Imran, I would doubt they make a separate board for the saw, saw/shaper or what we have, (we could be the exception though) where I work our temperature control products have different features depending on what the customer buys, some of it enabled buy buying a license and inputing the code on the controller head other features require additional hardware to work but the boards are all the same, easier to manage EOL, the contractor that builds the boards and product development.?
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On Nov 23, 2020, at 8:11 AM, imranindiana via groups.io <imranindiana@...> wrote:
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David,
my K975 has motorized blade elevation w/o DRO and i believe Mark K mentioned his K700 had the same. it may be, as you mentioned, that felder does not offer it on saw/shapers. that is good to know. do you know if a single electronic board is used for both saw and shaper?
imran
On Nov 22, 2020, at 11:55 PM, david@... via groups.io <david@...> wrote:
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I have never seen a Felder saw/shaper with motorized blade elevation that did not have a DRO indicating blade height. ?Such an option is not listed in any of the Felder spec sheets I have access to. ?Below is a photo of the control panel for Power Drive on a KF700 taken right off the Felder web site. ?My Dual 51, Profil 45, and K975 all have (or had in the case of the K975) Power Drive and the ¡°tapping¡± concern by fumble-fingered Carl is way over blown. ?Jeez, they even give you a button to tap on for 0.1mm adjustments.
I replaced the Power Drive positioning control board in my Profil 45 when the rotary phase converter over-voltage fried the board because the wrong fuse type had been installed at the factory. ?This incident was the primary reason I dumped the rotary and went to Phase Perfect. ? As I recall, the control board was about $300. ?It is the same control board that is used on all the machines, and the replacement part I received was pre-programmed for a saw, so after installation I had to delve into the parameters and change a few settings. ?Documentation for this was scant, but it wasn¡¯t rocket science figuring it out either. ?Looking up a few german words is to be expected in situations like this if a Felder tech isn¡¯t available for phone consultation. ?The biggest challenge replacing the board was getting access to it - on my 2005 Profil 45 the board is behind the switch panel and not in the electronics cabinet. ?Getting those plastic bezel panels off and back on again required eighteen 22¡± long fingers. ? Since this positioning control board is used on all the basic Felder machines, it¡¯s seen years of field time and is probably pretty rock solid and likely to be available as a spare for some time.
i would 2nd Mark¡¯s thought on motorized blade elevation without DRO. i have the same setup on K975 and it is tedious if you need to set exact blade height. while cool, i think it should be either manual or motorized with DRO - power drive in felder lingo. i have power drive on dual51 and tapping works fine.
imran?
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I have the power drive on the ad941 j/p and the dumbed down version of it on the k700s.
On the ad941 i had a little bit of a hard time with the ¡°tap¡± at first but doesn¡¯t take the long to get the hang of of it, i will say that seems a bit more troubling in decimal than mm, i only use mm...
The saw, the dumbed down version as I call it is the version that has no digital readout and is for the blade up and down only - the tilt is the dial indicator, I would not recommend that configuration, when you try to dial in the exact height of the blade it¡¯s hard to get it where you want without trial and error, you would be better off with manual and a dial indicator.
From what I understand the powerdrive is pretty robust and accurate, i did inquire about the cost of replacing the board if it failed and was told it is something like $200 - $300. You should expect a good 10 years on a quality built circuit board these days and really much longer, i work in industrial controls now and we have similar build quality boards in super harsh conditions (talking unconditioned, exposed to elements in India, Africa to name a few but pretty much every location on earth and 24/7 operations) that last 10 years. A lot of boards if not all these days can also be repaired if you know what to look for, use to be that these boards were one offs now mostly a commodity item. I am not at all concerned with powerdrive level electronics...
Digi drive is a different story so someone else with experience would have to comment on that.?
I would think with the saw shaper you would want the power drive for ease of shaper setup but I am not a combo guy for saw shaper....
The k940s that is replacing my k700s will be power drive with all dro, i am an ex professional furniture/millwork maker but now hobby some commission and i think the powerdrive is basically $1500 and full dro $1500 and totally worth it over the long hall. I figure at best I have 25-30yrs left of woodworking so not alot in the scheme of things...
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Well,
I spent some time this week with Carl @Felder in Anaheim.? Decided on a configuration I think.? Waiting on a quote.? KF700SP if it is possible to get it in single phase with a 9' slider.
I am really torn about power drive.? Carl had lots of thoughts around going manual.? The tap feature does seem annoying, but I haven't lived with it to know.
What does everyone think?? For a hobby WW?? Is it something to break?? How much more is the cost (power drive vs 4 dial indicators)???
Help...
PK
