Calibrating Domino 500 pins

[ear3]

I posted this earlier on the tool problems forum, but since there were no replies, I figured I would ask Festool directly:

"I just noticed that there is a small offset in the joint when I locate off the edge of the board with the pin using the narrow setting on both mortises.  I hadn't noticed before, probably because I usually use the wider mortise setting.

I know there's a procedure for calibrating the pins (the plastic ones that fold in and out) in the supplemental manual, but when I go to the PDF through the Festool page, none of the included pictures are visible.  I'd prefer if possible to do the calibration procedure with visuals.  Anyone have a good copy of the manual they could direct me to?  Thanks."

The offset is 7-8 thousandths of an inch (.0075), and so it is visible to both finger and eye.  The procedure described in the manual involves replacing one of the dogs with the one included in the kit, which is narrower by .006.  So this should get me within 1-2 thousandths of an inch flush, which is not bad, and presumably the rest can be taken care of by sanding.  But if I send it into Festool, will they be able to calibrate it so that it's dead on?

In any case, was still hoping to get a link to the full supplemental manual with pictures, rather than the one that just has the text housed at: http://www.festoolusa.com/media/pdf/domino_df_500.pdf

 

[Stoli]

http://www.waterfront-woods.com/festool/Domino_DF_500.pdf

Page 21

 

[grbmds]

That difference appears to be about  1/128th of an inch. When you get to that level of precision, it's very difficult to make it any better. I've tried with other tools. Usually I end up making it worse and then spend a lot of time trying to just get it back to where it was again. What I would adise is using the Domino to complete a project to determine if that small a difference really makes a difference in the end. When i initially tested my Domino for alignment, I found that, in the end, it made no difference and, once the pieces were put together and pushed together as they would if glued, you couldn't even feel the difference, much less see it.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

In any case, was still hoping to get a link to the full supplemental manual with pictures, rather than the one that just has the text housed at: http://www.festoolusa.com/media/pdf/domino_df_500.pdf

There isn't a text-only version of the manual. Your device (phone, tablet, pad, etc.) isn't properly displaying the pdf. Try using a different device or a standard computer. By the way, both links in the previous posts are pointing to the same document at its two locations; my website and the Festool website.

 

[ear3]

In any case, was still hoping to get a link to the full supplemental manual with pictures, rather than the one that just has the text housed at: http://www.festoolusa.com/media/pdf/domino_df_500.pdf

There isn't a text-only version of the manual. Your device (phone, tablet, pad, etc.) isn't properly displaying the pdf. Try using a different device or a standard computer. By the way, both links in the previous posts are pointing to the same document at its two locations; my website and the Festool website.

I solved the problem, which was indeed on my end.  For whatever reason, none of the pictures were displaying when I was looking at the PDF in the Chrome browser.  But once I downloaded it and opened it through Acrobat, everything was there.  Thanks for the clarification.

I'm going to try the fix and see how it works.  A .002" offset is certainly better than .008".

 

[ear3]

Swapped out the offending edge stop dog and got the offset down to ".0015-.002"  Not friggin' bad.