I bought a brand new Prima 2500 sliding panel saw from Peter at Leda Machinery - Melbourne. Single phase machine (3ponies for the main blade and 1/2 a pony for the scriber). Chinese model name is MJ6132TZ (or something close to that. this is just the model no. on the instruction booklet). before purchasing, I could not find any review of the machine. I only took one quick look at it on the showroom floor and bought it a couple months later after a holiday in the US.
I have been using panelsaws at work for 15 years and I have used a Altendorf F45, 2 SCM's (dunno the model, atleast 18yrs old) and a Felder (2003 model). Of all of the panelsaws I have used, excluding price, the Prima 2500 runs second after the Altendorf which stands to reason. the altendorf is a beautiful machine designed and built in germany and a real workhorse.
Anyway, to the prima. the things I like about it are...
-The price, its a great machine for the money.
-the sliding table locking mechanism is the best I have seen. It gives a dozen or so places where the table can be locked, so you dont need to drag the machine all the way to the back just to lock the table when lifting a sheet of 2400x1200x32 MDF by yourself and have the slider move around on you.
-The overhead guard is a heavy duty guard. made from plastic, but it is very thick and well thought out. It is easy to remove the standard guard and install the 45 degree guard just by releasing one knob and sliding it out of its groove. It has a couple of those gas struts which support the weight of the guard so you can choose to set the guard at any height and it will actually stay there rather than gradually falling down closer to the table. It has a 70mm dust port.
- It has digital readout of the sawblade angle
- the outrigger table is of solid construction. It can hold my weight (90kg) sitting on the very edge of it without it buckling much...
- the sliding table slides smooth and straight.
- basically everything that needs to be moved to setup the machine to cut square, parallel etc has some kind of an adjustment, some adjustments are bad, and some are good. you can adjust the sliding table to run parallel to the square, you can adjust the height of the outrigger to sit flush with the table surface, you can adjust the squaring arm to cut square, you can adjust the ripping fence to be parallel with the saw/square to outrigger. you can adjust the steel measuring tapes so the read the exact measurement. and you can adjust the scribing saw to be inline with main saw blade.
- you can choose to have the scribing blade turned on..or in my case turned off because i rarely cut melamine and as such I have removed the scriber.
so thats the good stuff. a bit of the bad...
- the riving knife supplied is very very cheap...not straight and too big, even at its lowest point it is still a fraction higher than the top point of the saw blade which is a problem when running a 3.2mm slot in a drawside for the the bottom. I think it is just a piece of mild steel roughly cut to shape with a bit of a bevel on the front edge. Ill have to get a better one or run the machine without a riving knife.
-its not very easy to change the location of the squaring fence from infront of the timber (cutting sheets) to behind it (docking solid timber). It doesnt seat itself into one fixed position, so everytime you remove it to change location, your measuring tapes might be out a bit. because the fence can slide left/right when not tightened down. I have decided just to keep it hard left and that will have to suffice.
- the electrical plug supplied which is running one 3hp motor +1/2hp motor has a 10amp plug...i think it pulls about 2625watts which exceeds a 10amp circuit. I run it off a 15amp circuit with 16amp breakers...but really it should have a 15amp plug.
- i dont think there is capacity to put any sort of a dado set in. you might be able to get away with max 8mm dado's if your clever. Im not too sure, I havent looked at the length of the arbor, there is definitely room inside the table to add a blade 10mm wide by removing a table insert..
-the main blade dust port is only 4inch...commonly panelsaws have 5 inch ports. the 4inch port is kinda set in stone since the dust passes thru a pretty substantial piece of steel (10-12mm thick) so it would be pretty difficulty to open it up. alot of the dust just falls to the floor anyways or gets blown back behind the workpiece, I have never had a panelsaw which had sufficient dust extraction, its just a messy machine. I think ill just add a 3rd hose running under the table with a 'catchers mitt' setup to catch whateva falls.
All in all, if money wasnt an issue, I would buy an Altendorf just because its a slightly (and i mean..only slightly) more refined machine. since I can buy about 3 chinese machines for every altendorf....I would have no problems recommending these chinese built Prima's that Leda sell. its packs alot of punch for your dollar.
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I have been using panelsaws at work for 15 years and I have used a Altendorf F45, 2 SCM's (dunno the model, atleast 18yrs old) and a Felder (2003 model). Of all of the panelsaws I have used, excluding price, the Prima 2500 runs second after the Altendorf which stands to reason. the altendorf is a beautiful machine designed and built in germany and a real workhorse.
Anyway, to the prima. the things I like about it are...
-The price, its a great machine for the money.
-the sliding table locking mechanism is the best I have seen. It gives a dozen or so places where the table can be locked, so you dont need to drag the machine all the way to the back just to lock the table when lifting a sheet of 2400x1200x32 MDF by yourself and have the slider move around on you.
-The overhead guard is a heavy duty guard. made from plastic, but it is very thick and well thought out. It is easy to remove the standard guard and install the 45 degree guard just by releasing one knob and sliding it out of its groove. It has a couple of those gas struts which support the weight of the guard so you can choose to set the guard at any height and it will actually stay there rather than gradually falling down closer to the table. It has a 70mm dust port.
- It has digital readout of the sawblade angle
- the outrigger table is of solid construction. It can hold my weight (90kg) sitting on the very edge of it without it buckling much...
- the sliding table slides smooth and straight.
- basically everything that needs to be moved to setup the machine to cut square, parallel etc has some kind of an adjustment, some adjustments are bad, and some are good. you can adjust the sliding table to run parallel to the square, you can adjust the height of the outrigger to sit flush with the table surface, you can adjust the squaring arm to cut square, you can adjust the ripping fence to be parallel with the saw/square to outrigger. you can adjust the steel measuring tapes so the read the exact measurement. and you can adjust the scribing saw to be inline with main saw blade.
- you can choose to have the scribing blade turned on..or in my case turned off because i rarely cut melamine and as such I have removed the scriber.
so thats the good stuff. a bit of the bad...
- the riving knife supplied is very very cheap...not straight and too big, even at its lowest point it is still a fraction higher than the top point of the saw blade which is a problem when running a 3.2mm slot in a drawside for the the bottom. I think it is just a piece of mild steel roughly cut to shape with a bit of a bevel on the front edge. Ill have to get a better one or run the machine without a riving knife.
-its not very easy to change the location of the squaring fence from infront of the timber (cutting sheets) to behind it (docking solid timber). It doesnt seat itself into one fixed position, so everytime you remove it to change location, your measuring tapes might be out a bit. because the fence can slide left/right when not tightened down. I have decided just to keep it hard left and that will have to suffice.
- the electrical plug supplied which is running one 3hp motor +1/2hp motor has a 10amp plug...i think it pulls about 2625watts which exceeds a 10amp circuit. I run it off a 15amp circuit with 16amp breakers...but really it should have a 15amp plug.
- i dont think there is capacity to put any sort of a dado set in. you might be able to get away with max 8mm dado's if your clever. Im not too sure, I havent looked at the length of the arbor, there is definitely room inside the table to add a blade 10mm wide by removing a table insert..
-the main blade dust port is only 4inch...commonly panelsaws have 5 inch ports. the 4inch port is kinda set in stone since the dust passes thru a pretty substantial piece of steel (10-12mm thick) so it would be pretty difficulty to open it up. alot of the dust just falls to the floor anyways or gets blown back behind the workpiece, I have never had a panelsaw which had sufficient dust extraction, its just a messy machine. I think ill just add a 3rd hose running under the table with a 'catchers mitt' setup to catch whateva falls.
All in all, if money wasnt an issue, I would buy an Altendorf just because its a slightly (and i mean..only slightly) more refined machine. since I can buy about 3 chinese machines for every altendorf....I would have no problems recommending these chinese built Prima's that Leda sell. its packs alot of punch for your dollar.
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