Michael Nosek Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 Hi, I'm Michael from Freedom Construction. QUICK TO TAKE YOUR MONEY BUT LAST TO PROVIDE SERVICE I hope someone will read that before they use any services from Felder. I'm owner of Hammer A31 Planer Thicknesser which was manufacture in 2014. Last week electrical element burn which was delivered fairly quickly from felder. Replacing element was straight forward. After we replaced electrical element machine started only when you hold start button. In the first instance I called Felder as they "should" know what the problem is after investigation. Last Friday I had engineer visit to service machine before starting he was fist to drink coffee and this is after paying in full to felder when you order service. I don't thing he run any tests but visually check connections and cables which he admitted that all is correctly connected. His diagnosis were that 3 phase converter is faulty and needs to be replaced. I immediately order new converter which we received on Monday. We connected converter and same again machine only starts and run when you hold start button. I beleive electrical element is faulty but they do not want to admit that. I paid Felder to get things sort it not to receive information which was not even correct and cost me lots of money. We connected planner even directly to 3 phase and problem was the same. In my conclusion Felder fail to diagnose problem even try to blame us that is not connected correctly. They not even try to solve the problem. We paid massive amount of money approx £1000 to the day in parts and Felder labour not to mention that our projects are on hold and our clients can't get what they paid for plus cost our labour. I would say to avoid Felder any machine and definitely service. You will get disappointed and you will end up with MASSIVE BILLS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewisc Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 I'm glad you talked me out of it. Whew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 Post your question in the yahoo Felder Online Group. Those guys will be able to tell you what's going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pwk5017 Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 Agreed, i bet you arent the first one to have this problem, and a few of the guy's on that forum are insane. I think David Best, Mac Campsure, and Brian Lamb know the machines much better than anyone at Felder. It sucks you have to rely on a forum for help, but this isnt the first time ive heard about Felder throwing up their hands and walking away from the situation. People have labeled it as "typical German customer service", which doesnt really fly with me. International company, so you cant expect me to shrug off poor customer service just because of the nationality difference. If you paid via credit card, id dispute all those charges. If they dont want to help you, then dont pay them. Other than that, i think most manufacturers are like this to an extent. My brand new PM planer's gear box dripped oil from day one. Powermatic's response to me was, to clean it up and not worry about it. The point of that story is, every one of them will dodge defects and try to get out of claims. It behooves every woodworker to be mechanically inclined and motivated, because you are the best and sometimes only point of contact for tool maintenance and repair. Its why i almost exclusively buy used. If a warranty and customer service wont get me very far, why pay for them upfront? I recently purchased a tilting bracket for my KF700. It wasnt a cheap part by any means, but its the only way i can get a power feeder on the shaper part of the tool. Anyways, i opened it up when it arrived and didnt have the gas strut with it for easy lifting assistance i paid for. I sent a message to Felder, and they had the part to me within a week. They arent all bad, but God help me if i ever need someone to come out and work on my 12 year old machine. One, a felder tech from delaware to Pittsburgh would be $500 in travel expenses. Then, you are at the mercy of that tech's skills. From what ive read, some are absolutely awful, and some know what they are doing. You might have received one of the awful ones? Yet another reason for engaged and educated self-service. I will say i think Felder makes great equipment that is somewhat unique to the market, and they have their lemons just like anyone else. Unfortunately, their $$$ lemons chap your ass more than a $800 grizzly jointer lemon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 Just twist the 2 wires together and bypass the faulty relay. Silly fancy German crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekcohen Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 This is not typical of Felder, but a statement of the agent you have used. Of Felder in my area - Perth, Australia - I have nothing but the utmost praise. I have purchased three machines over the space of about 8 years - Hammer N4400 bandsaw, Hammer A3-31 combination thicknesser-jointer, and recently a Hammer K3 sliding tablesaw. Each of these machines was assembled by the agent in their warehouse before delivery to my workshop, where they were re-assembled and checked. When the K3 was delivered, the agent also checked the bandsaw, and tightened up the belt. This was done free. A week after the K3 was installed, I called them up because the front section of the slider (closest to the blade) was 0.5mm too high (yes, I am fussy). They came out the same day to sort it out. This is incredible service. I am not suggesting that all Felder agents are the same - in fact, I am saying that they are all different. Regards from Perth Derek 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Keggers Posted March 27, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 Should have bought a Grizzly. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 FWIW my 2006 Hammer A3-31 has always required you to hold the start button until the machine gets up to speed it is part of the design. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derekcohen Posted March 27, 2018 Report Share Posted March 27, 2018 5 hours ago, pkinneb said: FWIW my 2006 Hammer A3-31 has always required you to hold the start button until the machine gets up to speed it is part of the design. This is standard practice. The reason is to ensure that extra strain is not placed on the capacitor. The machines will start without holding down the start button, but there is a danger that eventually the capacitor will fail. Always hold down the start button until the motor is running. Regards from Perth Derek 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted March 28, 2018 Report Share Posted March 28, 2018 19 minutes ago, derekcohen said: This is standard practice. The reason is to ensure that extra strain is not placed on the capacitor. The machines will start without holding down the start button, but there is a danger that eventually the capacitor will fail. Always hold down the start button until the motor is running. Regards from Perth Derek Yep I actually had to replace my capacitors earlier this year. Pretty painless and not very expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew-in-austin Posted March 28, 2018 Report Share Posted March 28, 2018 Not sure what you meant by, “wire directly to 3 phase”. Did you skip the switch on the machine? It sounds like the coil in the switch is bad, but skipping that component and wiring directly would have fixed that. This being 3 phase, there should be no capacitors to replace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick S Posted March 29, 2018 Report Share Posted March 29, 2018 On 3/27/2018 at 10:14 AM, derekcohen said: This is not typical of Felder, but a statement of the agent you have used. Same here. I've had very good results from their service, as usual, some better than others. The manual does clearly state to hold the start button until it's up to speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted March 29, 2018 Report Share Posted March 29, 2018 On 3/27/2018 at 12:03 PM, pkinneb said: FWIW my 2006 Hammer A3-31 has always required you to hold the start button until the machine gets up to speed it is part of the design. Same with my Felder AD941. Manual states to hold until spooled up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jfitz Posted March 29, 2018 Report Share Posted March 29, 2018 fwiw....I wonder if we'll ever see Michael N again. Sucks that he ran into issues with a vendor, but this type of pigeon post* really bugs me. (* flying in out of the blue, crapping all over everything, and then leaving). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted March 29, 2018 Report Share Posted March 29, 2018 1 minute ago, Jfitz said: fwiw....I wonder if we'll ever see Michael N again. Sucks that he ran into issues with a vendor, but this type of pigeon post* really bugs me. (* flying in out of the blue, crapping all over everything, and then leaving). Me too. Although I only made it about half way through because the grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. was so horrendous that it's all but unreadable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted March 29, 2018 Report Share Posted March 29, 2018 15 minutes ago, drzaius said: Me too. Although I only made it about half way through because the grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. was so horrendous that it's all but unreadable. Well, he's from UK.. so... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post derekcohen Posted March 29, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted March 29, 2018 Follow his company name and you will discover that he is Polish, living in the UK, having started a contracting company in 2004. I wish I could speak and write Polish as well as he does English. I think that he meant well, but was very frustrated, and the agent who worked with him knew enough to import machines but not service them or diagnose any faults. Regards from Perth Derek 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted March 29, 2018 Report Share Posted March 29, 2018 5 hours ago, derekcohen said: Follow his company name and you will discover that he is Polish, living in the UK, having started a contracting company in 2004. I wish I could speak and write Polish as well as he does English. I think that he meant well, but was very frustrated, and the agent who worked with him knew enough to import machines but not service them or diagnose any faults. Regards from Perth Derek Your right, point taken. I'd sound pretty silly if I tried to post in anything other than English. Especially when frustrated. Still, to go on a forum just to vent & then disappear is bad form. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Howard Posted March 30, 2018 Report Share Posted March 30, 2018 I just wanted to post that I have been very happy with the support from Hammer-Felder in the US. I have the A3-31 and had an issue several years out of warranty (not a major issue or one they were responsible for) and called and they tried to help me on the phone, but it required lifting the machine, which I couldn't do by myself at the time. They called again and again to make sure I could fix it even though they weren't getting a cent for it and I was dropping the ball due to work getting in the way. In the end we got the issue fixed and the machine running like new. I feel bad for the OP, and understand that he had a bad experience, but at least in the US I was a little worried about customer service because I'd seen a post like this from years ago and wavered on buying the machine, but couldn't be happier with the support I've gotten. (I also when I first bought it had them deliver the machine, move it into my house, set it up all for what struck me as a reasonable fee. Then a month or two later for free they skyped with me for 30 minutes to show me how to reduce snipe so it wasn't just one good experience, but several). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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