Foredom foot control :/

Was porting a saw for a local guy here today and my hand piece stopped all of a sudden. Checked the breaker then voltage on the outlet, then the line side of the foot control while fully depressed, there was no voltage. So I popped the foot pedal apart. This is what I found:
View attachment 283321

I emailed them letting them know what happened. The unit may have 3 hours at most on it so hopefully Ty will warranty it. If the don't does anyone know of a cheaper alternative to the foot control?

uhh thats not goona buff out mang

I thought about soldering jumpers in but I think I'd better just do it right, with all the money I've spent on the 3 hand pieces, motor an foot control, and new bits... I don't want to screw anything else up

tgerloff92 said:

I thought about soldering jumpers in but I think I'd better just do it right, with all the money I've spent on the 3 hand pieces, motor an foot control, and new bits... I don't want to screw anything else up

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Jumpers would work just fine until you replace the board or whole unit. But be careful, something was sure drawing a lot of juice.

For one reason or another the foot control had more electrical load on it than what it was designed for by a good margin.

Andyshine77 said:

Jumpers would work just fine until you replace the board or whole unit.

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The only thing I could think was the solders were rated for X amps and were another protection from blowing/ boiling your resistor under tough grinding. Thinking a long the lines of melting metal alloy overloads on bigger motors

tgerloff92 said:

I thought about soldering jumpers in but I think I'd better just do it right, with all the money I've spent on the 3 hand pieces, motor an foot control, and new bits... I don't want to screw anything else up

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I've repaired many circuit boards with burnt traces, that's easy. However, some short circuit caused those traces on your board to act as fuses. If not a result of direct contact with the traces or solder points, then some other component shorted (resistor, capacitor, etc.), sending too much current to the traces.

Can you see where direct contact with a conductive surface could have happened? If not, should you decide to mess with the board, check each component on the other side of the board and replace the "baddy" before once again applying A/C.

Have you tried to see if the grinder itself still works, bypassing the foot control? With luck, and chances are good that the failure of the traces saved any damage to the grinder.

I'd be figuring out why that happened before connecting up to a new one.

I use a sewing machine foot pedal on one of mine, works fine.

Bill

tgerloff92 said:

The only thing I could think was the solders were rated for X amps and were another protection from blowing/ boiling your resistor under tough grinding. Thinking a long the lines of melting metal alloy overloads on bigger motors

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Yes likely an overload safety, I bet the resistors show some heat discoloration.

I checked everything else. Continuity is where it should be and not when it's not supposed to be, foot control on/off... etc. there are no arc marks or signs of heat on the capacitor, resistor, metal housing that holds the resistor, or the connections from foot control to motor. Motor brushes show very minimal wear. The motor does run with a cord from another appliance. The metal housing of the foot control has no arc marks just strictly a slight discoloration from the arc when the races blew.

Andyshine77 said:

Jumpers would work just fine until you replace the board or whole unit. But be careful, something was sure drawing a lot of juice.

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Must'a been hogging something out:hmm3grin2orange:.

nmurph said:

Must'a been hogging something out:hmm3grin2orange:.

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I was using a 1/4 shank, wide open cutting the transfer dividers on an 03 455 rancher. I was on it pretty good but not hard enough to grab or chatter like I had before.

3 legs at once. Looks like a manufacturing defect or something next to the board causing the short. Solder in jumpers and go about your porting.

Focus is a bit weak so hard to read the pic.
in order from top down:
first solder point/component leg, looks like a spot of copper
showing on top side 1:30 area
blackened/smokey area and its pattern
sorta make me want a look at surrounding items.
and a melt out at 5:00 area with the damage towards 2nd trace looks like a
bridging occurred.

send trace looks looks to have a copper spot at 10:00 of comp point.

3rd trace sorta looks like collateral damage from the others.

the arc spots on trace 1 & 2 would make me look hard for foreign matieral
or contacting other wires, etc.
they could be from trace splatters, but hard to tell from the pic.

what does the housing look like in side, what smoke or solder splatter patterns?

any way that chips or any thing could have gotten into the controller?
or is the body flexing in any way that could allow contact with other items.
sometimes debris gets in on one use and gets shaken into bad place over time
so maybe stuff got in in other use?

You haven't listed what model Foredom you have. i have a 15000prm TXH series. I bought new as a set with a foot pedal control. The motor burned up after not a whole lot of use. I contacted Foredom, and they were responsive with their warranty service. I was informed that for what I was doing with the unit, a tabletop dial speed control would be much more reliable. It has been a few years ago so I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember being told by Foredom that lower speed high load conditions are hard on the unit. For some reason the dial type speed control was better suited to this use. They sent me a new motor and table top speed control.

Since you stated you were full tilt when you had the problem, low speed should not have been a factor. I would guess you just got a substandard speed control. If you are still under warranty, or even if you're not, I recommend contacting Foredom to see if they will replace anything for you. They seemed to take pride in providing units as good as Dumore for much lower prices.

I've been using the same Singer sewing machine foot petal for over 40 years with my original Foredom.

I have the TXMC motor an the metal foot control. Bought new approximately a week and a half ago. This is it's second saw. The motor had almost no chance to have any chips or scraps fall into it, I mounted it hanging on the underside of my table, it is convenient with the flex shaft. The foot pedal has an overlapping hanger that makes it very unlikely anything could get into it while depressed. When I disassembled the foot unit there was NO shavings or pieces of debris in the unit. I contacted ccspecialty to see what thy recommend and am waiting back from them. Wondering if I shouldn't just contact foredom directly

tgerloff92 said:

I have the TXMC motor an the metal foot control. Bought new approximately a week and a half ago. This is it's second saw. The motor had almost no chance to have any chips or scraps fall into it, I mounted it hanging on the underside of my table, it is convenient with the flex shaft. The foot pedal has an overlapping hanger that makes it very unlikely anything could get into it while depressed. When I disassembled the foot unit there was NO shavings or pieces of debris in the unit. I contacted ccspecialty to see what thy recommend and am waiting back from them. Wondering if I shouldn't just contact foredom directly

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The singer sewing machine control will not work for the TXMC (high torque) motor since it is not a standard universal motor like the SR. It takes a different speed control that varies current instead of voltage. I'm betting that the TXMC motor also can't be reversed since it's windings are probably biased such that it would have 1/3 power if reversed.

srcarr52 said:

The singer sewing machine control will not work for the TXMC (high torque) motor since it is not a standard universal motor like the SR. It takes a different speed control that varies current instead of voltage. I'm betting that the TXMC motor also can't be reversed since it's windings are probably biased such that it would have 1/3 power if reversed.

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I'm old school and so is my Foredom!