Carbatec 300mm Helical Head Thicknesser Jointer TJ-X300C
Recently I've upgraded from Spiral Head Carba-Tec 10" Planer Thicknesser with Cabinet Base AW106PTX which on itself is a great machine
Reason for upgrade.. needed more width..
so to begin
noise level... It appears to be bit quieter than the 10" one. Being helical head quality of finish is great. Main difference between two units.. the 300mm version the whole top comes up away from the operator while 10" version.. two sides come up individually towards the operator.
300mm requires 15A power although plate states max power 9.8A so I guess it would run on 10A circuit but in much shallower passes..
fence is now aluminium rather than a cast iron . factory alignment was pretty much spot on.. I had to shim a fence tiny bit to get exact 90 degrees and thats about it. assembly was pretty much straight forward.. not much is actually disassembled for transport.. screw on the guard arm .. put the fence assembly on and screw it with 2 screws and thats about it.. digital readout calibration is very easy..
run the timber through thicknesser.. grab a calliper measure thickness.. take off height adjustment wheel and dust shroud from the gauge which exposes grub screw..loosen the screw and rotate axel until you get number matching the caliper readout.. tighten everything, put the adjustment wheel back and thats it.. overall calibration took less than few minutes.
Pros:
bigger capacity.. 300mm width will cover for much wider variety of use . Helical head leaves very smooth finish.. Minimal to none of the snipe experienced so far. Noise is very low especially when you plane / thickness wide boards
dust collection hood is now secured with a side pin rather than a front pin on the 10" version which makes it more accessible
15A definitely helps as machine just breezes through the timber and I'm able to take off more in one pass (speeds up the process)
thicknessing adjustment is very smooth and quick. 300mm version has a lever rather than a twist screw . Digital readout is now factory fitted.. :)
Cons:
there is really not much to complain about the machine.. but there has to be some cons :)
readout for the thicknessing depth is basically ... unreadable.. its more a guide rather than precision measurement.. its a weird scale.. with big gaps between lines so its not really 1 line - 1 mm.. still trying to figure out the ratio.. 10" version had that part much better done..
guard.. this is more of personal thing.. same as the smaller cousin.. this one uses adjustable height aluminium extrusion blade covering guard .. rather than spring loaded guard that opens as you pass timber and closes straight after timber passes..
conclusion
well i was happy with the 10" version. The 12" just filled that gap I needed to do wider planks in one go. Machine is solid and ... heavy (about 200 something kg).. the top opening away from the operator is a great improvement as it actually reduces the show footprint when in use as a thicknesser.. (at least in my case) the smaller version was opening towards the operator which meant I needed more room on that side to go around the machine when doing thicknessing. Would I recommend the machine.. definitely yes.. its a great addition to the workshop
