Porter Cable 75182 Router

[dsnellen]

About a month ago, my 75182 was cutting some MDF when it started slowing down and sounding like it was cutting really hard. I stopped the job and turned off the router. Then it wouldn’t come back on. No life whatsoever, totally dead. It was getting power. I cleaned it out, checked the power leads and on the bench, disassembled it would start and stop. I made the assumption the switch was bad and ordered a new one.

Three weeks and $30 later, I was cutting some pine last night, when after about 45 minutes, the router started to sound like it was cutting hard, was speeding up and slowing down. And finally, it started slowing down without speeding back up. I stopped the program, turned off the router and again it fails to turn back on. No smoke, no heat, no sparks, etc. Power is good. A dead router. It looks like the switch has failed, again.

What would cause this to happen? The router was factory refreshed 08/2010, bearing, brushes, etc.

As a side issue, last month admin reported we had used $8k more electricity than same period last year. That’s about a 50% increase and a lot of electricity! We get yelled at, but there is no increase in apparent usage. Is it possible the two events are related?

Thanks - Dave