I have just bought this kit, which arrived late last week, and today I managed to get it out of the boxes (two boxes), and get it assembled. It was well packaged, having travelled all the way from Taiwan, where it was manufactured…and nothing was damaged. The whole unit weighs in at around 20kg, 25kg with all the packaging…the filter unit was in a separate box. Everything went swimmingly following the assembly instructions until I reached the part where you add the two wheels to the base unit… The first issue were the holes in the base unit for the bolts that connect the wheels to the base…the bolt would not go through the holes… at first I thought it was just the paint, but I had to run a 12.5mm HSS drill through the holes to get the bolts in, and clearly metal around the edge of the hole was cut too, so I would say the holes were 1mm undersized…anyway, this problem overcome I proceeded to start fitting the wheels…bolt/washer through the wheel, add nylon washer to butt against the base unit, through the holes, fit the nut, tighten, and add a locking nut…could not be simpler…BUT…straight away I noticed that the wheel was not going to fit properly, as the bulge on the wheel (both sides of the wheel are domed - see photos), was binding against the ‘skirt’ of the base unit that sticks out about 6/7mm from the base unit… At first I tried fitting a couple of metal washers to bring the wheel out some more, but problems occurred…the bolt was not long enough to take more washers, it was only just long enough to fit with the nut and locking nut supplied…so the only solution was to mark the ‘skirt’ where the wheel was hitting it (about 50mm of the ‘skirt in total), and get out the grinder and grind off the offending metal… This worked fine, but should you have to do this…!! Nope, I don’t think so either… everything after this went well until it came to fitting the plastic bag (supplied…gee axminister are really pushing the boat out eh!), which I must say was rather awkward…I used a few expletives during this period, stopped, had a coffee and then decided it was time for some assistance…so I fetched…the masking tape… The ‘bag holders’ that are tack welded to the sides of the body to hold the bag are, in my opinion, a total waste of space, energy and cost…
They are totally useless…and just did not work at all…the masking tape did work…half a dozen short pieces holding the bag in place well enough to get the flexible metal securing band in place and clipped on… With everything assembled as per instructions (apart from the wheels of course which required engineering intervention to get them to fit), next was to see how much suck for my buck I was going to get… At this point I uncoiled the power lead…and as I had been thinking…it was a little short (only 1.9m from directly under the control box to the plug), which I though was pretty stingy really, seeing as this is a ‘mobile’ dust extraction unit…so unless you have power sockets available everywhere, you’ll need an extension lead too… So, plugged in and switched on…it worked…with enough power to at least inflate the plastic dust collection bag, although I must say, placing my hand over the extraction intake, I did not exactly have to pry my fingers away from it…and for a 1Horse Power motor, I was somewhat disappointed in the amount of suction displayed…perhaps I’ll be astounded once it’s fully assembled and connected to dust extraction pipe work and hoses…I’ll have to wait and see… So Axminster…listen up…this is what you need to do…1) get cut-outs put in the base frame ‘skirt’ so you can actually get the wheels on without having to re-engineer a new tool, or change the wheels for ones that don’t have the domes, 2) come up with a better fix for the bag, perhaps a hoop to connect the bag to first might be an idea…and 3) get rid of those silly, stupid bag hooks that don’t work at the same time… lastly 4) add an extra metre of power cable, it will make the world of difference… So when I get this operational with the rest of the expensive kit I purchased I’ll come back and let you know how it performs…!
Out of interest, did you ever receive a response from Axminster to your comments?
Hi, Davey44…
The answer is I suppose yes…after I emailed them and contacted customer services as well as putting this post up… they answered with 1) do you want to return the product, and eventually 2) thank you for letting us know…and that was literally it…
They never responded on-line to my post above, and it was greyed out for a while, until I asked and challenged that, which I presumed meant no one else could see it…funny, it’s black again now…but if you put up anything about Axe products that highlights issues, they don’t seem to like it or respond well…or at all…this is of course only my personal experience, perhaps others have had a better response…!
Hi Stu, if you’re prepared to share your email address, I have a tale to tell that may help you in the future. It’s not for relating on here for reasons which would become obvious if you heard.
Dave R
Messaged you…
Hope all is well with you and your workshop now? I’ve been stuggling with my meds again, trying to keep the pain at a level where I can function. All the best!
