Low time CT 26 is toast.

[gamblin01]

Purchased my CT 26 3.5 years ago. Relatively light home shop use for sanding. Not abused to my knowledge and never used for water collection At the time of it's demise it was fitted (poorly?) with dust collection bag #5. After a minute of sanding (Rotex 150) in AUTO mode, the vac was switched off at the sander for a sand paper change. When turned back on at the sander there was a single immediate "pop" from an unknown location in the CT and complete loss of vac power in AUTO or manual mode along with the slight smell of burnt plastic. The accessory outlet does still have power. After incident a Bluetooth switch was installed with no effect to engage the vacuum. Examination of the control panel interior shows no obvious damage with the exception of dust particles. Examination of the dust collection bag leads me to believe I either installed it not fully seated or the cardboard port otherwise became disconnected resulting in plugging the 3 water sensor ports and sending fine dust into the electronics. The ports and exposed exterior contacts have since been cleaned and a new bag installed to no effect. Functionally it is currently an 800 dollar single point outlet.

I've since acquired another CT 26 and given the probability of a hideous out of warranty factory repair bill, are there any obvious thoughts on what specific part has fried with a view to DIY repair.

 

[mino]

That sounds like the electronics board.

There could have been a hidden issue which manifested itself at the wrong time .. I had a similar problem 2-months in, the vac would never turn on and the repair bill (€0) listed the board being replaced. I guess they had some runs of components a couple years back that had bad apples which can make (some) of the boards fail early. *)

More importantly, I do not believe there is anything in the CT 26 that could go bad in such a way as to fry the board. All the electronics are in the board and sealed. So if you have another one I would try swapping the board to confirm it is the source of the problem - if you feel like it.

As for dust, the board has active cooling using the motor cooling fan so it is normal it is dusty - the whole board is sealed so dust cannot affect it negatively (and it also cannot be repaired as a result).

*) I have another CTL 48 AC from 2009 and it has its original board ... and that one was bought used from a rental shop of all places afte like 10 yrs there ...

 

[guybo]

Hi, welcome to the fog, the material inside looks a bit wet, however the two area circled are for the wet high level shutoff just maybe this is what has tripped your ct.hope it goes well after cleaning.I believe there is a utube showing this by festool.

 

[gamblin01]

Interesting comments gents. I can see in the photo that the sawdust in the tank appears to be damp. It was a combination of finely sanded new pre-finished BB and rough sanded (seemingly dry) fir workbench 4x6 framework that had a single coat of real tung oil applied 3 years ago. There tung oil was a 50/50 mix of orange citrus oil. At the most, 4-5 square feet of fir in total. Who knows, perhaps the failure was caused by a not happy interaction with trace amounts of tung oil, fir resin and electronics...At some point I'll take the suggestion to swap out the board from the new CT and see where that leads. Worst case scenario is that I have a hanger queen loaded with replacement parts.

Thanks.

 

[newellj]

I had a ~ 2 year old CT36E fail exactly like yours, including the smell of burned components.  I would guess it’s the main circuit board, but didn’t try to troubleshoot because it’s still under warranty.  Festool has had the DE for more than a week with no updates posted on the status of the repairs and, according to a service rep who I spoke with by telephone, no guesses on dates for completion of repairs or return shipping to me, which I would rate as unacceptable warranty performance for any manufacturer but especially for a manufacturer that sells professional tools to people who earn their living with their tools.  Anyway…have you checked on the cost of a new circuit board?  If mine had been out of warranty I think I would have probably ordered one right away, figuring it’s probably the problem and if it isn’t I’ve got a spare in case the MCB fails at some future time.

 

[newellj]

And an update on this.  Neither the tool on-power up function nor the bluetooth remote function work after the warranty repair.  Either the new module is also defective or it's incompatible with this CT36E and Bluetooth module.  Either way, it's clear that Festool didn't even bother to test this before returning it to me.  Exceptionally poor service.