpected shutoffs of my milll over the 3-4 years I've had it. Usually when I was pushing things and it got the shakes! Imagine that.

Fortunately I had the right type (but wrong size) mating connector kicking around and was able to limp on with it woking for the night. I need to get a smaller one and fix it properly this weekend.

All in all I've been pretty happy with this mill, and I have no beef with LMS - I'm sure if I'd contacted them they would have made it right / helped me get it debugged. However This is a pretty bad quality control issue.

So if you have a machine like this that cuts off occasionally for no good reason, you might want to open it up and take a look.

-Dave

 

[ChazzC]

So tonight my Sieg 2.7x HiTorque bench mill from Little Machine shop all of a sudden refused to stay on. I wasn't doing anything demanding and it just shut off. Hitting the green on button would fire it up but it would shut off as soon as you released the button. I could run it just fine as long as I kept the button pressed. So clearly something got messed up with the safety/emo feature with power fail lock out (if the power drops out for a sec, it won't just resume when power comes back - a good feature).

So I pulled the front control panel off and poked around and found this:

View attachment 426160

That's two male connectors at the bottom of the switch block. The blue wire with the plastic insulator shroud pulled back is supposed to connect to the lug on the switch. It's the connection that's required to keep everything on after a momentary contact of the green on button.

It was built this way! the only thing making the connection kind of work was the insulating sock and lack of space. The clear part was kind of tight enough to mostly make sure that the crimp on tab was touching the lug on the switch!!

Well, this explains why I had occasionally had unexpected shutoffs of my milll over the 3-4 years I've had it. Usually when I was pushing things and it got the shakes! Imagine that.

Fortunately I had the right type (but wrong size) mating connector kicking around and was able to limp on with it woking for the night. I need to get a smaller one and fix it properly this weekend.

All in all I've been pretty happy with this mill, and I have no beef with LMS - I'm sure if I'd contacted them they would have made it right / helped me get it debugged. However This is a pretty bad quality control issue.

So if you have a machine like this that cuts off occasionally for no good reason, you might want to open it up and take a look.

-Dave

LMS is great about making things right: I had some issues with their Min-Lathe hand wheel DRO’s when they first came out and they worked with Sieg to correct the manufacturing issues and ssent replacements from the new batch (which are still going strong 2+ years later).

 

[dbb-the-bruce]

LMS is great about making things right: I had some issues with their Min-Lathe hand wheel DRO’s when they first came out and they worked with Sieg to correct the manufacturing issues and ssent replacements from the new batch (which are still going strong 2+ years later).

Yes. I ordered my mill with the stand and the chip tray got bent up in the shipping. They sent a new one ASAP. I've purchased a bunch of accessories from them. All around a good company.

I imagine they didn't put the control box together - this probably happened at the manufacturing stage. My point is, come on man - someone literally either REALLY didn't know what they were doing or just said, screw it, it will work.

It would have passed basic testing, and it did work, more or less for 3-4 years before it finally found a way to be not in contact all the time.

 

[ChazzC]

Yes. I ordered my mill with the stand and the chip tray got bent up in the shipping. They sent a new one ASAP. I've purchased a bunch of accessories from them. All around a good company.

I imagine they didn't put the control box together - this probably happened at the manufacturing stage. My point is, come on man - someone literally either REALLY didn't know what they were doing or just said, screw it, it will work.

It would have passed basic testing, and it did work, more or less for 3-4 years before it finally found a way to be not in contact all the time.

Haven't seen anything quite this bad, but similar "shortcuts" taken when someone runs out of parts at the end of the day (on items manufactured in the U.S.).

 

[markba633csi]

Wow. Somebody tokin' Maui wowie on the assembly line
LOL

 

[silence dogood]

After almost 50 years of working in electronic, I've lost count of the number of times of that very situation. Electronics does not like vibration, temperature changes (especially high temps) and foreign objects such as dirt, kitty hairs, cobwebs, mouse nests, etc. It's worth it to check your connections to make sure that they are tight. If they are loose or just touching can cause hair pulling intermittent symptoms. Worse case is maximum smoke. P.S. make sure the power is disconnected, Glad you found it.