Harbor Frieght RSC issue

[greggn]

Having modded the Harbor Frieght router speed controller as per Prairiepiss' design I was thrilled to find it worked as advertised but I found the PP's statement below was prophetic ...

>One last thing to keep in mind. The Harbor Freight router controller is just that. A Harbor Freight Router controller. As with many things bought at Harbor Freight they aren't the best things in the world. >They sell them cheap for a reason. So if you are thinking this will last you a lifetime. Think again. I have not had a problem with mine. But I'm not expecting it to last for ever.

In the middle of a run I noticed my column temperature suddenly drop like a rock. Racing around the house I found the circuit breakers and GFI's all operating correctly. Double-checking my gear I found that the female power connector on the RSC had melted. Literally melted. As a result, the contacts were pulled out of position and power to the heating element was lost.

My subsequent repair was to install a new grounded female connector on a few feet of wire ... moving the connection away from the body and hopefully providing a bit more thermal cooling.

I suggest any folks running the Harbor Freight RSC, or any of the variants seen on Amazon, to keep mind of the temperature at this connection point.

[S-Cackalacky]

There are probably much better alternatives to the RSC. Several members, including myself, are using the Chinese made SCR controllers from ebay. Mine is a 10KW model that I run on 120V service. They are pre-assembled. All you need to do is wire it up and install it in a housing. If you have the skills, there's a big thread here on the forums with lots of diagrams and information for building one from scratch.

[shadylane]

The receptacle on my RSC also melted. Another problem is the switch is on the neutral wire.
In other words, even if the switch is off, there's still 120v at the output.