I believe the sawdust ignited. I was cutting a 14" wide board and haven't cleaned my bit in a while. I also did a cut very close to the edge on that side. So the buildup of sawdust coupled with the friction from the pitch on the bit probably ignited the sawdust on that side, because of the width of board I was cutting.
Jeff
I am thinking the QC was hitting something on the bit plate end..... Do you block your Bit Plate out like I do? A 14 inch board, it might hit.....
AL
Favorite Saying.... "It's ALL About the Brass Roller"..... And "Use MASKING TAPE" for board skipping in the X or breaking bits.
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There's no obvious damage on the bit plate.
Jeff
what kind of wood were you carving. if the sawdust got built up and maybe your bit hit something in your wood. if you carved mdf it will sometimes have small pieces of metal in it that might have gotten hot or sparked when the bit hit it and passed by.
looks to me like your really lucky that it didnt do more damage to both machine and shop.
i use a down draft setup on my carver the blow out the sawdust every 10 minutes just to be safe and keep from getting a buildup under the roller that could cause an error.
kendall
no chips on the floor means no money in the bank
I was carving MDF. Yeah just finished the shop about 3 months ago. It would have been bad to lose that. The wife doesn't want me to leave it unattended anymore, but it just takes too long to carve anything and I can't stand to stay in the shop while it's carving.
Jeff
if you have to leave just hit the stop button once and when you return you can hit the start button and it should start right where it left of provided you havent lost power to the unit.
i have gone as much as 24 hrs before resuming a carve and havent had any problems.
kendall
no chips on the floor means no money in the bank
Jeff,
I have been thinking about doing what Al does and that is to use a smoke detector along with a camera with sound to monitor the carver. I have been putting it off for sometime. I have been staying with the machine while carving.
I have ringneckblue.com top mount DC insert and love it but there are several other plans for the DIY. AskBud has a project for one in the CW pattern store as well.
If anything good can be had from your close call is it gives everyone that reads this a good reminder of the risks of a fire.