Kapex up in smoke

[Brandon]

So my 1.5 year old Kapex died yesterday. Cutting a piece of mdf and suddenly smoke starting coming out of it and that was that. Called Festool service and they are going to ship me a box to ship it to them, kinda disappointed that I have to pay to ship it to them but I understand their warranty. Mostly just upset that my Kapex only lasted a year and a half, with fairly light use and now I have to pay to ship it so they can repair it. I have bosch that is 4 years old and 2 hitachi's that are around 8 years old and none of them have ever had an issue.

Festool service said, sight unseen, that it was likely a burned out armature.

With this recent issue I basically realized again how underwhelmed I am with the Kapex overall. Nice saw but not twice as nice as any of my other saws for the money.

 

[Brandon]

I forgot to mention that a couple months ago the locking lever for the miter broke. Again, this saw has minimal use and is well taken care of. Festool sent me a free replacement part but just another issue with the saw I thought i mention that helped to lead to my disappointment in the saw.

Not saying it's not great saw but less than I have come to expect from Festool. I own very many of their other tools and am thrilled with most of them

 

[dicktill]

"sorry for your loss ..."

Not to hijack this thread, but since you have other brands of miter saws, can you comment on the anmount of dust that a Kapex spews out compared to them?

Thanks, Dick

 

[Brandon]

"sorry for your loss ..."

Not to hijack this thread, but since you have other brands of miter saws, can you comment on the anmount of dust that a Kapex spews out compared to them?

Thanks, Dick

I have used both my hitachi and Bosch with a CT22 vac and neither one comes close in dust collection to the Kapex. That is truly one of the major highlights of the Kapex. With some minor dust chute modifications my Bosch dust collection becomes respectable but still noticeably shy of the kapex. My kapex really only gets used when minimal dust is needed, working inside clients finished houses for instance. While I wouldn't agree with some claims of 90% dust collection on the kapex I would say in my experience that its a solid 75% and most airborne dust is eliminated.

 

[Woodsgood]

I too am disappointed with the Kapex. It is not powerful, it is fragile, it leaks oil and it is expensive. But as a system component it works well, it is light and it fits well in tight spaces. I own many Festools and I will buy more. They all can't be perfect.

The purpose of my post is not to be inflammatory or to shine a negative light on customer service which is excellent. Maybe the next generation Kapex , will have these issues corrected.

 

[nanook]

great to read these posts - I think sometimes here people are afraid of dissing festool.  Good to hear some real world, and balanced perspectives

 

[john5mt]

Wait what? Leaks oil? There's oil in these things?

I didn't realize that. Interested to see how it does in the winter time out side now.

I have a hitachi 10fsh that I have always been super happy with but my festool addiction couldn't resist a kapex. Like you said it's a nice saw just not 3x nice. The other reason to get a kapex is the manufacturing quality. A lot of the saws on the market are innovative and nice but the cheap parts and loose tolerances make them angering to use. My old hitachi was made in Japan and it is as accurate as a kapex and is more accurate than anyother saw I have used.

Hope your kapex issues are fixed. If the kapex doesn't turn out to be a good saw then finish carpenters are screwed when their old reliable saws finally die.

 

[mastercabman]

Wait what? Leaks oil? There's oil in these things?

I wonder that too.
I tough it was grease.How can it leaks oil?

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

There have been a few reports of drops of grease (or oil separated from the grease) coming from the Kapex under certain environmental conditions. As I recall, and I have to confirm this with the service department, Germany was adding more grease than required for a period of time and this has been resolved. The excess was resulting in "leakage" for lack of a better word. We're not talking about puddles of grease or oil.

This will not affect the performance or life of the tool. If you have this happen and are concerned about it, feel free to contact me directly or our service department.

 

[Rickfisher]

Get Festool to send you a tube of the green smoke..  Inject .. and your back in action...

Seems like the Kapex motor has a few reported hiccups.  People seem to rave about the engineering .. accuracy and dust collection..  All power tool companies have issues, its the nature of the business.  I have a Bosch Colt which is pretty much useless and a drawer full of Makita LION batteries that failed way too early ..  Its life..  Manage your expectations and your disappointments will be fewer..

 

[Weiche]

i have two kapex miter saws, the first one stopped working after about 1.5 years. i took to a local tool repair shop to see if they could fix it, as my luck would have it they were broken into and my saw was stolen. so i bought a new kapex and after only 6 months of use the armature burned up, so i sent it back and it was repaired and returned to me within a week.  i was using my kapex today and the armature burned up again. so i guess i will be boxing it up and sending it in to be repaired again.......... i own several more tools made by festool and have not had any trouble from any of them. the kapex is by far the best miter saw i have ever owned. i just wish festool could correct the kapex problems. maybe a bigger motor. really seems to be under powered.

 

[Kev]

Anyone experiencing 240V KAPEX issues? I'm not - just curious whether these issues are 110V specific ...

 

[Brice Burrell]

Anyone experiencing 240V KAPEX issues? I'm not - just curious whether these issues are 110V specific ...

That's a good question Kev.  So far I remember one member from Europe with a burned up armature/motor and all other reports from N. America.  Festool only knows how widespread this issue is and if it really is widespread they'd probably never (publicly) admit it.  Armatures burning up multiple times on any tool, of any brand, is something I've not heard of before.  I'm not saying it hasn't happened.  All I know is it seems to be happening enough to have gotten my attention.... 

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

Anyone experiencing 240V KAPEX issues? I'm not - just curious whether these issues are 110V specific ...

That's a good question Kev.  So far I remember one member from Europe with a burned up armature/motor and all other reports from N. America.  Festool only knows how widespread this issue is and if it really is widespread they'd probably never (publicly) admit it.  Armatures burning up multiple times on any tool, of any brand, is something I've not heard of before.  I'm not saying it hasn't happened.  All I know is it seems to be happening enough to have gotten my attention....   

Brice, I'm not the guy who would make the call on whether to issue a statement on a widespread problem if one existed, but I am a guy who can say that there isn't one. I'm not discounting these reports and it's bad that it has happened even a few times.

I just recently spent some time with the service department manager to talk about what types of things they were seeing so I can be aware of things that might come up on the forum. Armature issues was never mentioned.

Remember that this forum is predominately represented by visitors from North America. So the proportion of reported problems will be based on that.

Shane

 

[Rick Christopherson]

Armature issues was never mentioned.

When the VCR stops working, the average person will throw up their arms and say it's a "short circuit".

When a motor fails, the average person will throw up their arms and say it's an "Armature Failure".

While these are both possible failure modes, in most cases it is simply people using what they think are generic terms that actually aren't generic, and do have specific meanings. A "short circuit" does have a specific meaning, and is rarely the cause for a VCR to fail. The same is true for an armature failure. That is a specific component in a motor, but is rarely the actual cause of a motor failure.

Just because the term "Armature" was used does not mean there is or is not any sort of trend. That is the equivalent of saying every electrical problem is a short circuit.

 

[Brice Burrell]

Armature issues was never mentioned.

When the VCR stops working, the average person will throw up their arms and say it's a "short circuit".

When a motor fails, the average person will throw up their arms and say it's an "Armature Failure".

While these are both possible failure modes, in most cases it is simply people using what they think are generic terms that actually aren't generic, and do have specific meanings. A "short circuit" does have a specific meaning, and is rarely the cause for a VCR to fail. The same is true for an armature failure. That is a specific component in a motor, but is rarely the actual cause of a motor failure.

Just because the term "Armature" was used does not mean there is or is not any sort of trend. That is the equivalent of saying every electrical problem is a short circuit.

That's true Rick.  My assumption is that these people had their saw's repaired and know it was the armature that failed.  As I said, that's my assumption, I could be wrong.

Edited to add:  Regardless what people might be mistakenly calling their saw's failure the fact remains there are a certain number of people with a failure.     

 

[Brice Burrell]

Anyone experiencing 240V KAPEX issues? I'm not - just curious whether these issues are 110V specific ...

That's a good question Kev.  So far I remember one member from Europe with a burned up armature/motor and all other reports from N. America.  Festool only knows how widespread this issue is and if it really is widespread they'd probably never (publicly) admit it.  Armatures burning up multiple times on any tool, of any brand, is something I've not heard of before.  I'm not saying it hasn't happened.  All I know is it seems to be happening enough to have gotten my attention....   

Brice, I'm not the guy who would make the call on whether to issue a statement on a widespread problem if one existed, but I am a guy who can say that there isn't one. I'm not discounting these reports and it's bad that it has happened even a few times.

I just recently spent some time with the service department manager to talk about what types of things they were seeing so I can be aware of things that might come up on the forum. Armature issues was never mentioned.

Remember that this forum is predominately represented by visitors from North America. So the proportion of reported problems will be based on that.

Shane

Shane, I'd agree this is not a widespread problem in the sense that a very high percentage of saws are failing.  All I can say is when people talk about miter saws as a whole we don't much talk about failed armatures.  With the Kapex the issue has gotten my attention. 

 

[illumicon1]

As I am finally jumping off the fence and finally going to purchase the Kapex this week these comments are making me doubt spending $1375.00 on one tool. I spent a lot of time last week at the local Woodcraft store in Kansas City running through all of the features of the Kapex and was finally convinced of the extra cost. I've been outbid many times on Ebay on used Kapex's probably with no warranty ( this is probably a good thing).
I hope these are isolated situations.

 

[Kev]

As I am finally jumping off the fence and finally going to purchase the Kapex this week these comments are making me doubt spending $1375.00 on one tool. I spent a lot of time last week at the local Woodcraft store in Kansas City running through all of the features of the Kapex and was finally convinced of the extra cost. I've been outbid many times on Ebay on used Kapex's probably with no warranty ( this is probably a good thing).
I hope these are isolated situations.

I think I could say that even if you were unfortunate to have an issue, Festool would see it good.

 

[nanook]

I just recently spent some time with the service department manager to talk about what types of things they were seeing so I can be aware of things that might come up on the forum. Armature issues was never mentioned.

Shane

Shane, what issues did the Service Dept Manager mention them seeing?