Kapex 120 EB Smoked, Slowed, Started Backup and Died

[Doug S]

I'm always surprised at how expensive the repair costs seem to be for you guys compared to here in the UK.

Festool UK collect tools for free here even if out of warranty. They do charge for returning the tool if it's not under warranty but last year for them to ship my Kapex back to me they only charged £12.54 (about $16)

The labour for them to replace the armature, gear, brushes etc was £69.60 (about $90)

 

[ChuckM]

Just $90 for labor! That was dirt cheap (read: reasonable)

I recently had my car serviced by the dealership and the cost breakdown is like this (rounded and in Cdn $):
Total $1160
Labor $740
Parts $293
Supplies $74
Tax The rest

I guess for us in North America, the shipping cost makes up a good part of the total cost of a repair.

For some reason (perhaps because I know of no one who has had an EB burn-out), I feel confident that my 2015 Kapex would not suffer the bad fate that we've seen on this forum. At times, I make a couple of hundred cuts or more in one single session (say, over an hour or two), and semi-intentionally, I sometimes even subject the saw to "stress" in terms of usage like a stress test. Nothing bad has happened - knock wood.

 

[Mini Me]

I think it is outrageous that a company can profit from repairing a product that is not fit for use.

 

[ChuckM]

Someone whose 2016 Kapex EB failed recently made a guess that the failure rate of the old Kapex would be 20%!

Post #12 -https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?309281-Festool-Kapex-Failed

 

[Cheese]

Someone whose 2016 Kapex EB failed recently made a guess that the failure rate of the old Kapex would be 20%!

Post #12 -https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?309281-Festool-Kapex-Failed

Chuck, that was an interesting read...thanks for that.  [smile]

I read the entire thread and one of the VERY interesting points is that Mike the OP, is an EE and when he replaced the old armature, he didn't notice any burned insulation or other marks on the armature.

Mike says, "The old brushes appeared to be okay. The length was good and the wear pattern on the brushes appeared normal."

Mike also mentioned that "I checked the resistance of the armature coils and nothing seemed unusual. I also checked resistance from the coils to the laminations and there's no short."

So the mystery continues...could be why it took Festool so long to come up with a fix.

There was also some speculation on proper internal cooling channels. I don't know if that's just chatter or if that's the real deal.  [smile]