G'Day Tom, It is a bummer when your machine breaks down when you are in a hurry to finish something. One of my other hobbies is turning pens. I bought a new lathe in June 2015 to help pursue this hobby. Since then I am on my fourth motor and fourth switch, all of them broke down in separate incidents. Yesterday the thing blew up on me again. I came inside made a coffee to cool down, and made a coffee to cool down, and made a coffee to cool down.....6 hours later and many cups of coffee, I was still angry that a new machine could break down so many times.
Taking it back would be an easy solution, but the company is over 2000 kilometres away. I have dealt with them over a number of years with great success. It turns out that they received a bad batch of motors (and obviously switches) from China. It has cost them a fortune to ship the new parts to me and by now, the parts cost more than the lathe, so they have lost big time on this one.
Incidentally, the lathe broke down half way through an order for 10 pens. Aaargh!!
Dave.