Motor for Chester Champion Mill

Hi Chaps, I have a Chester Champion 16 for around 2 years I have managed to burn out x3 motors I don’t really know what has caused the motors to fail as I don’t really push the machine very hard. The second motor failed while I was taking thin cuts off a piece of aluminium as did the third with a 4mm end mill as soon as the motor failed I opened the top casing the motor was only warm to the touch, I mainly mill alloy and occasionally brass I only ever take small cuts of no more than .5mm and never use end mills larger than 13mm mainly 6,8 and 10mm.

The first x2 motors came from Chester these were 135mm long the third motor came from another company this was 165mm long and did last longer than the originals this machine is not in constant use the reason I am posting this thread is to ask if anybody knows of any other suppliers of motor that would bolt straight to my mill without any modifications or would it be a good idea to have the motor rewound, has anybody else had similar problems with this type of mill.

I now know about adding a fan to aid cooling.

Something very wrong if you burn out 3 motors in that time.Are you sure you have the right voltage,nothing binding ?

Did Chester not think it was a bit odd? I have a Lux mill and a Craftsman lathe,both get a fair bit of use,but the motors have never given trouble.

Not much point in having the motor rewound until you find out what the problem is. One motor,maybe,but Three ???

Would like to hear other members views.

Can't help wondering about the cause of your motor failures, reading back through some of your posts it appears that your lathe motor had some problems too.

It might be worthwhile taking the failed motor to a rewind company and ask for a post mortem report on it.

Do you have stable power supply to your workshop?

double post

Edited By Brian Sweeting on 11/09/2017 21:01:28

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That was going to be my question.

There is a supplier that told me issues arose on some machines due the the design of older style control boards that under fluctuating supply could end up killing the motor.

He gave one of the prime locations as those with machines installed in a rural area. - Having said that my mother lives in a built up area and her voltage is all over the place.

Nick

Larry, yes it’s the right voltage and no there is nothing binding, Chester did replace one motor under warranty this was after a mere 6 months the second failed just after the warranty ran out the last motor has lasted over 1 year this is the longer version, what I have noticed is that the RPM did start to slow a little but only by about 50 RPM at a time in all about 2-300 RPM over a 12 month period.

Brian, I know you mean well but my lathe is about 6 years old and the problem I had with the lathe motor was simply solved by cleaning out the motor it hasn’t missed a beat since.

Yes I do have stable power I live in a built up area and taking the motor to a rewind company may be the best route along with fitting a fan on top of the motor housing.

If rewinding costs as much in UK as it does in New Zealand, you could buy 2 or 3 new motors for the price. What sort of motor is it, AC, DC, 1Ph, or 3Ph. What ever, you need to find out why.

Ian S C

If the motor that burnt out was only warm to the touch, then a cooling fan isn't going to help much. The motors which have burnt out - do they smell burnt? My suspicions are that the control board may have a fault of some kind, but proving this is another matter, as replacements won't be cheap.

Just a suggestion. When operating the mill Mark, do you always minimise the speed before switching on and off? Quite a few people have had trouble due to putting full power straight on the motor rather than bringing it up to speed with the potentiometer. (May not be your problem because not minimising speed is more likely to stress the control board electronics than the motor.)

I suppose you may have been VERY unlucky, but having 3 motors fail suggests something odd is going on. Dirt, damp, overheating, or excessive volts damaging the windings. Do you have anything like a welder or VFD that could be putting voltage spikes into the mill, perhaps something is inadvertently using the mill as an earth? If that's the case, the mill motor's insulation is damaged when you're not using it, and only fails much later.

Dave

Do you run the mill slow for long periods?

Neil

Hi I have had my Chester Champion mill for 21 years I did put a better fan on the motor but only because it was rubbing and I damaged a fin other than that it is ok .

soon it will be up for grabs as a restore project for someone as I am getting a sieg sx3 when they are delivered to ARC.

Kevin

This may not be relevant,but two points mentioned there rang a bell with me,

1 I have a wood lathe whose speeds are controlled by a leaver type switch in steps,and the directions state to start and stop in steps, never to take off at full speed ! Worth checking ?.

2 Since I moved to the sticks,I had to buy a converter to run my planer and spindle moulder,both 3 ph. While it does that,I notice a difference between true 3ph,which I had in Dublin,and my converter 3ph. I believe this is normal and since it causes no problems,I live with it. I have never checked my voltage supply,might be no harm to do so.

Since none of my machines have control boards,except the wood lathe,I,m not too well up on them,but it,s a very interesting subject since more and more stuff seems to be going that way.

First of all chaps thanks for all your responses which I will answer first then add my research last.

Ian S C, The motor is a single phase AC induction motor 600W, 240V, 3.6A, 1400rpm, 50Hz E

Gordon Tarling, only the first motor burnt out this left a terrible mess inside the casing, the second and third motors didn’t burn out as such but both suffered the same problem in that over a period of months lost about 200rpm slowly then whilst running the machine all of a sudden the speed dropped from 1200rpm to about 10rpm, regardless of what position the potentiometer was positioned speed would not alter up or down.

Silly old duffer, I always use the potentiometer I never start or stop the machine all of a sudden speed is always reduced then stopped, dirt and damp can’t be the problem none of my other tools rust nor have the beads on the mill, lathe or my small pillar drill don’t have any welding gear apart from gas for silver soldering.

Neil, I don’t always run the motor flat out and have found out that the cooling on these motors is not good and al low speeds don’t exist.

Larry, I never take off at full speed nor stop at full speed, speed is increased and decreased fromt the soft start speed back to the soft start speed.

I don’t think this is a control board problem after the second motor failed I replaced with the longer third motor and everything worked fine until last week after a year of use if it was the controle board then the machine still wouldn’t have worked or one would have thought would have failed sooner.

Searching the forum did throw up others who have had a similar problem one two statements seem to make sense; “ these motors fail because of poor quality start capacitors or a dodgy centrifugal switch” “either the start capacitor, centrifugal switch or the fan unit not providing enough cooling” I really do think the problem is with the Chinese motor when I can I think I will take them to an electric motor rewind company if the problem is start capacitors or a dodgy centrifugal switch then it may not be too expensive to repair better yet to replace with a European made motor as I would bet that the Chinese motor is a clone and a poor one at that.

Single phase AC induction motor with a speed controller? That's unusual

Edited By duncan webster on 12/09/2017 22:17:16

this problem comes up time and again on the forum, burned out motors and control boards.

Come on Neil, time for an article in MEW on how to replace the horrible DC motor on your Chinese mill or lathe with a three phase squirrel cage VFD drive motor

article in MEW on how to replace the horrible DC motor on your Chinese mill...

Or one on why not to buy machines with these cheap motor/control board type machines because it will likely be a case of (for the motor/control of board) of buy cheap, buy twice... or thrice ...or...

There must have been more than enough failures to demonstrate the poor quality of design, sizing or whatever.

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It should be mentioned that all SEEMINGLY identical machines that come from the far east are not created equal. Even from the same factory.

Different importers specify different specifications other that just the colour of the paint job. - One important variation is that some are distributed with brushed DC motors, while others use the more advanced brushless motors that are more expensive. I may be wrong but I think they also require a different controller.

So the price variation we see as consumers is very often not a distributor being greedy and wanting a bigger piece of your pie. It's that they have laid out more for their specification and stock.

Nick

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It's already been addressed by the introduction of the brushless motor with shed loads of safety features to prevent burnout.

But hey guess what the deep pocketed tight arsed punters reckon its too expensive and so insist on buying the older generation DC package where they have had to cut corners to meet a price.

So the price variation we see as consumers is very often not a distributor being greedy

Sorry, but you clearly missed my point. I did not even suggest that distributors or dealers were being greedy. Even they cannot give a decent warranty period for the motor/control board for fear of excessive claims.

Of course, some dealers are better than others and retain spares at reasonable prices, but it makes no difference to the fact that a too high proportion of these machines were never truly fit for purpose.