Does anyone have experience with a Diamond Pacific X-Machine? We are looking at getting a Genie, but saw the Xpert/X88 in the DP catalog. Eight wheels is tempting, especially for cabbing corundum. But the Genie is the de facto standard, and I can’t find much on-line in the way of reviews or anything about the X-Machines. What do you all think? Stick with tried-and-true Genie, or try the Xpert/X88?
I don’t have any actual experience with Diamond Pacific X-Machine but I looked at them online and they have the same design flaw as the DP Pixies, Genies and Titans. It is the spitter that is in the tray that splashes dirty water on the wheels. This causes the wheels to wear prematurely. And they are expensive to replace.
I’m speaking from 20+ years of lapidary experience and have cut thousands of cabs on a Genie and later my go to machine a1960’s era Star Diamond grinder which I use Diamond Pacific flex wheels on. The Star Diamond has fresh water feeds for each wheel. No splashing dirty water up on the wheels.
You might check out Kingsley North for comparison shopping: https://kingsleynorth.com/
Rick Copeland
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I built a recirculating coolant system for my 6 wheel Lortone arbor five years ago. I used a heavy 30 gallon plastic tub, smaller bucket, submersible pump, plastic tubing, valves and pvc piping. The pump is inside the bucket sunk into the 30 gallons of coolant. Coolant is sprayed up against the wheels through pvc piping and then collected into a drain system that allows the coolant to enter the bottom of the tub where dirt settles out of the coolant. With the pump inside the submerged bucket clean coolant enters the bucket over the top of the bucket and gets reused. I clean the sump out every six months and it all seems to work well. My wheels are diamond plated and resin wheels and so far have not worn out. I use them hard on both silver and lapidary material. I agree that just recirculating the same small amount of coolant inside the tray of an arbor would quickly wear out the wheels of an otherwise very good machine.
I agree with Rick that the DP Genie’s flaw is the water-spitter wetting mechanism that recycles water from the drainage tray. Not only will that recycled grit-bearing water wear your wheels down prematurely, it also re-deposits swarf onto the stone you’re trying so hard to polish on the next-higher wheel. And as it aerosolizes, it can carry stone dust that you definitely should not be inhaling. My choice was the CabKing owing to its fresh-water supply that is trickled onto each wheel from above.
- Lorraine
CabKing has fresh water drip instead of the DP spitter. I need to have a closer look at that one. Thanks.