Robland NX410 Pro Review. updated 14th Jun

[Albert]

28th May, paid for the machine at Jacks
29th May, discussed with their logistics team about the delivery, got an email from the logistics about the delivery detail, when and what I needed to do, date and time the assembly crew will arrive to align the machine and I will need to sign off the commissioning certificate after the assembly.

31st May, machine arrived on time, the truck driver is an experienced guy but the delivery guy isnt, a corer of the machine was slightly pushed out while unloading from the tail lift(driveway is on a slope), very fortunate it was not a structural item and can be hammered back easily.

Given the machine needs to be aligned, I took liberty to play around with the machine over the weekend, tweaking adjustments, just to familiarise myself with it.

4th June, my electrician wired up the machine and tagged the lead.

5th June, 3 assembly crews arrived at 830am, spent 4 hours trying to align the sliding table, finally got it right at lunch time( the sliding table is between 0.2 and 0.3mm higher than the saw table at any given point), spent another 4 hours to adjust the thickneser and the jointer, the crew left at 530pm. Said they will be back next morning. Got a call from the logistics that they will arrive at 11am the next day.

6th June, same crew turned up at 11am, finished off the adjustment for morticer and final adjustments, all good.

The Spindle moulder shaft accuracy is +/-0.02mm about its axis, Planer/thicknesser outfeed table is spot on (lots of adjustment screws to play with), sliding table is +0.2mm on both ends(as per the book), mortiser I am yet to find out as I was not there.

Originally Jacks only allowed 2 guys @ 4 hours each for the delivery, assembly and the alignment, because they spent much longer than that, I went to them just to make sure that I don’t have to pay for the extra hours, and I was told that not to worry, it’s a new machine and this is the first time the technician adjusted the bigger Robland combination.

The machine has a lot of adjustment screws, I thought some of them I will never need to touch, but they are there.

I made a few cut with the sliding table saw last night, there is not a lot of vibration. The spindle moudler is very quiet compare to a router table, the 16 inch thicknesser gives much less noise than my 15inch straight knife thicknesser, not sure if the Tersa cutters made any differences on that, I didn’t feel the need to put the ear muffler on, the noise is slightly more than my mate's spiral cutter but less than the standard straight knives.

The technician commented the jointer will be out of alignment by about +/-0.2mm everytime I change it to thicknesser mode, it wont accumulate but rather stay within the region of 0.6mm as both the table pivots around a shaft.

14th June Update

Thicknesser:
I have used the thicknesser in the last 2-3 days to plan some 50x50 rough sawn pine to 45x45 finished size, 25 pieces of 2 m long sections.

Noise:
Reconfirming the noise the 16inch thickneser made was less than my standard 15inch thicknesser

Quality of work:

The quality is superb, much better than my stand alone thickneser(SAT), this could be any of the following:
1. Technician spent a good solid 2 hours aligning the Robland, my SAT has never been aligned?
2. The way machine was built or the quality of the build? my SAT is a no brand made in China (although I bought it from Jacks)
3. Tersa cutter head?? New blade?

I had my doubt in the NX410 Pro's thicknesser, as it does not have extended table as my SAT(table length approx 500-600mm vs 1100mm of my SAT), it also doesnt have the rollers that you find in a typical SAT, the thicknesser part of the combination machine looks very simple compared to any SAT. Although I always had snipe and scalloping issue with my SAT, I was prepared not to use the Roblands thicknesser and continue using my SAT, but I thought I gave it a try anyway.

The result was very satisfactory, I can only get some snipe if I deliberately feed the timber in way too high or deliberately pushed down and shovel in at the feeder end rather than let the machine does the job. with my old SAT I get snipe regardless, I planned these timber in a relatively short time period, I was not gentle in handling the timber.

Sliding table saw
My Robland NX410 Pro came with a 2.5m carriage rather than the manual stated 1.65m carraige.
First impression after using the sliding table saw: The rip fence is a bit short, but I think you can get longer ones. other than that, cant really comment as I have not used sliding table saw before, but the technician did test it by trimming down the 4 sides of a 2.4 x 1.2 MDF board and compared a strip, when measured with a vernier, the differences was negligible. the carriage does move very smoothly and it is serviceable, where as Felder X bar system you cant service it without overhauling it, been told at least by two people that the tracks on the new Roblands combination is from Knapp, so it probably will last awhile? noise is definitely less than my Carbatec MJ2325 saw. dust control is good, I have not connected the dust extraction to the saw guard but its all good.

[rustynail]

A common mistake when ripping is to set the fence way forward of what is required. A fence extended into the tailing out side of the blade is only looking for trouble.

[Albert]

It's over a year now since I had the combination machine, am still very happy with it. Recently I have acquired the tenoning table attachment and the larger hood for the spindle moulder. I will be using the spindle moulder soon.

I have only used the mortiser attachment once. I don't think I will ever use it because:

1 it's in the way when using the buzzer
2 I have a proper mortise machine
3 I have the Featool domino 700.