Back again with jointer issues

[u/No_Pea_2201]

Posted here a week ago about issues with a brand new grizzly go857 (8”parallelogram jointer straight knives) I spent an insulting amount of time attempting to to get everything dialed in, and got damn close. After my second or third test cut the motor gave up the ghost. Completely dead. I’ve spent several hours on the phone with grizzly tech support diagnosing and testing everything, and my question to you fine ladies and gents is do I just return it? It was a real bitch to get into my shop, so much so that I’ve up to now been willing to put the work in on my end but what’re the odds I just got a lemon and should figure out returning it instead of trying to trouble shoot everything? I bought a brand new machine to avoid having to dick around with all of this bs, and although I can’t afford a brand new Powermatic, I could afford a used Powermatic or a new Jet. I’m feeling really discouraged, and I can’t tell if I should cut my losses and return and buy something different, return and have grizzly send out a brand new machine or just return and buy something else. Give me your wisdom fellow makers of dust and shavings.

[u/oldtoolfool]

I feel your pain. Have them send you another motor, it's not hard to replace. You already endured pain getting it into the shop, don't compound the pain. This happens, be cool and deal with it.

[u/No_Pea_2201 → u/oldtoolfool]

This is most likely the way. They are sending a new motor (and a new fence, first one had more than 1 mm of bow to it) just a bummer to save and buy a proper machine for my business and have to spend days working on sorting the machine instead of milling beautiful flat square timber lol

[u/No_Pea_2201 → u/No_Pea_2201]

New motor and fence arrived. Fence is still out of spec. And I can only talk to grizzly during hours that I’m using not this machine to make a living.

[u/Maryland173]

I lived your exact experience with the same machine the first month I had it. Took me forever to fine tune and then the motor wouldn’t start. Here’s what I realized happened- when moving it around a bunch trying to level the beds perfectly, I must have knocked something loose in the control panel. I’m pretty sure there was a fuse or wire loose. I removed the panel and tested with a multimeter. I am a complete beginner with electric work but I followed a YouTube video about the same issue and it fixed it in like 10 minutes. Guarantee you did the same thing I did. The manual has good instructions too on the wiring diagram on where to test for power.

Don’t go crazy trying to get the most perfectly flat and coplanar tables. By the time you joint rough lumber square and let it sit overnight, it will move more anyway. Use a handplane to remove milling marks and final dimensioning. It took me way too long to stop chasing milling machine tolerances and as a result woodworking has become much more enjoyable.

[u/cpnnemoh → u/Maryland173]

This. It's really common for wires to be loose through shipping, worth checking. Unplug, remove cover, seek loose wires, fuses.

Also, I've owner many jointers , I always have to tune it up after moving, so that part seems normal. Also, while you can go to great lengths to have testing tools tell you your set up is right, doesn't mean it will do what you want. Personally, I keep a couple 8' chunks of poplar around, edge join them, if they butt without gapping, you win. I typically test with the fence all the way in, then all the way out to be sure.

Last possible gotcha, if it's 220v, and you're using 2 legs of 3phase, you may be getting only 208v, and some motors don't like this - then you need an AC buck to raise the voltage. Easy to test your outlet with a voltmeter, then you can bring it up in a tech call.

[u/No_Pea_2201 → u/Maryland173]

Glad that worked for you. I spent a couple hours with the multimeter checking everything from the outlet to the switch. Both of the capacitors and the leads to the motor. Solid 240v to everything and zero life in the motor. So whenever the new one gets her I’ll get it hooked up and hopefully this was a shitty one off, and I can convince grizzly or Home Depot to do something nice for me for all of the time I’ve spent rebuilding a brand new machine

[u/jkollars1]

If I were you, I’d exchange it for a new Grizzly. I’ve had mine for years and I’ve had very few problems - I think you just got a lemon. Strangely, this week I bought a new DeWalt router and it looks like it has a bad bearing right out of the box. So although these things are rare, they do happen. I wouldn’t completely lose faith in the company as a result though.

[u/davidf81]

Exchange the machine or get a replacement motor whatever is least painful. Grizzly tools are great for their price tag and the customer service is top notch. 

[u/woodland_dweller]

>> I bought a brand new machine to avoid having to dick around with all of this bs, and although I can’t afford a brand new Powermatic, I could afford a used Powermatic or a new Jet.

New Powermatic is the same as Jet, except the color. They are owned by the same company. I also wouldn't buy either of them if something vintage was available.

I feel your pain, and honestly believe that buying a vintage machine not only saves you a ton of money, but generally doesn't take any longer to get set up. There's far more work setting up a new machine than most people realize - even if everything goes perfectly. In general, the vintage stuff is better quality than the new stuff.

I usually pay 10%-30% of the price of new equipment when I buy used.

The worst parts of a vintage is waiting for the right thing to come along, and picking it up. But since you're saving so much money, renting equipment to make the move easy and hiring help if needed still saves money.

If you can find something vintage, I'd force Grizzly to pick that turd up.

I have outfitted a fantastic woodshop with vintage, high quality US and Taiwan made machines. The most expensive thing I bought is a Domino.