On 12/19/10 10:31 pm, Victor Morris wrote:
> Aloha everybody,
>
> I'm new to this group and I'm looking for some help. Earlier this year I
> purchased a TMM-433 HD tower from U.S. Tower. I chose the option with an MDP
> 750 motor, inside control box, and outdoor relay box.
>
> Almost from the beginning I've had trouble. It started with what appeared to
> be an intermittent problem with a stuck outdoor relay. Sometimes the tower
> would not raise when e I turned on the power. However if I went outside and
> tapped the box, the tower went up fine. I thought this was just a nuisance,
> but I may have been wrong.
>
> About 3 weeks ago a circuit breaker tripped one time when I tried to lower
> the tower. I reset the breaker and the tower lowered properly.
>
> Then 10 days later I had the same problem except the breaker kept tripping. I
> went outside and found out the motor was extremely hot, and there was a
> strong odor of something burned. Inspection during daylight indicated the
> starting capacitor had blown. Further investigation indicated that a limit
> switch may have vibrated out of position possibly catching on the lowering
> tower. The bracket holding the limit switch was just a bit loose, and I think
> it could have moved. Inside the outdoor relay box a number of screws needed
> tightening
>
> The tower had to travel 2500 miles by ship to reach Hawaii, and there
> certainly were opportunuties for some items to loosen or shift position.
>
> The problem now is diagnosing and correcting the problem(s). I'm sorry to say
> U.S. Tower customer service has been very minimal to date. It took repeated
> calls and emails to their office to finally contact "Travis". He is the only
> one empowered to make decisions on warranty issues. I was offered the option
> of returning the motor at my expense to US Tower for service. While I plan on
> doing that, I would like to find out what caused my problem in the first
> place.
>
> Was it just a blown capacitor or "infant mortality" as some say? I do plan on
> ordering new capacitors from a non U.S. Tower source.
>
> Did the outdoor relay box contribute to the issue when the tower failed to
> rise after power was applied? One serious problem here is U.S. Tower provided
> extremely poor overall installation instructions, and no circuit diagrams at
> all for the outdoor relay box and the motor. Does anybody know how to get
> such diagrams? The customer service people have provided no help to date, and
> I'm unable to find any diagrams online.
>
> Could the displaced limit switch have caused or contributed to the problem?
> Does anybody have a photo of an upper limit switch in the correct position? I
> emailed photos to Travis of my upper limit switch, but received no response
> so far.
>
> What would you recommend in my situation? I think replacing the capacitor
> makes sense, but what other checks can I do? I don't want to hold up
> shipping the motor back to the factory for long, as my warranty expires in
> late February , and I have already received an RMA #. OTOH I don't want to
> reinstall the motor if I still have problems that contributed to the initial
> motor failure.
>
> Overall I must say I'm disappointed to see an expensive tower have so many
> problems this soon. FYI I'm in a CC&R area and this tower was the only one I
> could get approved after a long battle. And it is the only one that just fits
> in my relatively small 1/4 acre lot in a location well screened by trees.
>
> Any and all good ideas are welcomed!
How does the cost of simply buying a new capacitor -- or even a
motor+capacitor -- compare with the cost of shipping the motor back?
73
Alan NV8A
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|