Grizzly G0440 Cyclone Blowing Starter Caps

[glenn bradley]

Don't want to hog your thread but I have another make cyclone and my cent-switch has a squeak. How did you eliminate it?

Stupidly annoying, isn't it? The particular clutch on mine uses a plastic "mushroom" shaped plunger to move the contacts into the open/closed position. The surface of this plastic had a casting seam on it and this was oscillating the spring steel of the contact assembly. I placed some 600 grit sandpaper on the top of my tablesaw, placed the flat portion of the "mushroom" on it and moved it in a random pattern until I had a consistent scratch pattern. Cleaned it off real good and reassembled. No more squeak.

[John Lifer]

Do what others have said. Go source a new capacitor from Grainger or another local electrical contractor supply.
If it blows.. then you have an issue with the motor. Which I suspect is the issue due to you stating it takes the motor longer to get up to speed. The longer it takes the motor to spin up and kick the clutch out which cuts out the starter circuit, then the longer the capacitor is being energized and potentially damaged. That fan is NOT that hard to spin up, and I'd not compare to your planer head as being harder. If it 'twer me, I'd be saving up for replacement motor.

[Mike Goetzke]

Stupidly annoying, isn't it? The particular clutch on mine uses a plastic "mushroom" shaped plunger to move the contacts into the open/closed position. The surface of this plastic had a casting seam on it and this was oscillating the spring steel of the contact assembly. I placed some 600 grit sandpaper on the top of my tablesaw, placed the flat portion of the "mushroom" on it and moved it in a random pattern until I had a consistent scratch pattern. Cleaned it off real good and reassembled. No more squeak.

Thanks - I think I can get at mine by just removing the end cap of the motor, but, yeah at the end of the spin down...chirp...chirp...chirp


Mike

[glenn bradley]

Thanks - I think I can get at mine by just removing the end cap of the motor, but, yeah at the end of the spin down...chirp...chirp...chirp


Mike

Right, remove cap, remove fan, remove inner cap and remove clutch. Easier than it sounds. I was careful to mark the height and position of the clutch as you want to return it to the same height on the shaft when re-installing.

[Jim O'Dell]

Glenn, you say the motor takes longer to spin up than your other machines. Do you have a "feel" for if it takes longer to spin up than it did, say, 2 years ago? How many starts will a new cap work before it blows? The spark noise bothers me. You say you have a new centrifugal clutch assembly and that you had both off at one time. Did you put the new one back on or the original since they seemed to be the same? If the original, I'd at least try the new one since you already have it. Maybe talk to a motor rebuild shop, especially if you get your new cap there to see what they think.
What I've heard on cyclones and the start/stop cycle is no more than 6 times per hour. Not sure, but this may be why Bill Pentz recommends a compressor duty motor on his cyclone builds. If you're using a lot of air, there's no telling how many times an hour an air compressor would cycle. I try to get in the habit of if I'm making several cuts but have some down time for set up between cuts, to leave the cyclone on and just close the blast gates. Motor on the cyclone doing very little work, verified with amp meter, the noise is a lot lower, and you don't have the multiple on/off cycles. Anxious to see what your next step reveals!! Jim.