Power Supplies Reviews

This was my introduction to biscuit joining and I bought this when other plate joiners were way more expensive. However, it was a disappointment and left me feeling there must be a better way. My 556 had a strong tendency to walk sideways as the blade entered the wood. This left the slots too wide and in some cases exposed the ends of the slot when cutting in 2 in. wide stock. I eventually bought the DeWalt model after trying it at a woodworking show and seeing how a plate joiner SHOULD work....pass it up and get the DeWalt.

Like other reviewers, I chose the 556 because it was significantly cheaper than the other "good" ones on the market. I have to admit that it has been a disappointment. As I see it, it has four major flaws: 1) It is underpowered and has trouble with every material I have used it on, 2) The blade seems to have a short life before it gets dull, 3) The fence system, while versatile, is cumbersome to setup & change and 4) The replacement blade is very, very expensive. I was quoted ... (Porter-Cable's list price)locally - yikes!! This is over 50% of the units original cost. Even Amazon's ... price, while a good price, is steep compared to buying it new. My dilemma is whether to buy a new blade or put that money towards the machine I now know I want.

Tool seems to lack power and struggles at times. Most of my slots have been in relativity soft white pine which makes the lack of power even more troubling. It does cut accurate slots, but you have to take your time. It is fully adjustable with Allen wrenches. It is not in the same class as my other Porter-Cable tools. If you plan on cutting a ton of slots you may be able to justify one of the more expensive plate joiners.

I tried cutting over 20 circles in 1/4", 3/8, 1/2" plywood and in 1/2" pine stock - just won't cut a clean hole - always tends to spiral towards the end of the cut.
The attachment is made plastic and is not designed to do anything near 'precision work. Maybe its OK for drywall.
The instruction say to rotate the gizmo clockwise but the accompanying picture shows the a arrow going counterclockwise - either way the cut drifts outward as the cut goes to completion. The attachment fits nicely in the Rotozip carring case - I hope the whole thing sells well on eBay.

You can cut circles with this. You could cut nicer circles with a bit more confidence if the plastic arms were replaced with metal arms. Making the center of the arms, where the cut diameter markings are, larger would give better accuracy with less 'test settings on scrap piece first'.

As with the CRCT1, this attachment was made as cheaply as possible (and that's different than 'inexpensively'). Kudos to the Rotozip engineer in charge of 'How cheap can we make it and still charge people too much for it without it actually being useless and ending up in the 'returns' bin all the time?'.

Yes, it works. Use both hands. Cut slowly after first checking on a piece of scrap material. And make sure you fire off an email to Rotozip telling the how impressed you are with the 'quality' of construction of this attachment. The quality of the actual Rotozip tools is okay - but the quality of their attachments is consistently and disappointingly poor.

Whenever I can, I cut circles with a router and circle jig - the Jasper jigs are okay - even when cutting lighter materials the Rotozip and attachment(s) should be better suited for.

I'm not sure if other people have gotten bad tools or what, because i've had great luck with my circle cutter! it flys through drywall, and i use it to cut out circles in 3/8" plywood for my daughter's room. I had no problems with it at all!

I'm not a contractor but I am an intermediate level DIY'er. I tend to use a cordless screwdriver in most things I do. For some tools, I don't spend the money for the top of the line stuff. In most cases, that is OK. But in this case, the screwdriver let me down. After only two months of light use, it started to fall apart around the neck of the screwdriver where you adjust the torque. The case started to split too and I could see the plastic gears, cheap stuff. The battery life was OK for what I used it for. I think I'll try the Dewalt 920.

This is a good quality driver for in the home, but not really powerful enough for any type of hardwood. Also, the battery is not removable, so you cant exchange the battery with your other Black and Decker 3.6 volt tools.

I would suggest going with the Black and Decker PD600 6 volt model. As it is only slightly more expensive, but much more powerful and also can be used as a drill.

We had this pump installed by a licensed plumber almost 2 yrs ago,it has given us nothing but head aches.The pump runs on water flow scan aka "hydoscan", I think it gets confused? A second plumber(more $$ sadly and a second hydroscann installed) and tech support from the factory still problems , it's running off of street pressure of 40 lbs with a reduction valve, set to 25 lbs(factory cut in 38lbs) so it will kick in and give you 60 lbs somethines or run downstairs and hit the yellow button , which sometimes works and gets the pump going again.you can have mine , soon to be replaced by somethng else soon!
Now if you are considering this Davey pump company have them design the system as they do have newer systems aka set up's/application's and get a longer warrenty and in writing on the electronics, I'll pass on that.

I used this pump to increase my home's water pressure. The main problems with the pump are its noise and its tendency to turn off when used for watering plants around the house. There is nothing one can do to reduce the noise level because the pump is air-cooled (Lord knows I tried!). The pump has a thermal shut-off switch that prevents all heavy-duty use.

The Davey HS multi-stage pump lasted me 2 years before it failed. My recommendation is to get a water-cooled pump since they are quieter and should last longer.

This pump works great. I have a well with cut in of 40 lbs and cut out of 60 lbs. Even if you have less this will work beautfully. In fact, I have my pressure reducing valve (definitely recommended to get constant output pressure) set to 25 psi. So as long as you have input great than that you can duplicate the results I get.

The pump boosts 50 psi. So now I get a constant 75 psi. The beauty of this pump is not only that I get an increase in pressure from a prior average of 50psi (40-60) to a new pressure of 75...but that the 75 is a continuous pressure when the pump is running.

Just as described...right? Not quite. The description of this product says that it kicks in when water flow is detected and shuts off when water flow is stopped. Only the latter is correct. This is not just my experience, you can call Davey's directly and they will tell you this outright. The description on Amazon is wrong.

The Hydroscan feature is off when the pump is off, so it can't tell when you first demand water. Instead, the pump kicks on when a cut in pressure is reached. This is factory set to 38 psi. So when the pressure at the output of the pump drops to 38psi (as the result of water being used in the house), the pump kicks on and boosts the pressure by 50psi over the input (which in my case is a steady 25psi from the pressure reducing valve as I mentioned). Now is where the Hydroscan comes in. The Hydroscan is on once the pump is on. This feature monitors water flow and continues boosting water pressure until flow is stopped or at list reduced to some very, very small demand...like a trickle. It then cuts the pump off...which also turns off the Hydroscan. The next time water is used in the house, the pump will remain off until pressure again drops to 38psi.

Maybe someday Davey's will come out with a Hydroscan II that will monitor continually...so when water is used in the house, the pump kicks on right away. This would be even better. This is the only reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5.

Now do I consider this pump so great...as opposed to all the other boosters on the market? This is because of the Hydroscan. All other pumps I've seen not only cut in at a fixed pressure (like the Davey's at 38psi) but they also cut out at a fixed pressure. So they "cycle". And therefore as long as you're demanding water, the pressure will actually go up and own in some range. This can be a pain when trying to get a constant water temperature or flow...like in a shower. With the Davey's (with Hydroscan), the flow does drop at first until the 38psi trigger is hit...then the booster pump kicks on and you get a constant pressure and flow from that point on.

That's it. Hopefully that explains it better than the description and will help you determine if this is what will meet your needs. By the way, I've had this for 17 months now and it works like it did on day 1...so a decent test period. Also, it's very easy to install as the factory settings are right for most people. I did have to set the pressure reducing valve to 25...as most are preset to 50 (as mine was). Other than that it was just cutting and sweat soldering. Otherwise you can have a plumber install it for a couple hundred dollars.

I'll start by saying that I didn't buy this blade willingly. I was working on an oak project (4/4) and wound up chipping the teeth on my Freud LU87R010 (also a 10" x 24T ATB thin kerf) when I hit a staple. I needed a replacement right away and this blade was the closest thing I could find locally. I figured it was a Freud, in roughly the same price range, so it had to be 1/2 way decent - at least to get me through until I could order another LU87. Boy, was I wrong!

I brought the blade home and swapped it out, cleaning the arbor face and ensuring that the blade surface was clean. Instead of picking up where I left off, I decided to rip a test piece. When I looked at the cut, I figured there had to be something on the arbor or blade that I missed - the blade was wobbling terribly and left horrible saw marks down the entire face. The saw marks were so bad that I had to remove 1/16"+ on my jointer before I could get rid of them. I removed it, inspected it (didn't see anything obvious), cleaned it again, remounted it and ran another test piece. Same thing. I remounted the chipped LU87 and it produced a very clean edge. Although it takes more effort to push through and the crosscut produces more breakout due to the chipped teeth, it's still better than the Diable D1024x.

Most of my tools, from my 12" miter saw to table saw to router, are outfitted with Freud blades because I've found they produce a superior product with superior results. Anyone that asks, I will confidently tell them to spend the extra money on a Freud product because you get what you pay for. This blade is definately the exception and it is the first time that I have been disappointed in the quality of a Freud product. I really think Freud is doing themselves a diservice by putting their name on this, as I don't think it's adequate for ripping 2x4's - especially when you can spend another $5 and buy the LU87 - a much better product.

This is an awesome blade. I rip a lot of 2 1/2" hardwood and I have ripped thousands of feet of 2 1/2" hardwood before I needed the blade to be sharpened. Because it is a thin kerf ATB blade it will try to follow the grain on thick hardwood if you push the wood through too fast, but overall it is a great blade.

I got one of these with my dremel tool. It works, but I really think a dremel tool is underpowered for sharpening applications. I spent some time trying to sharpen my shovel with it and finally gave up and grabbed a file and had it finished and a second shovel in less time and with far less noise. Let's face it, neither shovel or lawnmower blades need to be as accurately sharpened as a knife and a file will work handily, cost the same and last longer.

I got this with my Dremel XPR and I was actually looking forward to trying it out, as we have an old hatchet that despretly needs sharpening. I put it on and I went to get the hatchet, and the little slot that the blade goes in was just a little bit too thin. So I finally got it in and I turn on the tool and in a shower of sparks it starts working, but I couldn't get it to move, so now I had a gigantic dent in it, I eventually got the hatchet sharpened without the attachment. and much better, too. I haven't tried it on the lawn mower yet, though. But it doesn't work well on anything besides shovels for me.

The Dremel lawnmower blade sharpener works pretty good. But only as a midseason blade sharpener. Be careful sparks fly all over the place with this tool. If your blades are really dull take them to the pros but at midseason this tool will help put the edge back on a mild dull blade. Buy extra 932 grinding stones because you'll go thu them quick.

This thing is absolutely useless. Flimsy plastic garbage. Don't waste a penny on it!

Ordered the drill guide and before it got here I stopped at Sears and checkedx out there guide. Went ahead and bought it for less then the H3487. Good thing because when the H3487 arrived it was no where near the tool as the Sears one. Its plastic with flimsy parts and no springs on the rods very disappointed with it. Buy the Sears for less and get more.

I have used one of these precision drill guides two times to drill holes to put lock sets into doors. The cross slide that contains the drill chuck and shaft cracked through the chuck stop hole on the one side. The cross slide is too weak to even support the lightest duty service. The cross slide needs to be redesigned with flanges and beads at a minimum in order to handle normal loads encountered during use. Material changes to the cross slide my be needed. The design of the cross slide is a total failed effort.

I don't own this particular one either. I bought the BE325R from Walmart and it was DOA with no working battery. Wrote APC customer service and someone named Kiran Nimmagatta - 05/30/2006 12:47 PM wrote:
"Dear Mike,

Thank you for contacting APC's email support on 05/30/2006 10:56 AM. I would be happy to assist you.

As per your mail, you need to charge your battery for maximum 24 hours.You need to put the UPS in the wall socket with out any load, and charge the battery."

--which is wholly rediculous suggestion to my question asking for support since there were no indicator lights, etc. ON.

Also, their "live person" did not work. No person there during business hours.

The quality assurance ticket in unit says PASSED every test. What a joke. I would not trust APC units to my electronics surge.

No customer service and poor quality; bad inspection tags.

One star only for nice box with promising graphics and ads.

Mike in Missouri

I don't own this specific APC product, but I do own other APC products.

My home was hit by lightning on July 2, 2004 during a severe lightning storm. Both of my garage door openers were destroyed during the strike and they were on separate NET3 power line surge protectors made by APC.

NET3 surge protectors offer the best ($50,000) damaged equipment warranty that APC offers. APC refuses to pay for replacement garage door openers since in their determination, the surge protectors are functioning properly (I had to send the surge protectors at my expense for analysis at their labs).

I will never contend that a surge protector can protect any device from a direct lightning strike, but the APC warranty contends that they will replace your equipment in the event this unfortunate event occurs.

I now do not recommend APC equipment, since their warranty is worthless.

Bought this after my neighbors house was hit by lightening and it destroyed my dsl modem. So I bought this and it has the phone protection and coaxial protection. Once again lightening struck and everything survived that was hooked to this. Don't know about the warranty issues but this product seems to work.

I had high hopes for this thing. I was looking for a decent car vacuum but this thing had a lot more features. The vacuum couldn't pick up much of anything, the battery life was terrible, the flashlight wasn't very bright, the plastic tray that goes underneath with all the cables and such has tiny tabs that slide in slots on the main body's underside, and one of them was broken on arrival. I didn't bother to return it because the tabs were so flimsy I figured they wouldn't last long anyway.

I never tried the compressor feature. Just tossed it last week.

I have yet to use this product to inflate my tires or plug anything into it. It just arrived a few weeks ago. The instructions on how to use it were not that great (go figure) and not all the parts fit into the tray (pictured) that goes underneath it. Still... i've never seen anything quite like this before, and I'll keep it in my car and hope I never have to use it on my tires!