So my old JD2 bender was getting a little sloppy so I sold it and bought a Pro-Tools 105HD with air over hydo and the degree ring. For the life of me, I cannot get this thing dialed in to make an indicated 90 degree angle. Anybody else having problems with the accuracy of the degree ring?

Pro-Tools customer service has just about convinced me to never buy their products again. I've built countless cages, bumpers, etc... with my JD2, and after spending $2000 on Pro-Tools, all they can say is that the degree ring is simply a reference point, not an actual bend indicator! In other words, :flipoff2:

Any help would be appreciated.

Jim

First the most obvious....When you load the bender and bend a 90 what does it actually end up being?

Are you accounting for spring back?
Did you torque the hell out of the main arm bolts? Sometimes if they are not super tight the arms will twist on you and give bad readings....

The Stop and degree is just a reference, it is not a spec mill or anything......On mine, after I have established spring back. I then adjust the pointer the correct amount of offset and bend it to 90, but I do not rely solely on the stop and degree to determine that it is a 90. Double check it with something else....

If you have problems give me call.....

Might be a similar situation.

http://www.offroadfabnet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=410

Looks like Protools and Keithflux both provided good customer service.

Just a quick note to let you guys know what a great guy Keith is. I did not even buy my bender from him, and yet he spent a good hour on the phone with me tonight helping me fix the problem.

Thanks Keith!

Jim

So how about you share what you learned with the rest of the class so they can all know too.

Dallas

I will let Jim tell you if any of the things we talked about worked or not....

But this is what was said.....It was not the wrong marking on the die, the tube size was correct and the die and backing block where matched.

the first item was, and I had a customer who had this problem.....the two main arms can move and scissor on themselves. When this happens it give the effect of bending up hill. My customer that his happened to, his arms where a 1/4" off and nothing he did would get a two bend level. The fix is to put an impact on the two main nuts and bolts....or do as I did and make two small shims so to speak that go on the side of the stand to keep the bottom main arm from twisting even if the nuts are loose....

I dont think this was Jims main problem, even though his arms where a little off....

The second thing was, when you go from manual to hydro the ram sucks the swing arms all the way back under the main arms. This does not happen with it as a manual.

When you bend using manual, you load the tube put the tube strap on pull on the swing arms to move them out far enough to get into the first slot on the ratchet arm. well when you do this it also takes all the slack out of the system.

Because everything is so tight with a hydro conversion you forget to do this. I did the very same thing when I first went to hydro and everyone of my bends where 10 to 12 degrees off.....

So what you do, is load the tube then put on the tube strap...then activate the ram to move about an inch ( no bending is taking place when you do this) this takes all the slack out of everything. Then you snug the strap tab bolt against the tube and then if you have a backing block with a snug tab you tighten this bolt.

Then lastly you set your pointer to the proper spring back calc on the Stop/degree. And this should get you with in 1 degree of a 90, if you followed setting spring back correctly and snugged every thing by pulling the swing arms out.

Hope that helps someone.....