My PowerPro experience

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 4:09 pm

I am not certain why you believe Ed Reible was a beta tester but I do not believe he was. He certainly would have been an excellent choice for that task but then so would many other members of the forum. If a couple images posted here on the forum has given you that impression, well.........

The Tool-Hunter ( www.tool-hunter.com ) is the only forum member that I believe to have been a member of the beta team. If you have not viewed his web site and blogs, you need to do so. You'll find a report there on the results of his beta testing.

I sure wish Ed would come back. He contributed immensely to the value of this forum.

ddvann79 · Post by **ddvann79** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 6:35 pm

Sure, it's much easier to be an arm-chair analyst. That's why there are so many of us!

Any of you guys with PowerPros familiar with the programming or what the operating system and language is? I'm sure if you're willing to risk your investment that someone out there can reprogram the speed adjustment for longer intervals only when "Bandsaw" is selected and see what happens.

Warranty? Who needs a stinkin' warranty?

damagi · Post by **damagi** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 8:03 pm

ddvann79 wrote:Sure, it's much easier to be an arm-chair analyst. That's why there are so many of us!

Any of you guys with PowerPros familiar with the programming or what the operating system and language is? I'm sure if you're willing to risk your investment that someone out there can reprogram the speed adjustment for longer intervals only when "Bandsaw" is selected and see what happens.

Warranty? Who needs a stinkin' warranty?

I am quite certain it would be a low level proprietary os...or perhaps something like vxworks or whatnot...probably a realtime OS.

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:43 pm

Please let me dis-qualify and further qualify some of the above assumptions.

1) Vibrations/noises are well known to Shopsmith. It was Shopsmith that first led me to explore the coupler/hub issues. They definitely know that loose hubs can/will cause these issues. I'm not sure they had considered that non-tight fitting couplers would cause the issues. Correct inside diameter of couplers is, in fact a major issue.
1a) Reading the report from our friend "tool-hunter" I could find no such references when using the bandsaw.
2) Age of the plastic coupler is not necessarily a factor. My original coupler - the one that has passed into the dust collector and was scared by the fan blades - works with the bandsaw quite well. The deciding factor determining workability with the bandsaw is the tightness of fit onto the hubs - particularly the SPT side. If there is any looseness, even a play of a thousandth of an inch there is likely to be problems.
3) This may be a surprise - It seems the old headstock actually produces more power to the spindle at 950 RPM. When binding a blade by sawing a tight curve (< 5/8" radius with 1/4" blade) the PowerPro will actually lose speed. The older headstock never did.