About an Hour Diversion

[handi]

Wednesday I went to use my saw...nothing. Was working on Tuesday.
Breaker not tripped, so I took the switch box apart to blow it out. This magnetic switch box on the Unisaw is quite good, no dust inside at all. 

Checked all the physical connections, did not find anything amiss. Then for no reason it started working again. Got the switch box put back together and it was not working again!

Finally started running continuity checks on the wires. Found that one of the wires had a break somewhere inside. Looked perfectly fine on each end, but somewhere inside there was a break. 

Ran a new cable and was right back to work, but lost an hour of so chasing this down.

[Phil Thien]

Only an hour to find a concealed broken conductor?

Count your blessings!

[Cian]

Only an hour to find a concealed broken conductor?

Count your blessings!

What he said.

[jppierson]

Took me several weeks to find a similar problem with a wire to the distributor on my old truck years ago. The wind through the engine compartment would blow it around and break connection stalling the engine. As the truck slowed down, it would compression start again.

[handi]

Yeah, not nearly the miles of wires in a vehicle! In fact, just three to mess with.

When I had my shop wired for 220, I had them put the Saw plug on a 25’ pigtail hardwired to the wall.
I cut the cord on the saw down so the plug is just about 4” below the switch. Now I do not need to bend to the floor to unplug. 

I had power at the wall plug, but not at the switch, so there was only a few options. Years as a mechanic and as the armoror for my Reserve unit taught me to look for the simple solution first.