Tracking problem with Perfomax Drum Sander.

[Allen]

I stuffed up the conveyor belt on my Performax 10/20 and now that I've got a replacement, I'm having a devil of a time getting this thing to track.

Following the instructions seems to be useless, as they are so vague, and to adjust as they say makes no difference whatsoever.

The instructions say to tension the belt so that you cant stall the belt by putting your hand on it. Well, how tight is that?

Then they say to tighten the adjuster on the side that the belt is drifting to, and loosen the other. Small adjustments are all that are suppose to be necessary. There seems to be no amount of adjustment following these directions that will stop this belt from drifting to the outboard side.

I've reversed the belt and it reacts exactly the same. Been at it 3 afternoons now. Even called the Jet shop but they just told me to follow the directions in the manual.

Please, some advice before I spit the dummy and drive over this thing with the ute.

[kiwigeo]

Dont ya just love those Engrish instructions that come with those machines???

Can understand your frustrations mate.....hope you get it sorted. have you tried a post over on the OLF forum?

Cheers Martin

[James Mc]

Seems easy enough, tighten the belt until it stalls then put your hand on it
now back it off until it it runs.

[Kim]

Allen,

All I can say is I went through the same drama. I got the machine, a 16/32 new and it wanted to track to one side, but I wanted it to track right smack in the middle where it should be.

Following the instructions I backed off one side and tightened the other until I felt I had reached the point of 'tighten er up til she strips and then back er off half a turn'. Not wanting to go there I backed both sides off and reset the belt tension until it was just tight enough to iron out any sloppiness and then adjusted the belt biasing one side more than the other so it would run between the guide blocks under the table without 'rolling" over an edge of the belt too badly on the offending side.

I then called the outlet who sold me the machine and explained the situation. They said that they would get a tech out just as soon as they had one in the area to take a look and sort things out. They said that the machine should be OK to use until then. Well around 12 month later I got a phone call and the bloke on the other end of the line said he was as tech from the supplier and would be dropping in to take a look at the problem next week. I told him to go and get himself well and truly gratified.

I told him that if the best his employer could do was to have someone "drop in to take a look" some 12 month after I had reported the problem on my 'band spank'in new' machine, then I was not interested in his help and would deal with the issue myself rather than EVER do business with them again. The machine is still the same and will remain so because I am not pay'in no one noth'in to come tell me to some half baked BS. The belt on my machine continues to run to one side a bit and it has indeed worn a groove in the ceramic guide block on one side. But it has not moved across much further since I set it not to 'roll' after the ceramic guide blokes and now seem to have 'bedded' in.

To be fair to Jet, I have not heard of more than a handful of these problems occurring so I would suggest it is an in-feed, out-feed table alignment problem. I would suggest that this probably happens when the roller frame becomes 'racked' or pushed out of square as a result of rough handling or 'impact' just after the frame is removed from the assembly jig and the welds still hot and soft, but who really knows, it could be anything.

Anyhow Allen, I hope this does help a bit mate, I do know how frustrating this can be.

Cheers

Kim

[hilo_kawika]

G'day Allen,

I too feel your pain. My Performax is a several piece model wherein the sanding drum actually attaches to a radial arm saw post and the drive table is separate.

I also had to order new belts and when one came, the only way to keep it from off-tracking was to have a portion of it with a bulge that sticks up from the tracking table. Needless to say, when that comes in contact with the sandpaper on the sanding drum, that whole section of the sanding drum paper is ruined...

Finally I came up with a little clamp with two sheets of metal which smooth out the bump before it comes to the drum. Argh!

aloha,

David

[DarwinStrings]

Advice for Allen

Use snow chains on the ute.

I have been looking to buy one of these sanders recently.....not any more though.

Jim

May the Mastotermies never find your wood stocks.

[renieh]

Hi Allen,
Doubly sorry to hear about your probs with the sander, especially after having seen yours I said to myself (Gotta have one of them) so I've ordered one from Townsville Jet and it should arrive early this week. Tracking Probs with a sander is just what you don't want. It was good to meet you in Cairns the other week. Loved the guitar you had in the art show as well, you'd have to be happy with that.
Hope you are able to sort out the prob.
Heiner

[Allen]

It was good to have a chat with you too.

The sander is a great little unit, and perhaps I'm being overly anal about it. I haven't tried using masking tape to make a tapered cylinder on the idler roller, and that might solve the problem totally. When I get a chance I'm going to try that.

As it stands right now, after advice from hear and the OLF, I backed off the tension on both sides, then increased it equally on both sides until I couldn't stall the belt with a hand placed on top of it.

Then I tried to feed a piece of wood through it, but the belt stalled, so I increased the tension by 1/8 turn on each side until the belt would not stall. This still hasn't fixed the tracking problem to my satisfaction, as there is still a buckle in the belt on the underside of the platen on the outboard side as it rides against the tracker. Perhaps the machine just works this way, and I shouldn't be concerned about it.

Hesh tells me that his is the exact opposite of mine on the inboard side, but he finds that the lack of belt under the drum assists in double sanding wider pieces without getting a ridge.

[ZOOTMAN]

Allen I have owned a 22-44 Performax for about 3 years but recently sold it.
It served me well but was just not fast enough for my use. I sand way too many sets. I can tell you that the belt will never track right with a buckle in it. A buckle on the outboard side will make the belt drift to that side. You need to get that buckle out. If I remember right there are bolts on the side of the adjusting brackets that you need to loosen and maually stretch out the belt to get it fairly taunt across the length of the rubber roller rather than using the micro tracking adjustment nuts. That's a good starting point. Then you can proceed with the hand test so that the belt doesn't slip. Last you want to adjust for drift. Remember that the drift adjustment is not instantaneous but adjusts rather slowly. Adjust a bit and keep that belt running. You should be able to overcompensate and get the belt to drift to the inboard side. One more note. Those Jet replacement belts are awfully expensive. I buy 100 grit belts from Industrial abrasives for about $16 US
I'm writing this from memory so without the machine in front of me I may have missed something. Hope this is of some help.

[DarwinStrings]

After hearing these, not so good reports I thought maybe I shouldn't buy a Performax but after looking and hearing some other opinions it seems this may still be the best value for money sander.

Tracking problems sound like a pain in the proverbial but they also sound standard for power fed sanders of any type.

The sander I use at the moment (picture below) belongs to a friend and he has had his share of feed belt tracking trouble too. Also he is only in during works hours and sometime is on site all week so I need to work out ahead of time when I want to sand.

So maybe it is the performax in the end

Jim

[Allen]

Thanks Bob. Yours has been the first answer that has the potential of getting me to were I want to go. I'll tear this thing apart on the weekend yet again and see if I can figure it out.

The Performax belt that I just got ended up being $65 AU to my door. Your right about a lot of money for something pretty damn simple.