Bought a new shredder off ebay that i haven't seen reviewed anywhere

[larryccf]

i tried to purchase the Powermatic S and Powermatic / Zico told me they were out of stock, - so i asked them if i found one in a dealer's stock, how long could i count on support for the unit - the CSR i was talking too was non-committal and that kind of bothered me. I then tried to talk to Paul at tobaccoandmachines.com about supplying the ACE160 (that I posted about in an earlier thread) and he responded that finding 110v motors is difficult.

I went on Ebay, and i kept seeing these offered by a multitude of vendors with prices ranging from approx $300 delivered to over $400


Decided to take a chance and ordered one from fonrroni. I only mention him as he had decent positive feedback and his communications were clear and fairly quick, and shipping was incredible - ordered it Saturday nite and it was here this afternoon (Wednesday) from china. Price was $222 + $98 shipping (fedex).

The unit itself does a decent job, it's quiet as can be, the wife sitting 4' away didn't even hear it running or it shredding. While it runs a bit on the slow side, it's not so slow that i can't live with it - the rollers are turning at what i estimate 50-70 rpm, and are "reported" to be by other vendors (key word there is "reported") to be hardened and chrome plated, as they are chromeplated it'd be difficult to gauge the hardness.

But the part that impressed me was the power the thing was demonstrating - I had already shredded about 1/2 lb when this arrived, so i real quick stripped about 1/4 lb of leaves and shredded it - i didn't pull out the heavy veins, and barely unfolded some of the leaves - quite a few folded over double and some had accordian bellows folds in them and still went thru folded double - i saw no slow down in speed of rollers or the leaf material traveling thru the machine. As it's new it was cutting the leaf real clean, absolutely no dust but it remains to be seen how long the rollers hold their sharp edge.

Here's a shot of the motor if any are interested - interior is fairly simple, gear reduction head is attached to the motor. When i ran that 56Nm thru the online conversion calculators (using 40 rpm) it showed .31 hp, which is healthy for 3" rollers.



Weight - this thing is a beast weight wise, i estimate about 20 lbs - i estimate that from something i've got ][at my desk that i have to lift off the floor too often and it weights 13 lbs, and this thing is 1.5x that 13 lbs.

One positive, there's switch so you can stop the motor then reverse it. Haven't a jam yet but nice to have

The negatives:
This shredder is a little slower than a lot of the shredders out there, but from the vids i saw of the Powermatic S, it was no slower.

2nd - life of the rollers at this point is unknown but i'm comfortable enough being the guinea pig or beta customer. There were zero product feedbacks on ebay, all seemed to vendor svc feedback.

3rd - rollers are only 3" long - you really need to keep the leaf you're feeding it to max width of 2 to 2 &1/4" as if wider, and the leaf moves over to the gears, the gears aren't covered so the leaf gets chewed up by the gears and stays stuck to them - a minor pita to clean.

I'll try to take some shots of the combs - they're actually cute tiny little things and look to be made from hardened carbon steel, not the soft as liquoice stainless steel combs of the tobaccoandmacnines roller machines, as well as some video of the machine shredding leaf.

 

[FmGrowit]

I know a guy who sells the Powermatic S shredder and they will be 25% off this weekend.

Powermatic S Whole Leaf Tobacco Shredder

Powermatic S Whole Leaf Tobacco Shredder Shreds whole leaf tobacco to a 0.8mm width for a perfect shag cut RYO cigarette tobacco. Titanium plated blades only engage when tobacco is fed into shredder…

wholeleaftobacco.com

 

[larryccf]

here's a video of it shredding and a shot of the rollers' combs

https://imgur.com/a/Br6t2FD

at the beginning of the vid a couple of the leaves wandered over to the bearring end and you can see the pcs i pulled out of the tub underneath that didn't shred

 

[Brown Thumb]

I Would make two 1/2 thick shields to cover the gears and open end so you get let less junk in your shredded baccy.

 

[larryccf]

thanks - i was thinking of doing something in nylon, along the lines of your suggestion
the acrylic translucent shield it came with would serve to keep the leaf material guided away from either end of the roller but i don't like as it hinders cleaning (i pour a little alcohol onto the rollers after use) and that shield limits my access to pouring the alcohol

 

[larryccf]

Noticed something different about the rollers and combs on this machine. In the earlier photo i posted showing the comb, it shows the "teeth" , looking like the teeth on a carpenter's saw, pitched to the front end of the machine - initially i thought it was simply a photographic illusion due to the angle of the camera to the comb. But it bothered me a little so tonight after shredding some more, i brought the camera out - (my eyes don't work as well as they did) and took a high reolution close-up image of both rollers and the combs.

Notice in the first photo of the right roller - the comb's teeth are pitched toward the rear of the machine and the cutting ribs on the roller are pitched toward the front of the machine




Then in the photo of the left roller & comb, the comb's teeth are pitched toward the front of the machine with the pitch of the cutting ribs on the roller pitched toward the rear of the machine. The cutting ribs on the right hand roller are pitched like the left roller's comb, so they are meshing inbetween each other.




whoever designed this machine started with a fresh sheet of paper, only copying the use of rollers. I suspect one benefit from this design will be longer life before it starts giving me dust as there's less surface with the initial contact area with the leaf material. I' referring back to my complaint about the .8mm rollers with square cutting ribs compacting more than the 1.0 mm rollers due to the .8mm rollers having less material to resist compacting.

A friend of mine whose fairly literate electrically was impressed with the motor's manufacturer's web site and the specs they offer on their motors - they mfgr a whole range of motors, with and without integral gear boxes. I talked to Paul at tobacco and machines, emailing him the link to their website and his response was that he knew them and their motors were too expensive. If anyone is interested, their web is http://www.aqlmotor.com/en/ and they do have english as an option on their website.

My only regret with this machine is that the rollers are 120mm or greater in length. But as far as the ribs intermeshing the way they do, they're cutting awfully clean even width strands.

 

[larryccf]

btw, i weighed it as well today - 22 lbs, so the weight scale in my arm isn't that far off

 

[larryccf]

if anyone's interested, below is a video of the dis-assembly procedure on this shredder figured some might be bored enough to watch it - i bought a set of replacement rollers and combs, as everytime i find a shredder i like, when i need replacement rollers & combs, the seller is either out of business or no longer carries the product. In this case, Pawel at Tobacco and Machines no longer has 1.0mm rollers, just the .8mm rollers that i don't want.

Anyway, after receiving the rollers from fonrroni he sent me a link to this vid: I hosted it at imgur.com, and it only allows 60 seconds of video file per upload, so i had to break into 4 uploads

https://imgur.com/a/UEyz0eI

 

[larryccf]

i was a little slow inserting the other vids, and my edit time lapsed
here are the other 3 vids

2nd vid

https://imgur.com/a/qwlrdUE

3rd vid

https://imgur.com/a/oTT6QfQ

4th vid

https://imgur.com/a/BwhpUDE

 

[burge]

Any pics of the shred I have seen them as well.

 

[larryccf]

next time i shred i'll take a couple shots of the shred - it comes out looking like angel hair sphagetti, 1.0mm width

 

[burge]

Thanks I have seen them on some of the wholesale sites I am on. My powermatic is still working.

 

[larryccf]

one interesting part, i hadn't realized how much dust my tired G120 was giving me with dull rollers, or rather how much leaf was being wasted. I would strip leaves till i filled a tub that was approx 12"x16"x3.5" deep, and i mean until it was packed full. Then i'd shred - that would give me, on a good day enough strands for 4-5 days of smoking, more often only 3 days of smokes. With this new machine, there's no dust so no wasteage but the difference, i strip leaves till the tub is maybe 1/4 full, maybe a little higher - that gives me 8-9 days of smoke. Big drop in quantity of leaves stripped and nearly double the smokes made.

Another item i noticed, no matter the color of the leaves being shred ( a lot would be beautiful yellow) the shred would come out dirty dark brown - while this machine's shred is the same color as the leaf that went in. Only thing i can figure is the G120 was grinding a lot of the dust into the shred and changing it's color.

 

[larryccf]

Any pics of the shred I have seen them as well.

here's your pic burge

 

[larryccf]

in one of my posts above, i posted 2 shots of the two rollers, with the first image showing, what i call the "flat" face of the cutting rib being the non-pitched face) facing toward the front of the machine and the second image showing the flat face facing toward the rear of the machine

i couldn't wrap my brain around how they intermeshed so i pulled the spare rollers out and meshed them together and grabbed some close up shots
the flat faces of the opposing rollers actually face each other - and i find myself still trying to wrap my brain around how they intermesh

in case below image isn't large enough, the flat face of the roller on the left is facing downward in the pix, and the roller on the right has it's flat face facing upward

and almost forgot, i never mentioned the strand cut width - it's 1.0 mm




what i originally said about the designer of this machine starting with a clean sheet of paper still holds true. Look at the complexity of dis-assembling the shredder.

 

[burge]

View attachment 49123

here's your pic burge

Thanks that looks good.