Board Sensor failure - why & how to prevent?

[cestout]

I just ordered my second board sensor. The first LHR sent me, now this one Sears is sending (and no core charge). I only have about 160 hrs. on the machine and use a downdraft table. I get a very low reading. It kept sinking and now the machine will not run with a reading of 12. What causes the sensor to fail like this and how do I prevent it? Also, I remember reading on another forum something about an improved board sensor - third party. Does anyone know anything about this?

[Jeff_Birt]

There is no improved 3rd party board sensor that I am aware of. Quite a few moths ago CarveWright started sealing the board sensors to prevent dust infiltration. I have no idea what vintage sensor you'll get from Sears. Have you looked at your current sensor to see if you jest have dust inside it? It is pretty easy to pop apart the non-sealed ones and clean them. Probably a 10 minute fix.

As for prevention of the problem. The new sealed sensors seem to hold up really well. I kind of suspect that some folks get a little too overzealous with their compressed air and wind up blowing some sawdust in the sensor as well. The other thing to watch out for is excessive vibration in teh Z-truck. A loose Z-truck or improperly operating chuck can cause vibration that will shake the sensor to death.

Also, keep in mind that the core charge on warranty items has a good purpose. Manufacturers like to get the failed parts back so they can do a post mortem and figure out why they failed. This helps them and it helps us as users too. The other thing it prevents is the jokers scamming them and selling CarveWright parts on Ebay like we saw a year or so ago.

[Digitalwoodshop]

The glue around the edge of the circuit board also holds the board tight to the black plastic holder. The Vibration of the loose circuit board overtime caused the 2 LED's and one Sensor to break free from the circuit board causing Zero readings or with one broken LED a low reading. The sealing also helped the dust issue too.

I expect as Sears dumps the units on the market from last year that we will see a rise in the problems like this that were common last year. The units returned to Sears from last year have been sitting in a warehouse while Sears decided what to do with them....

Repaired and now sold as refurbished, they might be missing some of the known fixes and will result in more angry posts by users with 2 posts.

AL