Post by woodworker on Jul 16, 2008 23:23:14 GMT
I took delivery of this spindle moulder back in April this year. (another long story for another time, it's a replacement :
the F700Z, same model name but it's had some updates of which only some of the updates have been publicized, (more on that later).
I should point out this machine is a 5.5 hp 3 phase with built in electronic inverter to run on 220V, with electronic height control and speed control.
If you paid for commisioning you get a three year warranty on the machines and six years for the X Roll sliding tables and with the new designed trunnion slides a 6 years warranty.
First off Felder have stopped coating everything with a thick coating of that hard based grease, thank goodness and are using just greased paper, much easier to clean off ready for the commisioning.
Next is the different cast table which is now the same top for all the moulders. It's machined differently, gone is the hollagram effect they used to put on. it,s a darker grey than the previous one, and in use it appears to be a harder casting as the previous scratched very easily with use. Felder seem to use a softish casting for their machines and one of the common gripes with other owners is how easily they mark(they do really scratch quite deep) but it's a machine to do a job at the end of the day, not something to just look at.
The next noticable difference is the new Shaw guard setup, which now has a clear perspex pressure plate instead of the poor steel one which didn't apply anywhere near enough pressure.
I like this as you can see much better when setting up and in use. But I'm not keen on the tubes being alloy extrusion with plastic slides as it makes it difficult to make small adjustments as it sticks alot in the slides. And I can see Felder owners losing the little plastic slider when removing the Shaw guard.
The one thing that is greatly improved is the spindle tilt mechanism which is a joy to use. You can use just two fingers to turn the wheel, it's that easy
. Strangely though there is no locking clamp 
.
The tilt dial is also a much better than the previous as well (but to be fair there wasn't much wrong with the old one either).
.
The machine has all new electronics from the old model and a new type of motor and drive train. The powered height control makes setting up so much easier than the manual one where you have to turn the height adjustment wheel on the left side of the machine, not easy when you have the extension tables fitted. Also the speed control is improved you just turn the knob to the number on the scale for the required setting , unlike the older machine where the numbers corresponded to the block size chart, so you had to look up the block size on the chart then look to the recommended speed setting on the manual belt changing chart and then the speed dial number (confused ?? it took me ages to figure it out).
Just to go back to the tilting spindle, this has been updated and the whole assembly is suspended under the cast table, unlike the previous one which was part fixed under and also on the machine base. This allows the pendulum action to be more central to the spindle shaft opening and giving a much better adjustment when setting up.
The plastic under extraction hood has gone which was Ok, but you had to be careful when lowering the cutter block below the table top
. The new machine has a cast iron under table extraction instead, quite a neat design and works very well.
On the subject of extraction the under table has a 80mm hose and the top hood has 120mm, so you need some serious extraction for it to work efficiently. The recommended extraction rate for the underside is 360 m3/h and the top hood needs over 800 ms/h and both ports together need the all important Pa at over 900 Pa.
Another improvement is the quick change spindle mechanism which has a much better belt release design than the old finger trapper ;D. I can change a spindle in less than 2mins so it does live up to it's name. If you have the electronic speed control you no longer have to change the pulley belt position ;D as the motor has a single pulley ;D.
.
Another big improvement is the instruction manual, gone is the cartoon style 2 inch strip down the a4 page with the corresponding languages across the top of the page. making very difficult reading.
it now comes A4 size and only in the langauge of the country to purchased in. The detail is much better laid out and it also contains the exploded parts diagrams, long overdue imho.
One or two minus points with this machine compared to the old one.
There was no mention in the promotional info etc when Felder announced the updated machine that the spindle itself has been redesigned, so if you have older spindles they wont fit : And quess what............. the router spindle has been redesigned too 
. So the old one wont...................
(. Also the cast iron tops used to have the slots machined ready for the extension tables to fit straight on (I suspect your ahead of me now yep, your right the new cast top has no slots, you have to buy the mounting plates (which form the slots) as an accessory bizzare imho, and at over £50......... .
So whats it like to use.......well first thing it's very noticeable how quiet it is, I mean it's whisper quiet, the old machine wasn't bad but this is in a different league. I suspect this is due in some way to the redesign of the under table extraction which is inbuilt in cast with the trunnions, thus dampening the sound, even with a big 175mm X 100mm profile cutter block it purrs like a pussy cat instead of roaring like an angry Lion ;D . I'll not go on about the sliding table as it's the usual X Roll (excellent 
). The fence plates are very accurate and fully adjustable with the oufeed fence having a vernier scale to make micro adjsuments. The infeed fence side of the hood has the micro adjustment icluding the memory setting device, which is an excellent idea . I have the reverse switch fitted (optional extra) why Felder don't have this as standard on a machine of this standard I just don't know.......... The electronic digital height control allows a tenth of a millimetre increments up & down which makes setting up a breeze.
I have the slider running flat with the cast top to facilitate accurate moulding of door panels etc, as usually Felder set the slider up about 1mm above the cast table top. In my experience with the slider set like this is that when you machine panels etc the pressure guides tip the panel down onto the cast top causing an imperfect moulding. And it also causes large sections to machine out of square, very noticable when rebating.
I've had some problems with the captive rings sticking again, this is the 2nd lot with the same issue.
I use it mainly with a power feed which also has speed control so I can easily fine tune feed speed with cutter block speed to get very consistant very good results.
I have the Tennoning setup as well, which works very well, but is a bit time consuming setting it all up. In an ideal world I would have a dedicated single ended tennoner but...........anyhow here's a pic of the tennoning setup.
This is the what Felder call the Euro hood which comes with the machine. It's main use is for curved mouldings and also can be used with the router spindle. Strangely it's useless without the workpiece feed guide plate, (unless you have some bearing ring guides) you have to buy this as an accessory and at over £50 for an alloy plate and some nuts & bolts it's not cheap. I had to file the sharp edges as when I took it out of the box I cut my finger
. But it works very well, but you could get the guide ring set for not much more. 
Here's a pic of the plate fitted, BTW it's only good for cutters from 100mm to 160mm so it is limited in use.
I'll post some more on my extended Felder family later.
the F700Z, same model name but it's had some updates of which only some of the updates have been publicized, (more on that later).I should point out this machine is a 5.5 hp 3 phase with built in electronic inverter to run on 220V, with electronic height control and speed control.
If you paid for commisioning you get a three year warranty on the machines and six years for the X Roll sliding tables and with the new designed trunnion slides a 6 years warranty.
First off Felder have stopped coating everything with a thick coating of that hard based grease, thank goodness and are using just greased paper, much easier to clean off ready for the commisioning.
Next is the different cast table which is now the same top for all the moulders. It's machined differently, gone is the hollagram effect they used to put on. it,s a darker grey than the previous one, and in use it appears to be a harder casting as the previous scratched very easily with use. Felder seem to use a softish casting for their machines and one of the common gripes with other owners is how easily they mark(they do really scratch quite deep) but it's a machine to do a job at the end of the day, not something to just look at.
The next noticable difference is the new Shaw guard setup, which now has a clear perspex pressure plate instead of the poor steel one which didn't apply anywhere near enough pressure.
I like this as you can see much better when setting up and in use. But I'm not keen on the tubes being alloy extrusion with plastic slides as it makes it difficult to make small adjustments as it sticks alot in the slides. And I can see Felder owners losing the little plastic slider when removing the Shaw guard.
The one thing that is greatly improved is the spindle tilt mechanism which is a joy to use. You can use just two fingers to turn the wheel, it's that easy
. Strangely though there is no locking clamp 
. The tilt dial is also a much better than the previous as well (but to be fair there wasn't much wrong with the old one either).
.The machine has all new electronics from the old model and a new type of motor and drive train. The powered height control makes setting up so much easier than the manual one where you have to turn the height adjustment wheel on the left side of the machine, not easy when you have the extension tables fitted. Also the speed control is improved you just turn the knob to the number on the scale for the required setting , unlike the older machine where the numbers corresponded to the block size chart, so you had to look up the block size on the chart then look to the recommended speed setting on the manual belt changing chart and then the speed dial number (confused ?? it took me ages to figure it out).
Just to go back to the tilting spindle, this has been updated and the whole assembly is suspended under the cast table, unlike the previous one which was part fixed under and also on the machine base. This allows the pendulum action to be more central to the spindle shaft opening and giving a much better adjustment when setting up.
The plastic under extraction hood has gone which was Ok, but you had to be careful when lowering the cutter block below the table top
. The new machine has a cast iron under table extraction instead, quite a neat design and works very well.On the subject of extraction the under table has a 80mm hose and the top hood has 120mm, so you need some serious extraction for it to work efficiently. The recommended extraction rate for the underside is 360 m3/h and the top hood needs over 800 ms/h and both ports together need the all important Pa at over 900 Pa.
Another improvement is the quick change spindle mechanism which has a much better belt release design than the old finger trapper ;D. I can change a spindle in less than 2mins so it does live up to it's name. If you have the electronic speed control you no longer have to change the pulley belt position ;D as the motor has a single pulley ;D.
.Another big improvement is the instruction manual, gone is the cartoon style 2 inch strip down the a4 page with the corresponding languages across the top of the page. making very difficult reading.
it now comes A4 size and only in the langauge of the country to purchased in. The detail is much better laid out and it also contains the exploded parts diagrams, long overdue imho.
One or two minus points with this machine compared to the old one.
There was no mention in the promotional info etc when Felder announced the updated machine that the spindle itself has been redesigned, so if you have older spindles they wont fit : And quess what............. the router spindle has been redesigned too
. So the old one wont...................(
. Also the cast iron tops used to have the slots machined ready for the extension tables to fit straight on (I suspect your ahead of me now yep, your right the new cast top has no slots, you have to buy the mounting plates (which form the slots) as an accessory bizzare imho, and at over £50......... .So whats it like to use.......well first thing it's very noticeable how quiet it is, I mean it's whisper quiet
, the old machine wasn't bad but this is in a different league. I suspect this is due in some way to the redesign of the under table extraction which is inbuilt in cast with the trunnions, thus dampening the sound, even with a big 175mm X 100mm profile cutter block it purrs like a pussy cat instead of roaring like an angry Lion ;D . I'll not go on about the sliding table as it's the usual X Roll (excellent 
). The fence plates are very accurate and fully adjustable with the oufeed fence having a vernier scale to make micro adjsuments. The infeed fence side of the hood has the micro adjustment icluding the memory setting device, which is an excellent idea . I have the reverse switch fitted (optional extra) why Felder don't have this as standard on a machine of this standard I just don't know.......... The electronic digital height control allows a tenth of a millimetre increments up & down which makes setting up a breeze.I have the slider running flat with the cast top to facilitate accurate moulding of door panels etc, as usually Felder set the slider up about 1mm above the cast table top. In my experience with the slider set like this is that when you machine panels etc the pressure guides tip the panel down onto the cast top causing an imperfect moulding. And it also causes large sections to machine out of square, very noticable when rebating.
I've had some problems with the captive rings sticking again, this is the 2nd lot with the same issue.
I use it mainly with a power feed which also has speed control so I can easily fine tune feed speed with cutter block speed to get very consistant very good results.
I have the Tennoning setup as well, which works very well, but is a bit time consuming setting it all up. In an ideal world I would have a dedicated single ended tennoner but...........anyhow here's a pic of the tennoning setup.
This is the what Felder call the Euro hood which comes with the machine. It's main use is for curved mouldings and also can be used with the router spindle. Strangely it's useless without the workpiece feed guide plate, (unless you have some bearing ring guides) you have to buy this as an accessory and at over £50 for an alloy plate and some nuts & bolts it's not cheap. I had to file the sharp edges as when I took it out of the box I cut my finger
. But it works very well, but you could get the guide ring set for not much more. Here's a pic of the plate fitted, BTW it's only good for cutters from 100mm to 160mm so it is limited in use.
I'll post some more on my extended Felder family later
.
