Another Dremel down

I was excited this past Wednesday when my new Dremel 4000 arrived from Amazon, and I was ready right then to get to work, but I didn't have an opportunity until Saturday to get on with the wand making business. On Saturday, even though the weather was below freezing, I gathered everything together and set up shop on the table in the backyard. I had two wands to continue working on, one of them the Christmas tree pine I'd intended to finish before the holiday.

But after three hours of work, the new Dremel stopped working. I'd stopped to change bits. I needed the wheel sander instead of the 40-grit sanding drum. The sanding drum required that I switch out collet to hold the thinner stem of the wheel sander. After that was in place, with the wheel sander snug in the chuck, I slid the new tool's switch to ON but it stayed OFF. I did that about a dozen more times. The Dremel wouldn't turn back on.

I fiddled with the chuck and the collets, and the commutator brushes. The commutator brushes are these little doo-dads that stick down into the Demel's motor to perform some sort of fancy electrical thing, to which an explanation is linked here.

I swapped electrical outlets, in case the one I'd been using was dead. Still no good. I tried a third outlet. Dead. Dremel down.

I waited a full day and tried everything again, this time paying special attention to the commutator brushes, since I usually did not inspect those. All the pieces looked intact. The Dremel continued to be dead.

The shaft lock button might also be the source of the problem. This is the little button below the nose cap that locks the collet nut in place in order to swap out the bits. The assembly underneath the button might have fallen apart or slipped loose (insert technical jargon) but there was no way for me find out without taking the entire Dremel apart. I don't want to do that for a brand new piece of equipment.

I'll have to send this one back to Amazon, which will send me another one immediately, which is convenient but I've lost another weekend of work. Correction: I did significant work on two wands and started another, more complicated wand.

I'd hoped to get more done, but I'll be patient and concentrate instead on things I can do inside.