A definitive yet general discussion of Robland machines

[sparty]

Hey folks,

Long time reader/lurker, first time poster. As is surely the case with many, I have benefited tremendously from reading the discussions (sometimes literally in the middle of a project). Sorry I never thanked the dozens of you who helped out a complete stranger. Thank you!

I am facing an interesting dilemma. By waiting until August...

I can purchase either a Felder plus Hammer (latter to keep the total cost down) saw-shaper combo AND a J/P combo or just a Hammer 5-function. I could also possibly get the Minimax CU 410 "e" for slightly (okay, substantially) more.

Or, I could get the Robland 5-function NLX Pro 310/12" for substantially less. Right now.

Felder and Mini-Max owners don't agree on much, but they all agree that Robland is subpar, though I've never found solid anecdotal evidence backing it. Is it build quality, features, tooling options, reliability, service cycle, support?

My request is for Robland owners and past/present users to share their thoughts. Do you have experience with both Felder/Hammer and Robland? Would you buy Robland if it was priced same as Felder/Hammer? What kind of discount over like machines would it take for you to buy a Robland machine?

Thank you very much!

 

[RKA]

I don't have experience with Robland, so I can't lend any perspective on that front.  But I will say one of the factors I considered is where will I find information if I can't get help from the manufacturer?  I just wanted to know I had another resource (much like the Festool Owners Group).  Both Felder and Minimax have online communities of people that circulate great information and I've seen those communities step up to help fellow owners when a machine was out of sorts.  I've seen them help with machine set up, diagnosing issues and common repairs, ordering parts, procuring parts from elsewhere when a factory part was hard to get or unnecessarily expensive.  As a hobbiest, I'm the one that's going to service the machine and those resources are invaluable to me. 

The bad news is both of those communities exist in the form of a listserv or yahoo group (which will likely lose support at some point).  Two functions that are unnecessarily difficult are sharing pictures and searching for information.  Some have tried to migrate away to a modern platform with all the accompanying benefits, but it seems any such change would be too dramatic and a fair percentage of contributors might be lost in the process.  And frankly, previous attempts and failures only entrenches the communities.  So if this is a factor for you, it exists for now, it's less than perfect, and the path to preserve these communities is uncertain.

 

[sparty]

Thanks, Raj. These are very valid considerations. Also, Felder and Minimax have Karl and Sam, respectively, as human resources. Felder has two physical presences in California, where I live. YouTube is full of Felder/Hammer/Format and Minimax project and set-up videos.

AFAIK, none of this "infrastructure" exists for Robland.

TBH, the only reason I'd ever get a Robland machine would be to acquire a European style machine, at a much lower cost, which in some cases tends to be approx. 50% of comparable Felder and Minimax machines. Thank you!

 

[online421]

I owned a Robland NX410 Pro from 2013 to 2018. I bought it new and I moved to separate machines in 2018, the separate machines that replaced the Robland are Griggio Unica 400 (ex display), Felder AD951 (new) and Casadei FV110 (about 40 years old)

I bought the Robland New from my local dealer, for about $20,000 NZD, at the time Felder CF741 top of the line is $40,000+ and CU410 Elite is also about $45,000+ NZD, mine came with everything you can ask for(tenonner plate, digital wheel, Tersa cutter head...etc), the only accessories I did not get was the remote start/stop button. for equivalent Felder with all the accessories, I think you will be looking at least $50,000NZD.

The only reason I moved on from Robland to separate machine was because my workload has increased substantially, I can no longer keep up with the production work with my Combination machine.

build quality:
I know my Robland was made in Belgium, the quality of the machine is acceptable. before the Robland I had a generic table saw and a 12 inch planer from East Asia.
I dont think the Robland is subpar of Hammer. I was very happy with the Robland, I used my Robland in my semi production environment and it stayed true for a long time.
The cast iron table top remained cast iron and did not warp, where as Felder, you do get occasional "casting issue", do a search on Sawmillcreek and you will see them... the cross cut fence isnt as robust as my Griggio though. anything heavy it will sag, do it a few times you will have to calibrate your cross cut fence, the cross cut fence is the weakest part of the combi machine.

The planer on the Robland is 3 knives Tersa cutter block (extra)

When the renowned panel saw maker Knapp went under in the 90's, Robland bought it over and transferred Knapp panel saw track to its panel saw.

Feature
Ok, Robland is not a Hammer/Felder family, obvious there isnt a lot of feature to choose from, but the repeated accuracy is there if you set your machine right and keep an eye on it from time to time, it has the basic features you get on a Hammer/Felder machine.

The spindle moulder on the Robland is not that great compare to Felder, its quite traditional and basic, where you spend 3 hours setting it up (exaggerating but you get my drift) and used it for 2 minutes.

Tooling
Robland uses metric tooling, no issues getting cutter/knives/blades, the importance of quality blade/tooling can not be stressed enough.

Reliability, Service cycle, support
I didnt have any issue with my Robland for the 5 years I owned it, I only needed to replace the saw motor but that is purely operator's error.  When the saw motor died, I called in the machine service to have the saw motor replaced, at the end I replaced the saw motor myself - I dont speak machine language but Robland is a machine you can service it yourself, its like a 1990 Toyota, everything is simple and straight forward, it works and if something doesnt work, its often just a tightening of a bolt or re adjustment, you just follow the instruction manual.  If I have an issue with my Felder AD951, I am 100% sure I can not resolve it myself, over the 5 years ownership, I only made 1 call out for the technician, and that was for the saw motor replacement, but I changed the motor myself so I dont even know if that counts.

Bottom line:
I will definitely buy it again if it is half price of equivalent sized machine from Felder.

Resale value is very good on the Robland, it doesnt depreciate much, and because there arnt many of them around, and they are relatively cheap compare to Felder/SCM, so it is very affordable to a lot of people, I had 3-4 guys very very interested in my Robland and it was a fight between who gives me the money first.

Comparison between Felder AD951 Silent power cutterblock and Robland NX410 Tersa cutterblock.
It is not fair to compare these two machines at all, AD951 cost about the same as a NX410 when new.

but both does jointing and planning just fine, if anything at all I think the Felder will require more frequent service than my Robland, because everything is manual on the Robland, you get two speed from Robland and thats it.
as for Felder, there is variable feed rate, and electronic up/down, its only matter of time before the electronic fails and when it does, the machine will not operate.

 

[online421]

coming back to your question about what machine to buy.

What machine to get depends on what kind of floor space you have and what kind of work you do.

I will never get a shaper and a saw combo, shaper needs time to setup and you often need it for a few minute only. but the setting up of it takes a long time.

JP combo makes sense financially. you gotta be doing serious production work with a number of employees to justify stand alone jointer and planer, ie, 8 hours on planner for one guy while another guy is on the jointer 8 hours a day.

for one man workshop, in my opinion, a quality and reliable JP combo is what you need.

 

[sparty]

Online421,

Thank you very much for your detailed and informative responses.

I will not be using my future machine(s) in a production environment, per se. But it might as well be that. I'll be gutting and rebuilding a house - every scrap of furniture, built-ins, wall paneling, some internal structural members, and perhaps even some external structural elements. I expect these machines to see a few months of heavy use, followed by years of hobbyist use.

One point of clarification - you recommend against a saw/shaper combo. So I assume you'd also be opposed to a 5-function combination machine? if anything, that would require a longer set-up. Am I right?

I am not so concerned about switch-overs and set-ups, TBH. if all goes well, and I plan my work correctly, I hope to do all the milling, then all the sawing, then all the shaping, etc. Of course, it's going to be hard to stay so well-organized all the time.

I'm definitely going to get a J/P combo. Sticking with Hammer allows me to get a 16" jointer/planer for a lower price than a 12" Felder machine.

Once again, thanks for all the insight.

 

[online421]

Online421,

Thank you very much for your detailed and informative responses.

I will not be using my future machine(s) in a production environment, per se. But it might as well be that. I'll be gutting and rebuilding a house - every scrap of furniture, built-ins, wall paneling, some internal structural members, and perhaps even some external structural elements. I expect these machines to see a few months of heavy use, followed by years of hobbyist use.

One point of clarification - you recommend against a saw/shaper combo. So I assume you'd also be opposed to a 5-function combination machine? if anything, that would require a longer set-up. Am I right?

I am not so concerned about switch-overs and set-ups, TBH. if all goes well, and I plan my work correctly, I hope to do all the milling, then all the sawing, then all the shaping, etc. Of course, it's going to be hard to stay so well-organized all the time.

I'm definitely going to get a J/P combo. Sticking with Hammer allows me to get a 16" jointer/planer for a lower price than a 12" Felder machine.

Once again, thanks for all the insight.

I am glad you have found my information helpful Sparty,

When I first bought the Robland it was only intended for light use only, say a weekend or two per month. but I outgrew myself and took on more work... you never know what future has in store for us.

I dont oppose to 5 function combi machine, the reason I oppose to saw-shaper combo is that I use my saw extremely frequent - I dont have a mitre station, I use my panel saw as a mitre station as well as a table saw and a panel saw, therefore if I have a saw-shaper, and it is in shaper function, I wont be able to use the saw function "freely", the shaper is in the way if I cut anything large.

Plus I rarely use my shaper, I only use it to make tenon, and when I make Tenon, I make a lot of it so I make sure I wont use the shaper for another 3-4 months, because setting up the shaper and the tenoner plate takes ages and you gotta do trial cuts, everything takes time. 

The J/P function normally does not interfere with the saw operation. when I am in JP mode I dont usually cut anything large/long, so whether the JP table is up or down, it doesnt matter, at least for my Robland this is the case, when the jointer table is folded up, there is clearance of 200-300mm between the blade and the jointer table.

I only used the mortiser function once and put it away, the reason for this is the mortiser is in the way when you want to use the jointer, and I use my jointer/planer A LOT. I purchased a stand alone mortiser for mortising soon after I bought the combi.

If you have a rigorous routine, Combi is not too bad. it takes literally seconds to transfer between modes once you know your machine.

one other thing about Combo is, you cant upgrade your machines easily, say if you have individual machines, and you dont want to miss out a JP combo deal in your area, you can always sell your JP combo and get the deal you want, but if you have a combination machine, you will have to buy 3 machines if you sell your combi...