MM FS41 Elite S J/P with hand crank?

[Michael Koons]

To all Minimax J/P owners out there, I need your opinion. I'm in the last stages of buying an FS 41 Elite S. The height adjustment for the planer table is a hand crank instead of electric. For those of you who use the Minimax and have experience with this, how much of a pain do you think the hand crank is? I know that the MM design means you don't have to lower the table as much as you would for other brands, but is it really a pain or no big deal from your experience?

Any thoughts are welcomed. Thanks

[Peter Kelly]

It's sort of a pain but not horrible on my FS 41 Elite.

If you've got the extra money, the power height adjustment is a pretty nice thing to have.

[Chris Merriam]

It is what it is, not much to add. I have an FS-30, and it has to be lowered to 6 inches in order for the dust shroud to clear. So you normally have to crank about 4.5 inches or so to get to your target area. Takes about 20 seconds. I wish it went a bit faster, but that would come at the cost of less ability to fine-tune your depth of cut I suppose. It's not physically hard to crank, just takes time.

[Chris Padilla]

I dunno what the cost adder is but as a hobbyist, the hand crank is fine albeit a tad slow but I'm not in a hurry.

There are times when it is annoying but I get over it. :)

[mreza Salav]

You have to bring it down almost completely for the DC hood of the planer to clear for the tables to go back on.
It's about 30 seconds or so, not a big deal. I uppose I could remove the handwheel and use a drill/driver with a proper tip to do it faster but I don't do it very often to justify.
To have the power lift is nice but I compare it to power windows in cars vs. hand crank...

[Bill Adamsen]

I have a similar machine with a crank. It takes very little time (perhaps 15 seconds?) to lift up the jointer table, flip dust collection hood into position, swap dust collection hose, and crank up (or down) to the necessary height. Mine has the shown analog height indicator (accurate to hundredths ... interpolated to perhaps 1/200th of an inch) which I've found is very accurate and holds its setting well. It allows quickly "dialing in" a repeat setting, and without which it would be very difficult to use the planer.

I think the FS41 has a fixed hood for both Jointer and Planer so that should speed things up. I watched a video of the powered lift, and came away thinking my manual crank is considerably faster.

[Chris Padilla]

Bill, the FS41 has two hoods...one for each operation so one must switch over the dust hose as well. That adds a bit of time to the process.

[Michael Koons]

I was told it's just one hood on the FS41 Elite S. It's just a cover to flip over when going from jointer to planer. The dust port stays in place. That's what Erik told me when advising me on it.

[Jim Becker]

I don't find it to be a pain at all...and many folks who want to make the big adjustment for conversion between functions have found a way to rig up an electric drill to do the deed. :) (I have an FS350, but it works the same way for this as the FS41) Having a built-in electric height adjustment would likely raise the price of the machine in an unattractive way.

[David T gray]

i put a small cheap stepper motor and a controller on my fs-41 for > $150 the cheap board i used has up down and speed programmed onto the board it so you just run a regular switch with a few jumpers and a pot for speed control shits extremely accurate with a dr0.

[mreza Salav]

I was told it's just one hood on the FS41 Elite S. It's just a cover to flip over when going from jointer to planer. The dust port stays in place. That's what Erik told me when advising me on it.

I think it is the same as my FS350. The DC port for the jointer mode is attached to the infeed bed, there is a flip-over port for the planer mode that you have to bring over the top of cutter head in the planer mode. For that to be flipped back down (to go to jointer mode) you need to lower the table or it will hit the table.

[Chris Padilla]

Right. But you either need to move the air duct from planer mode to jointer mode or have two ducts hooked up. I just move a single duct between the two. Now the connection point for either hood is on the same side of the J/P so that is nice.

[Chris Merriam]

i put a small cheap stepper motor and a controller on my fs-41 for > $150 the cheap board i used has up down and speed programmed onto the board it so you just run a regular switch with a few jumpers and a pot for speed control shits extremely accurate with a dr0.

That's awesome! How fast does the table move? Do you have any pics, and would you mind sharing some more specific details? Sounds like fun to build something like that, unfortunately I don't have an intuitive knack for electrical design. I can follow instructions but can't design a circuit on my own.

[Chris Parks]

i put a small cheap stepper motor and a controller on my fs-41 for > $150 the cheap board i used has up down and speed programmed onto the board it so you just run a regular switch with a few jumpers and a pot for speed control shits extremely accurate with a dr0.

Details would be much appreciated as I wanted to do the same thing to my Hammer A3-31 and and I am a total electronic dunce.

[David T gray]

i am away right now but i can take pics when i get back in a few weeks


you could use like

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CNC-Single-Axis-TB6600-0-2-5A-Two-Phase-Hybrid-Stepper-Motor-Driver-Controlle-OY-/281681756844

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-NEMA-23-Stepper-motor-Sanyo-Denki-227-ozin-CNC-ROUTER-MILL-LATHE-ROBOT-1451-/111715988116?hash=item1a02cab294 idk if this is powerful enough or not i had a >1000oz motor i wasn't using for it

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200W-36V-5-5A-Single-Output-Switching-power-supply-AC-to-DC-SMPS-/261847217494?hash=item3cf74f7556

https://buildyourcnc.com/item/electronicsAndMotors-electronic-component-USB-Controller-Breakout#prettyPhoto

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-pc-TEMCo-Micro-Limit-Switch-Lever-Arm-Subminiature-SPDT-Snap-Action-LOT-/281353659655?hash=item4181fc2507

then u just need a coupler and some momentary on switches i used brushed alu ones and made it look pretty. im sure i forgot something but that seems like all the big stuff the wiring is super easy u should be able to find a guide for it and be wired up in under a hour .

thats >200 and nothing is from china so no long waits u could save 40 0r so and use a breakout board from ebay but i didn't add one b/c i haven't used one

[Chris Merriam]

thanks David. Does the table move faster or slower than hand crank speed?

[mreza Salav]

Interesting stuff.
The question I have for the powered table/rise as an add-on is: how do you do micro adjustments, i.e. raise/lower a tiny bit if the motor is fast enough to move it up/down in a reasonable amount of time?

[David T gray]

u can slow the motor down, idk if the stepper driver i listed above will work imo u should if your seriously considering doing this buy a gecko stepper motor, its still about 2k less then what they wanted for the same thing plus if u have electrical problems u can fix it cheaply.

[Chris Parks]

I was looking at building a similar thing that could have the height dialled in and the table go to that height. I have since found out it is not such a simple exercise as I thought it would be so I was going to forget that and just use a 12V dc electric seat motor and some momentary switches to move it up or down. The way I planned it on the Hammer the original manual handle will still work for final positioning I really would like to be able to set a target height though, that would be the icing on the cake.

[David T gray]

steppers move 1.8 degree per step so 200 steps per rotation, but u can also use microsteps 1/2 (400 steps per rotation) , 1/4 (800) , 1/8 (1600) , 1/16 (3200) so as long as what your trying to set your planer to is within those 3200 steps your good

[Len Rosenberg]

Michael, I bought an FS41 Elite this year, and have used it regularly for months. It is a superb machine, quiet, smooth, and powerful. The table needs to be raised/lowered 6.1 inches to switch modes.
there is only one dust hood, it just flips over. My dust collector hose has a Fernco rubber coupling on the end, and the dust hood has a couple of wraps of tape around it, for a slip on/slip off fit, takes about one second to move the hose. The hand crank thing is a bit of pain if you are switching modes, and gets old fast if you switch repeatedly. I'm looking into motorizing it as others have discussed above. The Elite S has a motorized lift as an option. If I was buying an Elite S, as you are, I would definitely order it with the motorized lift. Enjoy the new machine!

Len

[Matthew Hills]

Thought I've seen someone mention using a hand drill for this.
(something like replacing the crank with a disk, and using the drum from a drum sander attachment on the drill)
No idea how much faster that would be.

Matt

[Michael Koons]

Michael, I bought an FS41 Elite this year, and have used it regularly for months. It is a superb machine, quiet, smooth, and powerful. The table needs to be raised/lowered 6.1 inches to switch modes.
there is only one dust hood, it just flips over. My dust collector hose has a Fernco rubber coupling on the end, and the dust hood has a couple of wraps of tape around it, for a slip on/slip off fit, takes about one second to move the hose. The hand crank thing is a bit of pain if you are switching modes, and gets old fast if you switch repeatedly. I'm looking into motorizing it as others have discussed above. The Elite S has a motorized lift as an option. If I was buying an Elite S, as you are, I would definitely order it with the motorized lift. Enjoy the new machine!

Len

Thanks for this Len. The reason I asked the question was because I was looking at both the Felder AD941 and the MM FS41 Elite S. The Felder has the motorized lift and the MM did not. The MM has it if you go with the 3ph motor to get the motorized lift. The Felder I saw also had the 3ph motor. MM did not have the 3ph option available at this time and I'm guessing I would have had to order it and wait, which I wasn't really in a position to do.

Ultimately, I went with the MiniMax for a few reasons. First of all, my MM rep was EXTREMELY helpful and worked really hard to negate all of my concerns. I have a MM sliding table saw and I like it very much. Also, the 3ph ended up being a show stopper for me. I could have gotten a good phase converter for $1000 but I didn't really have the room in my electrical panel and didn't feel like doing a major rewiring project. I already have a 30amp 220v circuit for my slider, so I can just extend that circuit as I will never run the slider, the j/p and the new MM24 bandsaw at the same time.

I'll deal with the hand crank and hopefully do what others have done on this forum to automate/motorize it, but that will come after time.