DP1550 Pulley Alignment

[Stuart H]

I bought the DP1550 this weekend, and have everything setup according to the manual except for the pulleys. The front and rear pulleys are at the same height and came that way out of the box, but the middle idler pulley is about 1/8" lower than the other two. The manual says to loosen the motor mounts and move the motor to get the pulleys at the same height. Will doing this allow all three pulleys to be at the same height?

It seems like I could align the middle and rear that way but that the front one might then be high. Does anyone know if moving the motor will solve the problem, or is there an alternate way to move just the middle pulley? Since the manual states that the pulleys are aligned at the factory, and the front and rear were indeed aligned, I am hesitant to move the motor unless I know it will solve the problem with the idler pulley.

The belts seem to track normally even with the center pulley slightly low, and I am not getting any vibrations or noises from it or anything - but I've only tried it at a low speed so far. Other than the pulley alignment, the DP looks and works great, and is a nice step up from my old benchtop DP.

[UO_Woody]

Stuart,

I had the same problem on my first drill press.
Try pulling the belts off, and pull out the middle pulley assembly, and slap a washer on the shaft so the L bracket holds the assembly up with the motor and spindle pulleys.

[Stuart H]

Thanks. I thought of the washer solution but wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not. I'll do that if there is no other way around it. I guess it shouldn't hurt anything since the pulley wouldn't be spinning on the washer.

[Stuart H]

Just to let people know what I ended up doing, I thought I would mention that I wrote to Jake and he had them send out a replacement idler pulley. I don't have it yet, but it should resolve the problem. Thanks to Jake and Ridgid for the great service and the great tools. smile.gif

[Stuart H]

I received the replacement idler pulley and it fixed the alignment problem. Thanks again to Jake and Ridgid for the great service.

[ 04-21-2003, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: Stuart H ]