Powermatic16-Inch Open-End Belt Sander, 5 HP, 230V 1Ph (Model 1632)

The Powermatic 1632 is a heavy duty machine but good for a medium to large hobbyist shop. I bolted mine to the slab and put it on a 50 Amp 1 phase circuit. The belt is super easy to change and it was all aligned perfectly from the factory. I use both an 80 grit and a 120 grit belt - my old grizzly dust collector works just fine - I think it is 3 HP. Planning flat and then sanding flatter is such a very nice to have.I have had trouble free operation. However, due to a problem I caused by accidently overloading , I stalled the drum blowing the motor start capacitor. My fault. I replaced the $5 capacitor with an industrial version of the EXACT same values - about $50. The machine starts much faster.I must give it 5 Stars because it is both convenient and well-built.

So far has not worked yet. I wish I spent my money on a product that worked.I bought this Powermatic 16 inch open ended belt sander because I am setting up wood shop. I purchased it in time to complete a large project with family who drove in from out of state to help. The belt sander arrived on time but out of the box the belt runs off the end of the drum on one side and gets torn up.I called tech support and the first technician gave me some trouble shooting steps to follow and asked me to email him with information and pictures about the malfunctioning Powermatic sander. That day I sent an email with all the info and waited for a call back and... nothing.We were out at the Zoo and Kayaking the next couple days and I was exhausted, so I checked my email two days later on a Saturday and noticed that I received an email notification that the Powermatic Tech's email was invalid.I called back again and explained the situation to the new tech. He seemed very rushed and he said to send an email to the main tech email. I asked him what the address was and he seemed confused. Then he said it so fast I couldn't hear him. I asked him to repeat a couple of times but still couldn't understand what the address was, so I asked him to spell it. This seemed to confuse him again and he blurted it out so fast I couldn't understand him. I asked him to say again a couple times and I think he was getting frustrated, so I figured I'd let him off the phone and try to figure it out myself. I went to the Powermatic website and the tec support email wasn't listed. So I guessed at what the email was and sent it to my top three guesses. All were wrong. So I was able to find a parent company page that showed the email extension rules for the company and I resent my email to three more guesses at the tec support email. Finally, success... I received a automated response assigning me a case number and informing me that I am an important customer and my support request will be answered in the order it was received.It's two days later and I haven't heard anything back from Powermatic. The project that we were working on is nearing completion and now we are waiting to sand our 14 panels on my non functional new Powermatic 16 inch wide belt sander. They have to go back home in a week so their kids can go back to school.My Powermatic 16 inch wide open ended belt sander has pretty much ruined our plans and waisted a lot of vacation days for all of us.I purchased Powermatic at a premium price based on reputation for reliability. So far they are 0 for 1 on reliability in my shop. I am starting to wish I had purchased a unrelated brand and saved a couple thousand dollars instead. Our project would already be finished and I could have bought more tools with the money I saved.Still waiting for a technician to come fix my brand new sander over a month after notifying customer support. I called the third party tech and he told me on the first call not to call him back because he was busy and he might come check out my sander in a couple weeks if he had time.

A rather expensive tool, but it works great. The only issue I've had with it is that the roller table extension tables weren't properly aligned.It's not obvious that the alignment of the table extensions is adjustable, and there's no mention of adjusting the alignment in the instruction. Other than that, I've had no problems with it and it works as expected.Update 5/2016The pneumatic switch which controls on/off of the belt tensioning failed, and of course right when I needed the sander. Rather than wait for a replacement part (at close to $100) I reconnected the air lines to the switch to "hot wire" it to the "tension" selection. Now I use the manual air shutoff valve at the sander's airline connection point to de-tension the belt when I need to change belts. a Very minor inconvenience.I added a Wixi digital thickness gauge to both this sander and my delta thickness planer. Great gauges, inexpensive, simple to calibrate. One note on the calibration - if the platen position on the sander is changed, this will throw off the thickness reading of the digital readout and it will need to be re-calibrated. Calibration takes less than a minute.

Great product. The small footprint is perfect for my needs—I didn’t want to dedicate the space to a 37” but I needed something that can grind lots of linear when the occasion calls for it. I’m very impressed with the unit. Get a bigger one if you need it, but if you don’t, and demand quality, this will not disappoint.