Automatic Chain Sharpener - Under $300

[ChoppyChoppy]

Why not some type of clip or magnet to tell the machine it's done?

We have an automatic sharpener for band saw blades. It just has a magnet the it put on the blade to tell it to stop.

Or even a sensor that could read a paint marker?

I do plenty of chains, seems to me by the time I'd count cutters I'd be well on my way to having it already sharpened on a regular grinder.
It's rare I end up with a bunch of chains that are the same. Often it's a pile of several brands and types a customer drops off.

 

[Gun]

Why not some type of clip or magnet to tell the machine it's done?

We have an automatic sharpener for band saw blades. It just has a magnet the it put on the blade to tell it to stop.

Or even a sensor that could read a paint marker?

I do plenty of chains, seems to me by the time I'd count cutters I'd be well on my way to having it already sharpened on a regular grinder.
It's rare I end up with a bunch of chains that are the same. Often it's a pile of several brands and types a customer drops off.

The short answer is cost: the design of the sharpener is minimal to accommodate what we thought was the largest initial batch of users. We don't think (at least initially) raising the cost of the unit to accommodate what we believed was a small group of people (people who think counting cutters is a deal breaker) would be worth it to the greater majority.

As we get a better idea of what people want, how many people want that feature, and also how much people are willing to pay for that feature, we will make such additions.

Thank you for your suggestion!

 

[Big_Eddy]

Why not some type of clip or magnet to tell the machine it's done?

We have an automatic sharpener for band saw blades. It just has a magnet the it put on the blade to tell it to stop.

Or even a sensor that could read a paint marker?

I do plenty of chains, seems to me by the time I'd count cutters I'd be well on my way to having it already sharpened on a regular grinder.
It's rare I end up with a bunch of chains that are the same. Often it's a pile of several brands and types a customer drops off.

It's all about the target market. I think my scenario is who they are targetting. My son and I sell 100 cord a year, have multiple saws, sharpen a lot. But we do not sharpen for others and do not run different chains or profiles. All our saws (but one) are running 73LGX chain. Sure we have 16, 18 and 24" bars, but they all run the same chain, same angles. The odd one out runs 0.325 0.058" 21LPX. Same angles, smaller tooth.

For us - this is perfect. I realize for the same cost, I could buy an Oregon 520-120 which might be better suited to varying chains, will handle skip tooth chains, and likely is more precise overall, but then I would need to manually sharpen each tooth, finish one side, reset the machine and do the other side. For my application, set and forget is attractive. Enter the (known) tooth count, adjust the depth and tooth length. Press Go. Sharp Chain.

 

[Gun]

It's all about the target market. I think my scenario is who they are targetting. My son and I sell 100 cord a year, have multiple saws, sharpen a lot. But we do not sharpen for others and do not run different chains or profiles. All our saws (but one) are running 73LGX chain. Sure we have 16, 18 and 24" bars, but they all run the same chain, same angles. The odd one out runs 0.325 0.058" 21LPX. Same angles, smaller tooth.

For us - this is perfect. I realize for the same cost, I could buy an Oregon 520-120 which might be better suited to varying chains, will handle skip tooth chains, and likely is more precise overall, but then I would need to manually sharpen each tooth, finish one side, reset the machine and do the other side. For my application, set and forget is attractive. Enter the (known) tooth count, adjust the depth and tooth length. Press Go. Sharp Chain.

Thanks for that, @Big_Eddy! Glad you like the FP1000 and I hope it is serving you well for your particular application.

Just curious: are you sharpening before you head out, after a days work, or do you bring it with you and sharpen your chains? You're the first actual user on this forums, so providing some further insights might be helpful here!

 

[Big_Eddy]

Thanks for that, @Big_Eddy! Glad you like the FP1000 and I hope it is serving you well for your particular application.

Just curious: are you sharpening before you head out, after a days work, or do you bring it with you and sharpen your chains? You're the first actual user on this forums, so providing some further insights might be helpful here!

Not using yet but seriously looking at it and it is a good fit for our use case.

Canadian exchange, shipping and duties unfortunately almost double my actual cost which has me still on the fence.

We cut 100m from our shop so would walk back and sharpen in the shop over lunch or at the end of the day. File touchup on the tailgate if needed

 

[Gun]

Understood. I understand the tough financial issues with getting our products to our Canadian customers.

 

[homemade]

Are you thinking about giving a few away for us to demo and give a full review?

 

[Philbert]

Are you thinking about giving a few away for us to demo and give a full review?

I will jump in here.

I originally posted this thread in a few different forums that I participate in. One of these, on another forum, really took off, with 10 pages now and over 4,000 current views (about 3 times the activity here on A.S.). So that location has some additional information and comments on this sharpener.

TEMCo is sending me a demonstration unit to evaluate, and then to send to some additional folks to try for comments and feedback, over a 6 month period. Because it is hard to manage this type of trial across multiple platforms, I am recommending that we keep the trial to one site. However, I will post my comments and review in this thread, here on A.S., and encourage all evaluators who participate in multiple forums to share their results in each of those forums as well.

Unit is supposed to arrive early next week, so I should be posting some initial comments soon after.

Philbert

 

[Gun]

I will jump in here.

I originally posted this thread in a few different forums that I participate in. One of these, on another forum, really took off, with 10 pages now and over 4,000 current views (about 3 times the activity here on A.S.). So that location has some additional information and comments on this sharpener.

TEMCo is sending me a demonstration unit to evaluate, and then to send to some additional folks to try for comments and feedback, over a 6 month period. Because it is hard to manage this type of trial across multiple platforms, I am recommending that we keep the trial to one site. However, I will post my comments and review in this thread, here on A.S., and encourage all evaluators who participate in multiple forums to share their results in each of those forums as well.

Unit is supposed to arrive early next week, so I should be posting some initial comments soon after.

Philbert

I am confirming this is correct. Thanks for so carefully explaining this, @Philbert. I was worried about answering this directly as there are certain forum rules I agreed to before posting here.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Something that was mentioned early but not followed up on. Wheel dressing and wear. If you're not using or offering a cbn wheel (which I highly recommend), how do you keep the wheel dressed, how long should they last and how does it compensate for wheel wear?

 

[Gun]

Something that was mentioned early but not followed up on. Wheel dressing and wear. If you're not using or offering a cbn wheel (which I highly recommend), how do you keep the wheel dressed, how long should they last and how does it compensate for wheel wear?

One of the things we can reveal now is that we do have resin bonded CBN wheels almost complete! It took some fine-tuning, as we wanted to make sure the tolerances on them are tight enough so that they don't vibrate on the high RPM spindle. We expect them to be ready for sale around the end of February, maybe early March!

Regarding wheel dressing, just treat it like any other CBN wheel. Because the wheels on the FP1000 should be making light passes rather than deep cuts, the wear is negligible. Wear compensation is otherwise not necessary.

Note that due to the design of the FP1000, the cut depth of the grinder head must be calibrated per chain, anyways.

 

[wcorey]

One of the things we can reveal now is that we do have resin bonded CBN wheels almost complete! It took some fine-tuning, as we wanted to make sure the tolerances on them are tight enough so that they don't vibrate on the high RPM spindle. We expect them to be ready for sale around the end of February, maybe early March!

Regarding wheel dressing, just treat it like any other CBN wheel. Because the wheels on the FP1000 should be making light passes rather than deep cuts, the wear is negligible. Wear compensation is otherwise not necessary.

Note that due to the design of the FP1000, the cut depth of the grinder head must be calibrated per chain, anyways.

What about the wheel that's supplied with the grinder being sold currently?
Same set of questions please...

 

[Gun]

What about the wheel that's supplied with the grinder being sold currently?
Same set of questions please...

Just to clarify: you can dress the supplied wheels as you would any CBN wheel.

I forgot to answer: we don't really have the numbers on wheel wear and how long each one should last - this would require empirical testing. We have had several customers who needed new ones, but we don't have the numbers of how many they went through before they had to be replaced.

Please let me know if I answered all of your questions!

 

[wcorey]

Just to clarify; you can't dress cbn wheels, only clean them...

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Ok, adjusting cut depth per chain makes sense. You'd manually adjust it as you notice cut depth changing. I assume there is plenty of clearance to fit the normally 1x1x6 dressing stone between the body of the grinder and the arm to dress the stock wheel.

Do you adjust how much it takes off on each grinding pass or does the tooth position sensing take care of that?

Mods: I would like to suggest a FAQ at the beginning of this thread summarizing questions asked and answered, so there is one concise place to see if your question has been asked without wading through all the posts.

 

[Gun]

Just to clarify; you can't dress cbn wheels, only clean them...

You can dress CBN wheels. Not that you really need to, but you can. Though I think I misunderstood your question, which is why I tried to clarify.

I suppose you're asking the same question as @Haywire Haywood. The wheel currently provided with the FP1000 can be dressed, of course, just like any other grinding wheel. However, because of the design and suggested use of the FP1000, determining the cut depth inherently solves the problem of whether the grinding wheel is going to properly sharpen the chain. Noting again: we recommend light passes.

Ok, adjusting cut depth per chain makes sense. You'd manually adjust it as you notice cut depth changing. I assume there is plenty of clearance to fit the normally 1x1x6 dressing stone between the body of the grinder and the arm to dress the stock wheel.

Do you adjust how much it takes off on each grinding pass or does the tooth position sensing take care of that?

Mods: I would like to suggest a FAQ at the beginning of this thread summarizing questions asked and answered, so there is one concise place to see if your question has been asked without wading through all the posts.

Correct - there is plenty of clearance.

Manual adjustment of the grinding depth is should be adjusted for at the start of each operation. Basically, just make sure you're taking off as much as you want - we recommend light passes, which prevents various issues like overheating the cutters, causing burrs, etc.

A FAQ would be awesome! Please let me know if there's a way for me to contribute a FAQ sheet.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Just so we're on the same page. To me, a CBN wheel is a steel wheel with a permanent abrasive bonded to the outer rim. The profile never changes and you never have to dress it. When the abrasive eventually wears out, you replace it. It can become clogged, and you clean it with a special stone, but you aren't removing any material or changing the profile. The last time I bought one, it was over a hundred dollars.

 

[Gun]

Just so we're on the same page. To me, a CBN wheel is a steel wheel with a permanent abrasive bonded to the outer rim. The profile never changes and you never have to dress it. When it eventually wears out, you replace it. The last time I bought one, it was over a hundred dollars.

We are on the same page.

I'm just being nit picky: the wheel doesn't have to be steel. Many are aluminum.

 

[wcorey]

You can dress CBN wheels. Not that you really need to, but you can.

Well, I guess you could...
I don’t think I’d get the same thrill out of it as spinning my tires down to the cords with an all wheel burnout, which would have a relatively similar end result, lol.

Somehow I don’t think we’re talking about them same thing.
Dressing a resinous or vitrious wheel removes surface material, usually to clean and/or reprofile it.
Dressing a cbn wheel would result in a plain metal wheel minus the cbn.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

He knows what we're talking about. He just used the word "dress" instead of "clean" which threw a couple of us off. It's all good.