Shopsmith Forums

Before number3456's last reply I inquired of Doug Reid to see if he could find out what was going on. While not an employee of Shopsmith he was kind enough to inquire. Here is his response.

Ed, This from Shopsmith

Doug,

The customer that he is speaking of has been taken care of, we are in the process of sending him a carton and having his head brought back here to be checked out and inspected.
Ed, would you be able to pass this on to the forum?

--
Thanks,
Doug
shopsmithdoug@gmail.com
shopsmithwoodworker.com

I am an independent contractor, not a Shopsmith employee. I am authorized by Shopsmith to offer specials on Shopsmith products. My opinions are my own, and I am solely responsible for them. However, your safety is your responsibility, and I cannot be held liable for any accidents or injuries you may incur.

So Shopsmith customer service is alive and well!

I hope Number3456 gets his Shopsmith up and running quickly.

The good news is that Shopsmith is in the process of making this right.

I personally believe that rather than sending a carton for return they should be sending a new headstock in that carton so that the carton can be used to return the questionable headstock but that is just me and my opinion.

I

I just got an email from ShopSmith and they are sending out a shipping carton tomorrow. I should get it Friday and then I’ll pack my headstock up and send it back. Hopefully in 10 days I’ll get it back. Like Dusty suggested it would be nice if they would ship out a headstock and then I would return mine to them. It would be nice to start using the power pro sooner.

JPG wrote:[...]

Why should it EVER be necessary to 'reboot'?

KISS

(rant mode on)
YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT! I started my IT career in the mid-70's and worked with some of the first commercial mid-range computers. Had to boot by first keying in some octal characters using binary switches on the front panel... then it could read paper tape... then a few punched cards... then drum memory... and the teletype console would start clacking away. Back then, "boot and IPL" was needed semi-half hourly just to keep things going... :>)

And Intel-based PCs have been around since the early 80's and are still hanging, giving the "blue screen of death," and requiring reboots just to recover (I bet there is still some MS-DOS in Win-10!). For that reason I got fed up and went from PC to Mac a few years ago and never looked back. My Mac is like a DVD player... just works, no reboots needed... The way things should be... ESPECIALLY POWER TOOLS!!

WE SHOULD NOT ACCEPT POOR QUALITY OR REWARD MANUFACTURERS WHO REPRESENT SUCH AS "NORMAL!" (FYI, my SS 500 is now over 40 years old and the Reeves drive has never even needed a new set of belts - why PowerPro? (I have belts on shelf just in case, BTW.)
(rant mode off)

Ely

"rant' fully understood!!!!!

There has been some negativity in this post so I thought I would provide a link to "the otherside".

http://nebula.wsimg.com/1783be598260532 ... oworigin=1

dusty wrote:There has been some negativity in this post so I thought I would provide a link to "the otherside".

http://nebula.wsimg.com/1783be598260532 ... oworigin=1

Very interesting. A bit dated but still very positive as it should be.

jsburger wrote:

dusty wrote:There has been some negativity in this post so I thought I would provide a link to "the otherside".

http://nebula.wsimg.com/1783be598260532 ... oworigin=1

Very interesting. A bit dated but still very positive as it should be.

A bit shakey in the 'history' department, but still relevant.

EliWalton wrote:
And Intel-based PCs have been around since the early 80's and are still hanging, giving the "blue screen of death," and requiring reboots just to recover (I bet there is still some MS-DOS in Win-10!). For that reason I got fed up and went from PC to Mac a few years ago and never looked back. My Mac is like a DVD player... just works, no reboots needed... The way things should be... ESPECIALLY POWER TOOLS!!


Ely

Your terminology confuses me a bit. I too have been dealing with computers all my working years. I got my hands on my first computer in 1969 in the military.

You say you switched from PC to Mac a few years ago. Mac runs on an Intel PC just like Windows does. No difference here. The difference is that Windows is the buggy creation of Microsoft while the Mac runs BSD which is Unix based. (When Apple ran their own operating system, it was just as unreliable as Windows).
Unix is superior to Windows or MS/DOS or Apple's own original operating system. And, Linux is a very similar operating system to Unix and is free.

I suffered for years with Microsoft and Apple's poor quality software and in 1999 switched to Linux. I stayed with Intel based PCs because they seem to have the most reliable hardware for me.

You can dump Mac and go to Linux and have the same reliability for 1/4 the price you pay for a Mac.

garys wrote:[[...]
[...]
Unix is superior to Windows or MS/DOS or Apple's own original operating system. And, Linux is a very similar operating system to Unix and is free.

I suffered for years with Microsoft and Apple's poor quality software and in 1999 switched to Linux. I stayed with Intel based PCs because they seem to have the most reliable hardware for me.

You can dump Mac and go to Linux and have the same reliability for 1/4 the price you pay for a Mac.

You are correct, sir! I was not casting stones at the hardware chip makers -- there have been many - Intel and others. I recall when UNIX was first introduced by Bell Labs. Although it took far too long, most of the proprietary (read buggy) OSs (Tandem, DEC PDP-VAX) were replaced with some version of UNIX to at last provide some standard platforms...

As fun as this is, back to my point about power tools. Who knows what bugs are in the firmware Striatech uses with their DVR motor controllers? (Nova provides a USB port for user upgrades - where is the USB port on the PP?) I feel were were short-changed by Shopsmith when they only upgraded the motor and not the drive train - get rid of the belts -- especially that idler shaft, and beef up that old 5/8 in. spindle to an inch or more diameter like a real table saw, shaper or lathe has. And why not some bells such as an electronic depth sensor or quill servo like the new Nova drill press has... And don't get me started on that low-quality display - why not an LCD touch screen?!

To get a glimpse of some of the features that could have been, just read about the new Nova drill press... http://www.finewoodworking.com/2016/11/ ... drillpress . And the price is only $1350... The older Nova DVR 1644 lathe lists for $2400 and can be bought around $2K on sale... Hard to understand why Shopsmith has to sell just the motor upgrade for about the same price or more than Nova's complete tools?!

Now, back to my Mac... :>)

Ely