Hot flexshaft

[mailman]

My carvewright just arrived today and I was carving a 2 inch circle all the way through a 3/4 pine board and I noticed smoke coming from the flexshaft (in the bend from the machine to the cutting tool). I felt the insulation on the outside of the flexshaft and it was very hot. I think the rubber insulation would have melted if I had continued. I stopped the machine and cancelled the project. Is this common? Is there something on the new flexshaft that has to burn off?

[shabang]

That shaft gets hot but I have never seen smoke from it.

The bend is where the most contact and friction is so it will get hot\hotter in that spot.

Pull the shaft out and try cleaning and re-lube it with some lithium grease as described in the manual.

It may be that it just needs a bit more then what was on there.

[soomro]

I would also check the connection at the cutting motor and also make sure there are no kinks in the shaft. Mine didn't smoke and was fairly easy to connect.

[mailman]

I appreciate the tips. I took the flexshaft out from the cutter head and then pulled it out of the insulation and about a foot of the cable come out. The cable had burned into. I called the carvewright home number and they sent me a return label to send the machine back to them. FedEx finally came late this evening to pick it up. I am one unhappy camper. I waited for 3 weeks for the machine to come and I got to use it for less than a hour. Now I guess it will be gone for another couple of weeks. I do not like to buy something new that does not work right. It seems that from then on, something is always wrong with the machine. I guess that I will just wait and hope this is not the case. I hope the rest of you newbies have better luck than I did.

I did get through with one project and it is included. It isn't much but it was sure fun carving it out of a piece of wood I would have probably thrown in the garbage. It took about 25 minutes to complete the carving out of a piece of pine. I must say that the carvewright did a terrific job on the project. My wife and I both were impressed. It did a lot better job carving the piece than I did with the picture. Looks much better than picture shows.

By the way, this is my wife's name, not mine. I had to suck up a little to be able to get the carvewright

[DWD]

Don't be concerned about getting your machine back. I had to send mine back for some maintenance and it was returned in about 4 days and has performed very well since then. For my experience we are dealing with a very reputable group of folks that have our interests in mind and are dedicated to providing us with a quality product.

It only gets better the more you use it. Attached are a couple of projects I have completed.

Hang in there
Dan

[dhesse]

Sorry you had trouble with the machine, Mailman. I have had a couple issues along the way as well, and I have to say these guys have been right on top of setting things right as quickly as they can. Unforunately, with the machine in its infancy, we will have some problems, but I do commend the LHR team on their efforts so far.

Thanks,

--Dale

[Don Butler]

Don't be concerned about getting your machine back. I had to send mine back for some maintenance and it was returned in about 4 days and has performed very well since then. For my experience we are dealing with a very reputable group of folks that have our interests in mind and are dedicated to providing us with a quality product.

Dan

I've acted as in-house warranty service for computer companies and have long (50 years +) experience with machine maintenance and repair. To me, sending the whole machine back when something goes wrong is a goofy idea.

I'm perfectly capable of performing any service on my new CW and if I'm told to send the whole machine back for something as simple as a flex shaft, I intend to refuse.

Even at the expense of losing the warranty, I will never send this machine back to LHR for anything short of catastrophic failure. The only people who benefit from this procedure are the trucking companies.

It isn't a good policy from the standpoint of LHR, either. It makes them look bad and it irritates a lot of customers. If a simple part needs to be replaced or something needs to be adjusted I can do it myself and then I don't have the time and expense and loss of the machine for whatever time it takes to get it back. Because we're hearing that sales are up and LHR is working to deal with that, it sounds like wait times for service may stretch out even further.

This is the first time I have ever seen a warranty service policy that requires an 85 pound machine be returned to the mfr to be corrected.


d...

[castingman]

Don
Welcome to the forum,

I to have been repairing machinery for close to 40 yrs, The equ. i work on makes the little cw look like a toaster , Tomorrow i'll be 20ft in the air draging a 1000 # belt, Because of years of that my fingers don't like to work with the little wires , Nor can i see them good enought to work with them .
I have and will change the flex shaft and z pack but the folks at LHR do a gerat job and will upgrade the little guy with things i didn't know about.

Michael

[Don Butler]

I have and will change the flex shaft and z pack but the folks at LHR do a gerat job and will upgrade the little guy with things i didn't know about.

Michael

Mike,
I appreciate what you say, however, The folks at LHR could tell me what needs to be done, like Gateway Computers used to do when I did their warranty work on my employer's computers.

They would ask me why I thought a certain computer needed a CD drive, for example. I'd tell them what my test procedure was and they'd send me the part to install and return the original.

I also did that for computer controlled production machinery and industrial computer controls.

They likely can do nothing I can't. I may eat my words some day. I have been known to be wrong!

Them's my opinions. You know whut they say about them!

Best regards,

Don

[castingman]

Thats what makes the world go round , Everybody can do differant things