Donna Banfield
TOTW Team
I have a Oneway 2436, serial # 702 (yes, it's an older one). Over the past few months, the lathe would simply stop right in the middle of a cut, for no apparent reason. In the past, the lathe started right up again, until Monday, when after several stops over the course of the afternoon, the lathe would not restart.
A phone call to Oneway the following morning put me in touch with Shane, in tech support. After explaining the problem, he thought it might be the inverter in the VFD failing. He said he would run it by Kevin and call me back later that day. Near the late afternoon, I hadn't received a phone call, and didn't want this to linger over the next day, if I needed a new drive shipped out. I called Shane, and was told that Kevin had not been in that day (unbeknown to Shane earlier). I told Shane to send the new drive anyway, because I couldn't afford to have my lathe down for several days. New drive was ordered ($718.00), Shane would wire it up for me on Wednesday, and ship out Thursday.
Less than an hour later, but nearly 5 pm EST, I received a phone call from Kevin Clay at Oneway, who read Shane's message about my lathe. Based on the description he didn't think it was the drive failing, and if I had the time right then, he would walk me through trouble-shooting to isolate the problem. I don't know electricity, and Kevin was told this; nevertheless, he patiently walked me through several things on the lathe, all having to do with the start/stop switches. First, the switch on the door where the belt is changed, (this is a safety kill switch to prevent you from doing something stupid, like opening the door and sticking your hand in there while the lathe is running); next the remote start/stop box, then the pendulum arm control and last the switches in the power box. About 45 minutes of trouble-shooting and no answer yet. This was all done without a multi-meter, so the next step was to get one and try again the following morning.
Wednesday morning, phone call to Keven, multi-meter in hand, and he walked me through how to use it. We repeated the trouble-shooting from the previous day, starting the meter and the main power supply. The testing showed an open circuit, so we backtracked, and re-tested the door switch, and bingo - that was the problem. After bypassing the switch, the lathe began to run again. Kevin said he suspected it was a faulty/failing switch all along, and with the age of my lathe, that's one of the first things that will go.
I'm back in business again, and Kevin saved me the cost (and headache) of a new drive. But I told him he'll still get my money when Oneway comes to the New England Woodturning Symposium in Derry, NH on May 5, 2012.
A phone call to Oneway the following morning put me in touch with Shane, in tech support. After explaining the problem, he thought it might be the inverter in the VFD failing. He said he would run it by Kevin and call me back later that day. Near the late afternoon, I hadn't received a phone call, and didn't want this to linger over the next day, if I needed a new drive shipped out. I called Shane, and was told that Kevin had not been in that day (unbeknown to Shane earlier). I told Shane to send the new drive anyway, because I couldn't afford to have my lathe down for several days. New drive was ordered ($718.00), Shane would wire it up for me on Wednesday, and ship out Thursday.
Less than an hour later, but nearly 5 pm EST, I received a phone call from Kevin Clay at Oneway, who read Shane's message about my lathe. Based on the description he didn't think it was the drive failing, and if I had the time right then, he would walk me through trouble-shooting to isolate the problem. I don't know electricity, and Kevin was told this; nevertheless, he patiently walked me through several things on the lathe, all having to do with the start/stop switches. First, the switch on the door where the belt is changed, (this is a safety kill switch to prevent you from doing something stupid, like opening the door and sticking your hand in there while the lathe is running); next the remote start/stop box, then the pendulum arm control and last the switches in the power box. About 45 minutes of trouble-shooting and no answer yet. This was all done without a multi-meter, so the next step was to get one and try again the following morning.
Wednesday morning, phone call to Keven, multi-meter in hand, and he walked me through how to use it. We repeated the trouble-shooting from the previous day, starting the meter and the main power supply. The testing showed an open circuit, so we backtracked, and re-tested the door switch, and bingo - that was the problem. After bypassing the switch, the lathe began to run again. Kevin said he suspected it was a faulty/failing switch all along, and with the age of my lathe, that's one of the first things that will go.
I'm back in business again, and Kevin saved me the cost (and headache) of a new drive. But I told him he'll still get my money when Oneway comes to the New England Woodturning Symposium in Derry, NH on May 5, 2012.