New member - New drill press question

[Steve Sowden]

I just discovered SMC Jan 1st around 2am whilst waiting for a year end computer process to run and began poking around the internet. What a great site with a bunch of great folks.

I immediately contributed and have learned much and been entertained in the last couple of days.

I have recently moved from San Diego to the Bay area and I am "building" a new shop in a 3 car garage in the 8 spare minutes a week I have. I have lots of questions but will save all but 1 for later.

I just purchased a Powermatic PM2800 drill press (total tool nut... and wood nut .... and, well you get the idea). There is a fair amount of noise (light, metallic rattling) from the 2 rear pulleys while running. Not having heard one of these run before, I am not sure if it is normal for these type of self adjusting pulleys or not. Noise ceases completely when shut off but still spinning down. Runs smooth and true.

Anybody have any experience with this or similar setups?

Steve

[glenn bradley]

Unfortunatly the 2800 has taken a lot of heat here and on other forums. You may want to read these:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=68281&highlight=2800

and

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=480694#poststop

[Steve Sowden]

To followup. Talked to JET customer service and they were willing to send a new DP immediately. I called the Local Woodcraft store where I purchased it and were willing to swap out the DP head (loosen 2 set screws and lift it off).

2 minutes to pull off the head, 1/2 hour drive, swapped heads (after listening to the "good" on their floor), 1/2 hour back, 2 minutes to install and it works great. Runs smooth and quite.

Still an expensive DP compared to the competition but works wonderfully. After reading all of the negative posts (I discoverd SMC after I had already bought it), I just wanted to say that the PM2800 does work well and I am very happy with it. Variable speed is a nice feature.

I built a new fence with 2 sliding stops and a flip stop and well as a bunch of inserts (a bit tricky beacuse they are round and need a double step). The table is good enough that I don't think I need to build an auxillary table as I had on my other DP.

The stock fence is a bit cheesy hence the new fence.