My Jet 1642 lathe is only developing about 500 RPM instead of the 1200 it should in low range. It also has significantly less torque, making it difficult to turn anything even with a light touch & sharp tools.
It has a 3 phase inverter, and I suspect one of the phase legs have failed.
Is it possible that the inverter is contaminated with fine dust? I turn a lot of tropical hardwoods and frequently sand to a very high grit and wonder if the silica common in them could somehow be interfering with the inverter circuitry. Since the lathe is long since out of warranty, I'm considering opening it up and blowing it out with compressed air to see if that helps and possibly cleaning the circuit board with alcohol.
Has anyone else experienced this, and if so, how were you able to resolve it?
Update: It's now three years later, the lathe is behaving completely normally and I've done nothing beyond cleaning it really well. I suspect it may have been water intrusion since the lathe sits right up against my garage door. I have put in a plywood panel to prevent direct spray, but that's really just a guess as to what the actual problem might have been.