Mini Max support

[William Addison]

I have a MM16 that I bought new a few years ago and while it's a good saw, it's got some design features that I did not expect to find in a machine with it's price tag. Early on I had a couple of issues and called support. Once there was a problem with the micro switch on the foot brake and after talking to the tech a few minutes he said he really did not know much about the machine. I figured it out myself eventually. With blades over a half inch there has always been about 1/8 inch oscillation, the first time I called MM, the tech assured me it could only be the weld (not their problem) but it did that with several brands of blades from different vendors. Finally, I just decided to live it. Recently I got some Mesquite that I want to take some thin slices from but the cut quality won't allow that. I just got of the phone to MM and I'm not sure if he knew what he was talking about or not because his English was so limited. Right now, I wish I had looked more at other saws .

[David Kumm]

Electrical issues are about the only problems with the MM bandsaws. Have you talked to Erik Loza or Sam Blasco about it? They are good guys and will get you some support. Also take a look at www.solowoodworker.com. Charlie Plesums site and he knows a lot about MM stuff. You might have a tire issue. Sam should be of some help. You have a good saw. All machines can have problems but the MM basics are good so you can fix your issues. Dave

[William Addison]

It's an OK saw but at the moment my complaint is more with support than with the machine. Why companies hire someone that can't speak English to help customers is a mystery but a lot of them do. I have never called customer support for any of my tools much because I can fix most things, but my experiences with MM support will keep me from buying another of their machines.

[Will Blick]

William, you are not alone..... while my MM20 saw is solid, its not without issues, plenty of them....and I too struggled with support, I eventually gave up and rely on other users for help.... MM seems to be OK with how they support customers, you should feel privileged they sold you the saw...ok, a bit of exaggeration to make a point. The part I was surprised to learn over many years is, the same problems surface over and over, it seems word never gets back to the maker in Italy to use new switches? Strange.....

I hear lots of good things about Sam...but I am not sure he is employed with MM... Maybe someone can correct me, but I think he just helps fellow ww's as a courtesy?

[Jeff Hamilton Jr.]

I hear lots of good things about Sam...but I am not sure he is employed with MM... Maybe someone can correct me, but I think he just helps fellow ww's as a courtesy?

Unless things have changed in the last few years, Sam makes his living selling and supporting MM equip. He also has a commercial shop in Smithville, TX where he runs MM seminars.

I bought from him and flew there to take his class.

[Van Huskey]

It's an OK saw but at the moment my complaint is more with support than with the machine. Why companies hire someone that can't speak English to help customers is a mystery but a lot of them do. I have never called customer support for any of my tools much because I can fix most things, but my experiences with MM support will keep me from buying another of their machines.


You have a saw with an issue... the MiniMax are the top of the food chain in steel framed saws. Lets try to get your issue sorted so support becomes a non-issue good or bad. Start a new thread with your issues.

There WERE some electrical issues BUT I haven't heard of any on the updated saws (maybe 6 years now) but they could still exist. The changed parts manufacturers.

[Jim Matthews]

Oscillation front to back or side to side?

Oscillation front to back indicates a weld that isn't straight, where the back of the blade is joined at an angle less than 180 degrees. \ _ versus _ _
Oscillation side to side "flutter" indicates that you can't apply sufficient tension to the blade. Either the blade is a hair too long, or the tension spring has compressed.

It's also possible that your tires have worn, but they're pretty tough.

Does this wobble happen with every usage, or under certain loads?

jim
wpt, ma

[William Addison]

As I said in my OP, it's not a problem with the welds, the tires are fine, and I've tried varying tension all the way to the high twenty seven range. This week I'm going to try something I have not done before, I'm going to put a blade on, tension it, put a dial indicator on the back of the blade, and experiment with the tracking of the lower wheel. I've pretty well eliminated everything else.

I'm still amazed that MM has such incredibly bad support, I just hope I never need repair parts.

[John A langley]

William - I understand your frustration I also own the MM16. Although I've not had any problems with it - it cuts wonderful. I owned their 315 slider, their 20" thickness plainer and their hot air edge bander. The slider I have had an issue with the scoring blade. It took them almost two weeks to have somebody call me. I finally fixed it myself. But it would have been nice to have some insight on the problem in the beginning. The saw itself is excellent. The thickness plainer has a fuse in it. Nothing in this country matches up to the fuse that I could find. It took 3 weeks to get one out of Italy. In their infinite wisdom they did not stock them in this country at that time. The plainer itself is excellent. I have not had any problems with the hot air edge bander. Hot air edge banders were not the best choice but with no more edge banding than I do it works well. I would think that a company that puts out really very good machinery would back it up with good customer service. I hope you get your problem solved. And I do not intend this post as a rant.

[Andrew Joiner]

Oscillation front to back or side to side?

Oscillation front to back indicates a weld that isn't straight, where the back of the blade is joined at an angle less than 180 degrees. \ _ versus _ _


If several blades from different suppliers give a front to back oscillation it could be the wheel bearings are bad. It's odd that only blades over a half inch give you the oscillation.

[Chris Fournier]

If several blades from different suppliers give a front to back oscillation it could be the wheel bearings are bad. It's odd that only blades over a half inch give you the oscillation.

If you're getting that kind of oscillation, you would be looking at some "ready to frag" bearings and I believe that you'd know this while turning a wheel by hand. I highly doubt that this is the problem. Look at the wheels and tires first.

As far as service goes I have been happy with the SCM support that I have recieved on an old Samco pin router and on my CU410 Elite S. There's simply no point in complaining that service from any supplier is not delivered perfectly in your mother tongue - although my calls were. After sales service is being contracted out in all industries these days because North Americans don't want to pay for North American delivered service and North Americans don't want to work for what North Americans are willing to pay. Hello Bangalor.

[Van Huskey]

I doubt it is a bearing it would have grenaded by now with that much movement. Wheels, tires or tune is most likely.

I am currious where on the tire the OP is tracking the wider blades.

[Larry Edgerton]

William -. The thickness plainer has a fuse in it. Nothing in this country matches up to the fuse that I could find. It took 3 weeks to get one out of Italy. In their infinite wisdom they did not stock them in this country at that time. The plainer itself is excellent.

I have a S520 planer and although I have had no problems other than the boots rotting [Need to fix] I would love to have that part # and get one of those fuses in stock. If you have it handy I would appreciate it. I'll order it with the boots.

Thanks, Larry

[John A langley]

LARRY - I HAVE SP1 year 2004. I can't find the fuses in the electrical diagram mostly because I'm not very good at reading them. We blew the fuse shortly after getting the machine. I wasn't by the machine when it happened but the best I could get out of the person that was operating it was that he just kept his finger on the button that raises the table after he had hit the limit switches. I'd have to tear into the machine to find it and I'm really not wanting to do that because I usually end up screwing something else up. Wish I could be more help. PM me if you want to talk about this a little more. I would be happy to call you. And of course this happened 8 years ago and my memory isn't that good.

[Andrew Joiner]

I had a new Rikon 18" that had the same oscillation with several good 1/2" blades. The blades were straight at the weld. Rikon ran me through all the steps to fix it , including replacing the top wheel spindle. When none of that worked Rikon wanted me to replace the wheel bearings. The top wheel had a tiny amount of play to it. The play was barely noticeable and I didn't see how it could cause the blade to oscillate as much as it was. I returned the saw for a refund. Maybe even a slightly bad bearing magnifies to an extreme and could cause 1/8"oscillation? Just a guess based on my experience.

[mreza Salav]

I too suspect the oscillation is due to either a tiny bit of play in the wheels (upper?) or bad tiers. Basically the wheel has to wobble. It could be either the spindle is not 100% perpendicular to the wheel plane or it could be play in the bearing (or a tier that is not consistent/uniform).
I am no expert in bandsaws but know a wee bit about engineering ;)

[Andrew Joiner]

With blades over a half inch there has always been about 1/8 inch oscillation, the first time I called MM, the tech assured me it could only be the weld (not their problem) but it did that with several brands of blades from different vendors. .

William,

With blades under 1/2" is there no oscillation, or does the oscillation increase as blade width and tension increase?

[Gary Herrmann]

I guess MM customer service must have changed. I had an issue 4-5 years ago and found them to be very helpful. Good luck resolving your issue.

[Ryan Brucks]

Sorry for your issue. I have a new MM16 (actually they are calling them the S400p now, the blue line and MM16 text are gone), and mine had no issues like that.

The only issue with mine is the fairly common table sag near the throat plate insert blade slot. Mine sags about 0.007" there and there is not a good way to fix. If the sag were over 0.01 I could have probably gotten MM to replace it, but they said mine was within the acceptable range. In practical use I have found this to be true. I just split the difference when aligning the table to the blade. No issues resawing hard maple. I do wish the table were flatter but I can live with it. Seems they need the trunion bolts installed in different locations to really fix this (I consider it to be a minor design flaw).

I have talked with Sam Blasco (actually its more like I could fill a book will all the information he has written me, in response to my technical questions about anything and everything). Great guy to deal with. He will even take photos of certain setups or peforming certain operations if you ask.

I've called MM tech support a few times to ask them questions and always gotten a call back the next day. Had some questions about certain internal bits on the MM16 and wanted to ask about table tolerance, so I can't really rate the MM support in terms of actual problem solving. But in terms of them getting back to me, and ability to get technical info, I have no complaints.

[Erik Loza]

I have a MM16 that I bought new a few years ago and while it's a good saw, it's got some design features that I did not expect to find in a machine with it's price tag...

William, this is my first post here on SMC, though many of my customers are regulars here. One of them emailed me this thread and I thought I would register, respond, and hopefully help get you on track with your MM16.

Regarding tech support out of our Atlanta headquarters, those are not the folks to talk to about a performance issue like this. The techs there (whether Italian or American, we have both) are really best at troubleshooting either mechanical or electrical issues. As Dave K. pointed out, that is probably what 90% of folks call in for. So, I can understand how someone could get frustrated if its a performance issue related to, in your case, blades, or the quality of cut that they were calling Atlanta for.

In cases like this, the customer should always call their Minimax rep first. I checked our database and there is an MM16 owner named "Cooper Addison" in Corpus Christi. Are you that gentleman? If so, your Minimax rep is Sam Blasco. Part of the price a customer pays when they purchase their Minimax machine from Sam or from me is lifetime phone support. I routinely talk to MM16 owners, for example, who bought their saws years ago and might have a question or thought, and we are glad to respond to those. If you need Sam's number, email me offline and I'll forward it to you.

One more thought: Obviously, I am not in front of your machine, so none of of this is definitive and I am just floating ideas out there. Based on your description, these just sound like simple setup issues to me. Blade pulsation is almost always a bad weld. I can say this because I have shipped literally thousands of bandsaw blades over the years. Yes, a failed upper wheel bearing could also cause it but I have never seen that issue in the hundreds of MM-series saws I have sold and if it were a bad bearing, you would expect to see it with any blade mounted to the wheels, not just a certain range. Bad tire(s)? Or more specifically, "grooved tires"? Yes, also a possibility. The tire should have a rough texture to the touch but not have any grooves or ruts. If the tires does have any of that, I would just order a new one from Parts in Atlanta. Also, when you say that you are unsatisfied with the cut you are getting on Mesquite, what specifically is the complaint? How thin are we talking? Is the surface finish not what you desire but the cut is straight? Is the cut straight or does it wander? What blade are you using? Green or dry Mesquite?

Point being, there are lots of variables but in my experience, 9 out of 10 times a Minimax bandsaw owner calls me with a performance-related issue on their saw, we just need to tweak the setup and possibly the blade choice in order to get them on track. In other words, we know the machine is capable of doing what is asked of it and have not established that there is, in fact, actually any mechanical problem, so it is just a matter of getting it set up right, if that makes sense.

May I make suggestion to you, William? Sam Blasco is a true guru of bandsaw use, located in Smithville, TX (maybe 3 hours from Corpus), and offers quarterly seminars in his shop that are bandsaw-intensive for MM owners. In fact, he just had one last weekend. Sam is your rep, so you can call him any time but I encourage all local TX owners to take his seminars. I can guarantee that you will have a much higher level of skill and knowledge afterward. Again, you can email me offline for Sam's direct contact info.

Best of luck with your woodworking and I hope you get a speedy solution,

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Michael Panis]

I also had an oscillating Rikon 18". After having blades re-welded to be more straight, it still vibrated. Rod Burrow from Rikon spent a lot of time helping me pinpoint the problem. He mentioned that the Rikon, like many European style saws, tensions its blade differently than most US saws, and in my case, there is a bolt that is supposed to make contact with the upper wheel assembly. Possibly because re-welding the blades shortened them, contact was not being made. The saw purrs now that I have adjusted that bolt.

So...It sounds like giving your rep a call might be a good idea since there may be things to know about the MiniMax saw that don't apply to other saws on the market.

---Mike

[William Addison]

Thank you for your response, I will email you for contact info on Sam Blasco as soon as I know your email address, can you PM me? I don't lay any claim to being a bandsaw guru but I have been using them for over forty years and have always done the maintenance on all my machines.


I have checked the following: the tires are fine, the bearings have no noise or play and turn smoothly. I have indicated the wheels for run out and concentricity and both are minimal.

I have varied tension from minimal to about 27,00 lbs. I read the manual which says blades wider than 3/4 inch should overhang the tire and did that. I have also tried running them on the center of the tire briefly.

The blades are a 3/4 inch Lennox bimetal, a 1 inch Lennox Tri Master, and a 1 inch Lennox Woodmaster. I also used the carbon blades that came with the machine, a 1 inch and a 3/8, as I remember. They also moved fron to rear. I have put a straight edge on the welds and they look good. I called tech support about this problem soon after I got the saw. It was a waste of time.

I'm not trying to cause problems or bad mouth MM support useless as they have been, I just want to fix the machine. I'm
willing to talk to anyone who can help me if I can find out how to contact them.

[Andrew Joiner]

What a mystery,William. Please report back when you get some solutions.