Had my first fire today.

[jeff412]

With that much damage, I would want to have the unit repaired by LHR. It may be a total loss.

I would think that your home insurance might cover most of the cost as it was accidental. Who knows!!
AskBud

Deductible would be too high to cover any of the cost. It doesn't look like a difficult repair. I'll probably just order the parts and fix it myself. Plus it'll be a lot quicker.

Jeff

[jeff412]

From what I see you need the X gears and the X gear cover. The thing that concerns me is why. I wouldn't think that those gears would turn fast enough to cause that much friction.

I would also pull the bottom cover. 12 screws just to make sure.

Don't forget to unplug.

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

[jeff412]

How did the carving come out?


AL

The project turned out great. I think it was probably a smoldering fire because there is no damage above the burned area. So it was able to complete the carve before the x-drive shroud was damaged.

Jeff

[Digitalwoodshop]

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

[jeff412]

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

That's possible. I'll go check it out. It should be obvious if it was hitting it. I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say "block your bit plate". How do you block it?

Jeff

[jeff412]

There's no obvious damage on the bit plate.

Jeff

[supershingler]

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

[jeff412]

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

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

[supershingler]

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

[PCW]

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.