Blew my Ryobi BT3000 motor

[George]

Hello everyone,

I was ripping a lot of 2x10's yesterday and after about 4 boards, my 8 year old Ryobi BT3000's motor burned out rather spectacularly with a bunch of smoke and one foul smell. The saw has a custom electric motor that almost looks like a large router mounted perpendicularly to the blade housing and a small ribbed belt connect the motor to the shaft that actually has the blade mounted to it.

Should I go after Ryobi for a replacement motor or do folks know of a reputable place I can get a used or refurbished motor for the unit? It's definitely not a generic motor, so the tact I'm pursuing first is to by a "drop-in" replacement unit.

The saw was almost $400 8 years ago and while I'm not a fan of its fence, it has served me pretty well over the years for rough cut work. At any rate, I figure I'd spend $300-499 to get a new saw and am weighing that off against just fixing this one.

All suggestions are welcome.

Sincerely,

--George

[Roy Smith]

First, one obvious question. Are you sure it's the motor? If you stripped the belts, I suspect you'd get similar symptoms (smoke and burning smell). The belts should be fairly inexpensive to replace (although a bunch of work to get to).

Assuming it really is the motor, my hunch would be that if you got 8 years of good work out of it, it doesn't owe you anything. I certainly wouldn't expect Ryobi to pay for the repair.

If you want to go the repair route, my suggestion would be Sears. They sell (sold?) this saw and stock parts for it. You can order right off the Sears web site. In fact, the best exploded parts diagram I've ever seen for the saw came from the Sears parts web site. I'm guessing for an 8 year old saw, it's probably not worth it, however.

[Neal]

You may want to see what it would cost to have the motor rebuilt. There is a electric shop where I live that has rebuilt several motors for me at a very reasonable cost.

Neal

[George]

[Randy Chapman]

You should ask your question again at

(or read other people's answers). It generally seems to be best to auction off the remaining parts on ebay (the rip fence and smt alone go for quite a bit) and buy a new bt3100 for $299 at home depot. Rumor is your net cost should be very, very low when all is done, and you have an entirely new saw for your efforts.

--randy

[Pat Keith]

A motor seems to cost around $200.

[Steve]

What appears to be increasingly popular with owners of the older BTs is to simply buy a new BT 3100 for $299 and scavenge things like the old rails and old SMT for use on the new saw. This especially makes sense if you have any jigs 'n stuffs custom made for the older BT.

When you figure that you already have a set of rails you're already most of the way to having a wide table kit! The wide table extension kit costs well over a hundred bucks and includes a set of rails and some clamps to attach the two sets of rails to one another. (The clamps are fairly easy-to-mimic.)

OTOH, if cash flow is tight, figure on about $70 - $80 or so to rewind / repair the old universal motor (or so I've been led to believe by other owners).

[Ken M.]

[George]

[George]