My experience with the Lot-O and a failed motor
Dec 1, 2022 10:44:17 GMT -5
ataraktos, Brian, and 7 more like this
Post by waterboysh on Dec 1, 2022 10:44:17 GMT -5
I have been meaning to type up a summary of my experience in one place and just haven't gotten around to it. I wanted to put everything in one place so that in the future, if people are searching for the same issue, it will hopefully help someone. When I was researching, I found several threads with similar problems, but no update at the end. As an IT person, that really bugs me. So I am considering this post as documentation in a knowledge base that will hopefully be helpful to someone at some point in the future. Here is the original post I made when I started having issues. I'll post links to my various posts for the discussion, but the context will all be here in this post.
I bought my Lot-O in December 2021 from The Rock Shed, but it was on back order so I didn't receive it until January 2022. When I first got it, the motor was fine. The tumbling action was not great and required a dowel adjustment, but that is a separate issue. Here is how the motor sounded when I first received it. The sound was a constant hum. About a month later (so in February 2022), on a Saturday, I started a batch of rocks in 120/220. Everything seemed to be running fine. But by noon on Sunday, I started noticing the noise. It's maybe not quite as apparent in the video as I thought it would be, but it's especially audible near the end. It was a sound that kinda came and went and sounded very buzzy, as opposed to the normal constant humming. Here is the vibe, again at noon, using the slow-mo 120fps option on my phone. It's pretty cool being able to see the vibrations a bit better. This is also when I started noticing the right fan is very wobbly. The sound is also distorted, but if you go to about the 1:05 mark, you can actually still hear the sound it's making.
Fast forward just a few hours to 3pm on Sunday afternoon, and the buzzsaw sound is basically just constant. I decided to go ahead and dump and rinse the rocks and start the 500 stage. So I did that and checked back again around 10:30pm and it was even louder still. I feel like I can't be in my garage now without hearing protection. It's very loud. Also, you can't really tell in this video, but I swapped the sides the fans are on to know if it's the fan or the axle that is wobbly. So now the wobbly fan is on the left instead of the right.
The fan was wobbly since I got it. Here is a short video taken during my first time using it after it had been running for about 32 hours. You can see the right fan wobbling left and right a lot.
I don't really know much about motors, so I just let it keep running. I posted an update about 3 months later on May 28th. By then, it had gotten a lot louder. I used a decibel level app and got a reading of 88 dB from 2 feet away. I got the same 88 dB from my lawn mower. There is a screenshot in the above mentioned thread. I later learned that 88 dB is apparently as high as my phone's microphone can pick up, so it could have been louder than that. The very next day, on May 29th, I tried to turn it on and the motor would spin a little, seize up, and make a humming noise. When I grabbed the fan and moved it in and out, here is the noise it made.
I posted about this on Reddit too and found another user that also ordered from The Rock Shed about the same time as me. Turns out his has always sounded like mine does and his serial number and mine are only apart by 5. Both made (assembled maybe?) in December 2021. The serial number is etched into the frame, so I'm assuming it's assembled. He detailed the exact same things I'm seeing. His was still running, but he went ahead and bought a new motor. I decided to take the motor apart and see if there was anything I could do. After all, I doubted I could make the issue worse. Here's a gallery of pictures of the outside and inside of the motor. You can get the little clips off the motor with a screwdriver. You can see the bearing was no longer seated properly and there is a spring washer that was broken. There was also evidence that the bearings were slipping. There was discoloration on the outside of the bearing that fits into the side of the motor housing that comes off. I think this is also what was causing the black powder buildup on the fans.
I called Belt Inc and spoke with Tom, the creator of the Lot-O. He was actually very rude about the whole thing. He told me I was out of luck because it was past the 90 day warranty and that it doesn't matter what video proof I have that the failure started just 1 month after purchase. Basically just told me tough luck, can't help you. When I told him it failed after 4 months, he said "Sounds like you got a good amount of use from it then." I was like ,"uhhhh, well I didn't run it 24/7 over the last 4 months. I bet I only got about 8 batches completed." His response to that was, "Like I said, it sounds like you got a good amount of use from it." So personally I rate their customer support a 1/5.
By this point, I had discovered this thread (Lot-O tumbler motor malfunction) and began posting there. I had pulled things apart and cleaned them up enough to figure out that the bearings were fine. At the advice of someone in that thread, I ordered new spring washers from Grainger. The washers came and I reassembled the motor. I used Loctite 603 on the outside of the bearings to hopefully prevent them from slipping. After assembling, I let it sit for a couple of days to assure that the Loctite had cured. Everything seemed fine. I could spin the shaft and not hear any weird noises. Did not seem to be an abnormal amount of friction. So I was very hopeful. I had run the motor for about 30 seconds with no fans attached while sitting on my kitchen counter and all seemed good. So I go reattach it to the frame, fill the barrel, and place it in the frame. I plug it in... and omg, it was so quiet. Didn't sound like a buzzsaw. So I added my grit and everything. However... about 3 minutes later I hear this awful grinding noise. So I run out and by the time I had made it to the plug the fans had stopped spinning. I don't understand, because I can freely spin the shaft with practically no resistance. But I plug it in and nothing happens but the motor humming. So obviously something was wrong.
I was finally able to get a new motor from Kingsley North after being on a waiting list for about 4 months. It arrived mid-October, but had an issue already after only 24 hours. It was minor and easily fixable. Here is an album with some pictures showing the issue.
What's interesting though is this new motor is a different brand, Imesa. I think the design of this motor is better. The original motor from Fasco had a design where most of the motor housing is one solid piece. The shaft is placed in the center, and then an end cap is placed on. This end cap holds the bearing. The end cap is then put on the motor and attached to the rest of the housing with some clips.
The new motor appears to be two halves. So there is no end cap. The two halves are held securely together by two bolts that run through the entire housing. So one side is the bolt head and the other side has a lock washer and nut. I don't know anything about motors, but this design seems better to me. The washer never really fit right in the endcap of the Fasco motor and I think this is where most of the issues stemmed from. When I took it apart, the bearing on this side was discolored from heat and there was a bunch of black powder in the Lot-O fans and the inside of the motor. I think the bearing was spinning inside the endcap and rubbing away the metal until it got to the point where it was to loose and the shaft locked up. Once re-seated, I think the motor failed because of all the metallic dust that had built up inside it. This is just my personal theory though. I feel like this new motor's design more effectively sandwiches the bearings in place. But only time will tell.
So what problem did I have? The nut at the end of one of the two bolts that holds the two motor halves together came loose. I tried to put it back on and tighten it, but the end of bolt is stripped. I contacted Kingsley North customer support and told them what happened and supplied the pictures. They reached out to their vendor and the motor manufacturer. Nothing seemed wrong with the motor so they were just trying to get the bolt. This particular bolt is a carriage bolt and they apparently generally don't come in this narrow of a size. I could not find one online or at a local hardware store that specializes in weird stuff. They were not even able to special order one that size. Neither the vendor nor the manufacturer was able to send just the bolt, so Kingsley North took the motor off one of their display Lot-O units and sent me another whole motor. I would rate their customer support 5/5. They were great.
The new motor sounds great and has been performing great for about a month, so fingers crossed. This was about the point in time the original started to fail so I get anxious every time I go out to check on it.
UPDATE 8/15/24:
I don't tumble enough rocks to keep my Lot-O in continuous use. It usually runs for a few weeks at a time and then might lay dormant for weeks or even a month or two depending on what's going on in coarse atm. But it's been almost 2 years of intermittent use and the IMESA motor is still working fine. I have a big back log and will (hopefully) be running it nearly constantly for a few months soon, so will post another update after that if I remember.
It seems like if your motor dies though, the cement mixer motor seems to be the way to go. Drummond Island Rocks has some info and video in this thread. There's also a newer thread where he made an adapter so the motor can be attached without modifying the Lot-O frame.
I bought my Lot-O in December 2021 from The Rock Shed, but it was on back order so I didn't receive it until January 2022. When I first got it, the motor was fine. The tumbling action was not great and required a dowel adjustment, but that is a separate issue. Here is how the motor sounded when I first received it. The sound was a constant hum. About a month later (so in February 2022), on a Saturday, I started a batch of rocks in 120/220. Everything seemed to be running fine. But by noon on Sunday, I started noticing the noise. It's maybe not quite as apparent in the video as I thought it would be, but it's especially audible near the end. It was a sound that kinda came and went and sounded very buzzy, as opposed to the normal constant humming. Here is the vibe, again at noon, using the slow-mo 120fps option on my phone. It's pretty cool being able to see the vibrations a bit better. This is also when I started noticing the right fan is very wobbly. The sound is also distorted, but if you go to about the 1:05 mark, you can actually still hear the sound it's making.
Fast forward just a few hours to 3pm on Sunday afternoon, and the buzzsaw sound is basically just constant. I decided to go ahead and dump and rinse the rocks and start the 500 stage. So I did that and checked back again around 10:30pm and it was even louder still. I feel like I can't be in my garage now without hearing protection. It's very loud. Also, you can't really tell in this video, but I swapped the sides the fans are on to know if it's the fan or the axle that is wobbly. So now the wobbly fan is on the left instead of the right.
The fan was wobbly since I got it. Here is a short video taken during my first time using it after it had been running for about 32 hours. You can see the right fan wobbling left and right a lot.
I don't really know much about motors, so I just let it keep running. I posted an update about 3 months later on May 28th. By then, it had gotten a lot louder. I used a decibel level app and got a reading of 88 dB from 2 feet away. I got the same 88 dB from my lawn mower. There is a screenshot in the above mentioned thread. I later learned that 88 dB is apparently as high as my phone's microphone can pick up, so it could have been louder than that. The very next day, on May 29th, I tried to turn it on and the motor would spin a little, seize up, and make a humming noise. When I grabbed the fan and moved it in and out, here is the noise it made.
I posted about this on Reddit too and found another user that also ordered from The Rock Shed about the same time as me. Turns out his has always sounded like mine does and his serial number and mine are only apart by 5. Both made (assembled maybe?) in December 2021. The serial number is etched into the frame, so I'm assuming it's assembled. He detailed the exact same things I'm seeing. His was still running, but he went ahead and bought a new motor. I decided to take the motor apart and see if there was anything I could do. After all, I doubted I could make the issue worse. Here's a gallery of pictures of the outside and inside of the motor. You can get the little clips off the motor with a screwdriver. You can see the bearing was no longer seated properly and there is a spring washer that was broken. There was also evidence that the bearings were slipping. There was discoloration on the outside of the bearing that fits into the side of the motor housing that comes off. I think this is also what was causing the black powder buildup on the fans.
I called Belt Inc and spoke with Tom, the creator of the Lot-O. He was actually very rude about the whole thing. He told me I was out of luck because it was past the 90 day warranty and that it doesn't matter what video proof I have that the failure started just 1 month after purchase. Basically just told me tough luck, can't help you. When I told him it failed after 4 months, he said "Sounds like you got a good amount of use from it then." I was like ,"uhhhh, well I didn't run it 24/7 over the last 4 months. I bet I only got about 8 batches completed." His response to that was, "Like I said, it sounds like you got a good amount of use from it." So personally I rate their customer support a 1/5.
By this point, I had discovered this thread (Lot-O tumbler motor malfunction) and began posting there. I had pulled things apart and cleaned them up enough to figure out that the bearings were fine. At the advice of someone in that thread, I ordered new spring washers from Grainger. The washers came and I reassembled the motor. I used Loctite 603 on the outside of the bearings to hopefully prevent them from slipping. After assembling, I let it sit for a couple of days to assure that the Loctite had cured. Everything seemed fine. I could spin the shaft and not hear any weird noises. Did not seem to be an abnormal amount of friction. So I was very hopeful. I had run the motor for about 30 seconds with no fans attached while sitting on my kitchen counter and all seemed good. So I go reattach it to the frame, fill the barrel, and place it in the frame. I plug it in... and omg, it was so quiet. Didn't sound like a buzzsaw. So I added my grit and everything. However... about 3 minutes later I hear this awful grinding noise. So I run out and by the time I had made it to the plug the fans had stopped spinning. I don't understand, because I can freely spin the shaft with practically no resistance. But I plug it in and nothing happens but the motor humming. So obviously something was wrong.
I was finally able to get a new motor from Kingsley North after being on a waiting list for about 4 months. It arrived mid-October, but had an issue already after only 24 hours. It was minor and easily fixable. Here is an album with some pictures showing the issue.
What's interesting though is this new motor is a different brand, Imesa. I think the design of this motor is better. The original motor from Fasco had a design where most of the motor housing is one solid piece. The shaft is placed in the center, and then an end cap is placed on. This end cap holds the bearing. The end cap is then put on the motor and attached to the rest of the housing with some clips.
The new motor appears to be two halves. So there is no end cap. The two halves are held securely together by two bolts that run through the entire housing. So one side is the bolt head and the other side has a lock washer and nut. I don't know anything about motors, but this design seems better to me. The washer never really fit right in the endcap of the Fasco motor and I think this is where most of the issues stemmed from. When I took it apart, the bearing on this side was discolored from heat and there was a bunch of black powder in the Lot-O fans and the inside of the motor. I think the bearing was spinning inside the endcap and rubbing away the metal until it got to the point where it was to loose and the shaft locked up. Once re-seated, I think the motor failed because of all the metallic dust that had built up inside it. This is just my personal theory though. I feel like this new motor's design more effectively sandwiches the bearings in place. But only time will tell.
So what problem did I have? The nut at the end of one of the two bolts that holds the two motor halves together came loose. I tried to put it back on and tighten it, but the end of bolt is stripped. I contacted Kingsley North customer support and told them what happened and supplied the pictures. They reached out to their vendor and the motor manufacturer. Nothing seemed wrong with the motor so they were just trying to get the bolt. This particular bolt is a carriage bolt and they apparently generally don't come in this narrow of a size. I could not find one online or at a local hardware store that specializes in weird stuff. They were not even able to special order one that size. Neither the vendor nor the manufacturer was able to send just the bolt, so Kingsley North took the motor off one of their display Lot-O units and sent me another whole motor. I would rate their customer support 5/5. They were great.
The new motor sounds great and has been performing great for about a month, so fingers crossed. This was about the point in time the original started to fail so I get anxious every time I go out to check on it.
UPDATE 8/15/24:
I don't tumble enough rocks to keep my Lot-O in continuous use. It usually runs for a few weeks at a time and then might lay dormant for weeks or even a month or two depending on what's going on in coarse atm. But it's been almost 2 years of intermittent use and the IMESA motor is still working fine. I have a big back log and will (hopefully) be running it nearly constantly for a few months soon, so will post another update after that if I remember.
It seems like if your motor dies though, the cement mixer motor seems to be the way to go. Drummond Island Rocks has some info and video in this thread. There's also a newer thread where he made an adapter so the motor can be attached without modifying the Lot-O frame.
