So it seems that regardless of the issues most of them can be corrected with measuring instruments and time.... But what I was hoping for was for a suggestion for another product which does not suffer from similar problems. Is there nothing else on the market that compares?
Since I would have to build the support bar (45mm) for the parallel guide support, I would need to know the size of the black bolts and the length of the bolts that should be left from the bar to the double locking nut. Thank you
A few months ago I received my SCM Minimax SC 2C, it was not very accurately set up but it took the better part of a day to align the sliding table and getting it coplanar to the cast iron. It took another 45 minutes to get the support arm properly aligned to support the wing at the right height. Add another hour to set the stops correctly and adjust the sliding cover for the saw blade as it was binding a little bit. All in all, a day and a half for setup and calibration, it was not very difficult nor frustrating to set it up. Now it runs true and I'd happily recommend it to anyone if they're not afraid to read a manual and use a spanner.
Haven't used the unit much since videos. Not because of the machine, but because other things have taken priority in life for a while. Maybe I will return at some point to the hobby/maybe not. Location: Estonia.
@@wjaceh Sorry to hear that, I hope you'll get it working if or when you pick up your hobby again. I've recently ordered an SCM SC 2C, but I ordered it from a local official SCM partner and distributor.. I had to pay €600 extra compared to holzkraft / sturmer, but I did get a reinforced motor and they promised the machine would be inspected before shipping and help with setup. I hope I have better luck than you.
@Brenden Alan Thank you, if I run into too much hassle, I'll give my local SCM-rep a call and let them set it up probably. Machines like this needs some setup calibration, and if you've never done it before... It can be difficult.
@Brenden Alan vibration should not be an issue, especially not with a three phase motor... Just got mine, I've unpacked it and put most things together for testing. Everything seems to be in good order so far, none of the real issues from the video is there. Sliding table is quite well aligned from factory, but I'll be realigning it later. Everything seems to line up and fit together well. Now I just need to set it up in its dedicated spot and test run the motor and blade assembly... See if any vibration is present.
@Brenden Alan Weird, something is probably amiss in the drive assembly or pulleys on yours? It'll probably take a week or so for me to get things in order for me to try to run it for real. Family and exams requires some extra time. I'll need to do some alignment as well sooner or later, it's passable for now though. Got any guides on the alignment procedure? I got some basic alignment know-how, but with things like this, you never get fully learned. I got the 5kW (6 HP) three phase version, I'll get back to you on how mine is doing when I fire it up...
Late to the party… the fence rail was installed upside down. Likely the alignment issues you had were related. That cap screw goes on the bottom and stops against the cast iron carriage/head, not the fence rails.
Hi, seen some of your videos, seems like you are not verry happy with your sc2 saw? Just bought a sc3. I have found some parallels! Really bad pre adjustments from factory. I think they do not assemble the machines. Manual is like from 1980 not changed and really bad....i expected more from scm....probaly i should have spent more time with felder?
hello, I have a pleasure to ask you, could you tell me the size of the bolts that hold the 45mm round steel bar of the parallel guide support on the edge of the machine table?
I spoke to my SCM technician and he confirmed the lever at 8:40 is supposed to lock the blade height adjustment mechanism, similar to the knob on the corner for the blade angle lock. The lever doesn't do much on my saw and I have never had a problem with the blade height changing during use, so I haven't been too concerned about finding out why the lock doesn't work.
I agree with you completely about the location of the on-off switch. My saw is the older version with a rotating handle instead of push buttons. I don't know what the lever at 8:40 does either.
You have unfortunately discovered one of the problems of not having the saw properly commissioned by a qualified technician. It is not an easy or intuitive process, and I would not have been able to figure it out on my own. The outrigger arm on my saw had to be adjusted with the four grub screws at the pivot point to ensure the support stud that mates with the extension table was in the same plane along the entire range of travel. It takes a while to loosen one, tighten another, test, repeat, repeat, repeat, until it is as close as possible. I use my engineer's level on the outer edge of the extension table and perpendicular to the sliding table. I do not have the crosscut fence attached to ensure it is not influencing any movement of arm.
The sliding table must have a slight toe-out to the left with respect to the blade. The rip fence must have a slight toe-out to the right side of the blade. This is normal for sliding table saws, and my sliding table toe-out is about 0.15mm with respect to the leading and trailing edge of the blade. The rip fence is about the same in the opposite direction. Unlike cabinet saws, the rip fence must not be parallel to the blade and never, never use the sliding table and crosscut arm to hold stock when ripping with the rip fence. Because the sliding table and rip fence diverge from each other, they cannot be used at the same time. To check the toe-out on the sliding table, you will need a dial gauge that can be attached to the sliding table top and still able to touch the teeth of the blade and a dark (black) marker. You will use the same tooth on the blade to check the toe-out, which means you will rotate the blade, so pick one tooth and mark it so it is easily identified. Secure the dial indicator on the sliding table top so the pointer touches the outer edge of the marked tooth when the tooth is at the leading edge (infeed) position. Zero out the dial indicator to establish a reference point. Rotate the saw blade backwards so the marked tooth is now at the trailing edge (outfeed) position. Move the sliding table, with the dial indicator firmly attached, so the pointer contacts the marked tooth at the same point. The reading on the dial indicator is the amount of toe-out (or toe-in) the sliding table has with respect to the blade. If you have toe-in instead of toe-out, break out the wrenches and start aligning the sliding table again. Repeat this process as many times as needed to get the toe-out where you want it, but not parallel to the blade. You can set the toe-out of the rip fence by setting the dial indicator along the rip fence as you measure the change between the same tooth. I use a One Way Multigauge (oneway.ca/products-category/miscellaneous/Multi-Gauge) to check the toe-out of the sliding table and the rip fence.
When the technical assembled and commissioned my saw, he set the fence for the proper toe-out. He told me users were not supposed to touch the nuts on the studs that attache the bar to the cast iron table. Then he loosened the nuts and handed me the wrenches. I could have shot him. 😠 Fortunately, he talked me through the process and it wasn't as difficult as I thought. As Nick stated, the cap screws are for safety and there is one at both ends. The screws contact the fence knuckle, not the fence, and this prevents running the fence into the blade when the fence is set up with the blade tilted for 45-degree cuts.
It does take a long time to align the sliding table correctly. One change affects all planes. The first time I set mine, I was happy that it only took just over two hours to do. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to the toe-out and discovered that I had about 6mm of toe-out when I was done. I took a long break and started again. In all, it took me about eight hours the first time to align the sliding table to the cast iron table for the coplanar part and the blade for the toe-out part.
I'm glad to see you have an engineer's level and are not relying on a construction level to align you saw. As you have discovered, the cast iron table will settle. The larger SCM saws have a center support to help counter the sag, but there is no suitable place in the SC2C to attach a support. The four bolts that attach the cast iron table to the chassis affect the twist of the cast iron table. Shimming the chassis corners to help level the table will also affect the twist over time. I just looked at my saw, and I have about the same number of threads exposed at the bottom of the locking nut for each of the studs that attach the cast iron table to the chassis. However, there is at least 10mm of space between the chassis and the scoring blade lateral adjuster, unlike your saw at 14:10. The scoring blade height adjustment on my saw looks similar to yours.
I just found your videos and am watching them now. I hope by now you've resolved all of the issues and are happy with your purchase. I bought my Minimax SCM SC2C four years from my local German vendor and the price included delivery, assembly, and commissioning. All of the alignment problems you described in this video can be easily corrected during the assembly and commissioning and should not be considered manufacturing defects. The tool marks on the fence are not acceptable, and could affect the alignment of the fence in the knuckle or scratch the wood. However, I have dinged up my fence several times, and it is easy to fix my mistakes with 400-grit sandpaper. Like you, I expect new machines to look new, but during the first week of use, the fence will not look new. I use my saw nearly every day and have never needed a support for the extension table on the rip side. In the beginning, I even used the extension table for assembling drawers and cabinets because I didn't have any assembly space. As you suggested, the first two studs that attach the fence rail to the cast iron table carry the weight of the bar. The remaining three studs to the right of the cast iron table provide some support to the extension table and wing. The rest of the extension table support comes from the bolts that run along the length of the cast iron table where they join. The three black caps at 0:39 of your video are used in case you knock out the lifting holes in the chassis to move the saw. There is one lifting hole on the slider side and two lifting holes on the cast iron table side and they have a blue hook decal above the knockout. When new, these holes are ready to be punched out if needed to move the saw using hooks and chains. When finished, the black caps plug up the holes. I don't use the support bar at 4:20, and don't know anyone who does. I keep it in the black tool bag that came with the saw. The angle scales on my saw's outrigger are unusable as well. Unlike your saw, I have two scales from 0-45 degrees, one in each direction. Mine has similar pencil marks from the factory, but even the technician couldn't find a combination of crosscut arm positions that would align with the marks on the scale. The slider alignment is a lot of fun (not really). I've aligned mine twice since I owned the saw because I moved it around in my shop and had to re-level it at each location. This changes the alignment of the slider to the blade. The blade location relative to the cast iron table is fixed and can't be changed, but it doesn't really matter. All that matters is the sliding table is coplanar to the cast iron table, but slightly higher, and there is a very small toe-out with respect to the blade. Likewise, the rip fence will have a very slight toe-out with respect to the blade. The technician took about six hours to assemble and commission my saw. The first time I moved the saw, it took me about eight hours just to align the sliding table. Every movement of one of the four leveling studs affects the sliding table alignment in every plane. The second time I moved the saw, it took me about three hours to align the sliding table. Aligning the rip fence for a slight toe-out takes about 20 minutes, depending on how much it changed with each move.
Interesting. I am having a similar issue with the Lab300p. I have not got it correct yet, ready to yell loudly right now. I am about to purchase a machinist level and try to fix this issue. I just cannot make a cut, with less than 0.15mm accuracy. Not possible. I a, now going to start from scratch, and go from the bed level, sliding table etc etc
Many thanks for your video. This is not good for this large company, clearly they are not concerned about smaller customers. They should remember that smaller customers if successful may return if they have a positive experience.
You are a man after my own heart! When you pay for premium, you should expect premium not excuses! When the wealthy pay premium, they demand premium. Why should the working class expect any less? Thanks for the video!
Nothing has changed. I haven't had time to fix anything and customer service is not replying regarding tolerances. So it seems that once you have handed over the money- it's all on you....
@@wjaceh Yeah, I had decent service from the local shop that is the new agent, but I am in the same boat really. Cannot get this saw to cut square, no matter what I do. I bought the Lab300p and the other functions are fine, but nothing I do gets the slider to cut square. Think I need to do a review as well. Currently I am busy trying to square the CC fence after changing the blade and got it to 0.1mm over 800mm on the 5th cut ( measuring the offcut with calipers) BUT, the 5 cut method shows me that while the offcut is ok to me, the sheet is actually 1mm off over 800mm. Yesterday was 3mm! So I am confused at this point. The slider in relation to the blade is set up with a dial indicator that is goes from 0 to 0.2mm over the 300mm that is the blade, so the back of the blade is cutting a little deeper. Setup that way to not bind on the rip fence should I use that ( which I never have ) . I go around in circles with this machine, cut hundreds of dollars worth of material chasing something that looks square. Trying to build my kitchen, not going so well. Likely going to drop some money, but ready to part with it, but how do you sell a machine to a person that has issues that I can't fix, and likely they are going to be going down the same road as me with this thing.
The grub screws on the fence support pole are there for safety reasons. Ripping narrow stock on a sliding tablesaw is best performed using a fritz and Frank jig on the sliding table. The rip fence has toe out , also for safety reasons to prevent kick back. The best way to reduce the toe out is to shim the Rio fender on the fence block rather than changing the factory setting.
Did you pay for a configuration on sight? I noticed you've bought the Holzkraft version of the SCM devices. Holzkraft takes over all support from SCM, and in my opinion does that poorly. I have bought my minimax through an SCM dealer and have had a whole different experience, the machine came setup correctly (I accidentally screwed up some settings, but it was 100% perfect from the factory). I feel that the issues you have are mainly due to the fact that Holzkraft has been lazy.
No I didn't pay for on-site configuration. It shouldn't need one either as it is not too complicated machine. Plus probably even skilled technician would not fix factory lack of quality on site within acceptable time. From my experience Holzkraft has had a terrible customer service, but the faults on the machine are done in the factory.
Do you have any information about the level at 8:40 now? I just bought the same machine and was also wondering what the lever is for. By the way your videos helped me alot!
Nice to hear that you have got some help from the videos. I don't have any new information about the lever. I still assume it is for fastening the tilting mechanism down, but it is no good for the job it was meant for. How was your saw overall factory assembly quality? Were I unlucky or is it widespread?
@@wjaceh I'm not finished yet with the asembly. But i don't have that many Problems with the overall condition. I haven't seen any abuse marks yet. But the big Steelrod which as you mentioned is not intended to adjust (glued nuts) was so far of, that the gear of the fineadjustement did not grab the teeth of the ruler at all. So yeah there were also some issues.
@@wjaceh I have checked the bladeCover and it has the same issue as yours. But i didn't bother to tweak the iron Table. Maybe ill check it later on, but for now ill keep it as it is and use a little bit of force. Nearly everything else received some amount of tweaking and finetuning. So mine was also not well Factoryset.
I truly hope there will be a follow up video of this machine. SCM present itself as company of professionals but this is quite disappointing. I understand this is an entry level machine but still..
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Have you checked alignment between slider and blade itself? (I've heard someone else say that it could look like an unevan gap to the main saw body)?
I assembled the cast iron table height and slider before taking those measurements. Uneven gap between cast iron table front and back relative to slider was also my initial wrong assumption. They don't need to be exactly the same as cast iron table sides are not milled to tolerance. David Best has great videos about slider adjustment: www.flickr.com/photos/davidpbest/albums/72157711930240666 Currently I have set my blade back-teeth about 0.02mm (I might remember it wrong by heart) away from the slider. Which seemed like good idea, but added problems to rip-fence side. I need to think about if I should change it to zero...
I was about to buy the Lab300p . Not much online about Minimax in general. Now I am wondering! I can buy the Hammer C3-31 here or the Robland as well, basically all are in the ballpark of the same price. You have given me pause
I had the same problem, basically no information was available. Only some in German language and one more in depth video in Russian language (if you are interested then you will find it in Machine Atlas webpage). My disappointment has only grown with the unit. If I were to purchase a new saw all over again then I probably would look into Harvey American style cabinet saws with additional slider unit. Dennis from Hooked on Wood has something similar. Check him out: ru-vid.com/show-UCuvjeMfKGqSoYc32Xk5MLfQ
@@wjaceh interesting. Why wouldn’t you buy a hammer K3 (or B3 or C3)? They seem like good value and overall it seems most people are happy with them. I have heard of a few issues but I it sound like issues are generally addressed by Felder after sales service.
Hi. Short answer is NO, I do not recommend it. Longer answer is that it depends. It depends on what accuracy do you expect from this machine and how much time and extra money are you willing to invest to get it finished. I have found a ton of extra assembly/culture problems on the machine. I plan to make extra videos about those in the future. I have spent about extra 600-700€ for instruments with which I'm calibrating the saw (dial indicators, machinist level etc.) If you want to get panel cutting accuracy of 0.5mm from the factory settings then forget it. If you want to cut firewood with it then it is probably an overkill. Unfortunately there aren't much alternatives for similar machines on the market. Parts seem to be well made (although there are some design faults in my opinion). Reassembly seems to be unavoidable concluding where all I have discovered problems that will pile up in domino effect. About half of the problems are removed now with at least 40h time cost. So if you have time and money and skills to finish the product yourself then buy it. If you don't feel comfortable with the latter then skip it. I was given the opportunity to return the unit- which I decided not to do, but I don't recommend the same route for everyone. If you should decide to buy it then ask me before some extra advice on where not to buy, as I have had "the best" customer service possible.
Sorry for the late feedback- I haven't been to the saw lately. Parallel fence maxed out (I have one obstruction in my workshop which prevents to fully extend it, so about 10mm could be added to below measurements): - in low profile position: 820mm - in high profile position: 900mm From the left of the blade you can get 1650mm with the flip stop down. It could of been about 700mm longer if SCM had installed longer profile extension which would of cost about couple of extra euros.
@@wjaceh thank you for adding those details. I just struggle in buying either one of those SCM s2 or Record Power TS2 which is brand new on the market, the downside of it though, no one has this machine in their shops so i'd buy a pig in a poke! However, i like the quality of there products and be as optimistic as i can. (bought a Bandsaw from them). Or came in my mind, recently, Hans Schreiner PS315, its a decent machine with all the fratures i want and costs less than 1000 Euro compared to SCM, but i dont know much about the quality of their products and how rigid their table saw is. One last thing though, the left side measure to the fence extension was to the extented measurement right? Could you give me please the collapsed one? Thank you in advice :)
Thanks for making this video (and I guess you also submitted it to Machine Atlas?), very helpful. I've added it to the site. Hope you managed to solve your problems with SCM.
