[bustah]

Shout out to Ohio for this awesome donation.

I just received this semi retired machine today. Out of the box running, I noticed quite some tension on the knob when opening and closing the chamber. The spoon feed was also a little slow. I made a few sticks but noticed I will need some practice before I can get the packing I am used to. The spoon also didn't give enough push to drop off the finished stick.

I found the small hopper add on piece quite useless in my opinion. The add-on is quite loose and wobbles around. I also noticed it was much harder to tamper shags with my fat fingers compared to my T-O-M. The indented chamber wall seems to make tampering a lot harder.

Opening the machine up actually destroyed 2 of the rubber feet. (Thin with super strong adhesive)

For anyone considering to refurbish it yourself, you might want to keep extra rubber feet around. It would be great if they can add a mat like surface to the bottom with accessible screw holes without covering up the ventilation holes.

Disassembling this machine was quite easy but the amount of tobacco dust/crumbs, goo and tobacco oil/grease that is stuck on the parts was quite horrifying. I didn't even bother to take a picture of that. I can't even imagine if anything fall into one of my RYO sticks. Luckily everything is being elevated toward the bottom.

I literally took everything apart due to how dirty it was. It needed a super deep cleaning down to the housing itself. I think it took me a good 2 hours just to rescue this semi retired machine. I don't think I'd want to clean another machine. I'd rather just pay for a new machine unless there is a good enough reason. (For example JGT Machine)

After putting everything back together, I noticed the knob no longer have much tension other than opening the chamber. I still didn't give it a try yet but I fired it up and the spoon seems to be much faster.

Like most people said, this thing is quite noisy. I noticed the ac wire is using one of those laptop connectors. I was thinking if it would be possible to solder it to a USB instead so I can hook it up to a portable battery.

[ohiophil]

Thats a lot of effort there buddy. Lol. Hopefully a deep clean will bring it back to life. I don't know is USB will power it though. Aren't those usually 5v? You'd have to check the voltage/amp rating on the unit to see.

I semi tore up one of those feet a while back. Easily replaced with little rubber stick on feet though. I think I have some in my junk drawer if you can't find any. A bigger softer rubber foot would be better. Maybe the damn thing wouldn't slide around so much.

Let us know if you manage to get it back together, and if it works like new. Fingers crossed for ya

[bustah]

Everything is already back up and like new but I just haven't had the chance make any cigarettes with it yet. I did test the knob and spoon function which tends to be much faster.

Overall the machine doesn't glide it's only the add-on hopper which I absolutely hate. It wobbles all over the place.

Due it being a AC 100V-240V 2 slot non-polarized it will be quite hard to modify as there isn't any adapter or battery packs for it. I will need to look at the 2pin on the board itself to see if I am able to do any mods.

[ohiophil]

Yeah. The hopper ( if you can call it that ) sucks. I thought about using super glue on it for a while, then I just quit using it. You can get a pretty decent pile on top of the machine anyway.

For battery power: maybe just use a 12v rig and a cheap inverter. You could probably fit everything in a small project box. Just a thought.

Glad it's working for you. Maybe in a year or so, you can have a beat up Poweroll 2!

[bustah]

Actually since powermatic requires an high voltage it's not really modifiable. There is some new battery pack that raised fund of $400k called Chargetech but cost like $85. It cost more than the machine. I don't see the point to use that, although it support two-3 prong as an portable outlet.

https://chargetech.com/product/portable-power-outlet/


I wonder why powermatic won't go with an inject button. I prefer that over an knob any day.

[ohiophil]

The lever closes the chamber, and cuts the extra baccy off. To use a button, it would require an extra motor to close it. so cost is probably why

[ohiophil]

12k mah wouldn't last very long

[bustah]

Just made a couple of sticks with the Powermatic 2+. Sorry to say but It doesn't seem to work too well with shags. I find it much harder to get a balanced loose stick compared to a manual T-O-M. The surface on the Powermatic way too small which is hard to loosen up shags and easy to drop tobaccos all over. I also find it quite hard to control the overall compaction if you don't make a semi stiff stick.

The overall time needed to RYO ends up being 2-3x slower compared to my normal speed. The wire is also aggravating, especially when I am RYOing on my sofa.

One of the biggest flaw I found is that the rubber piece holding the tube doesn't retract after injecting unless you lift up the knob. It's gripping on too tight, filing/sanding it down a bit might fix this problem. There seems to be a lot of unnecessary delays.

Personally I think the best design for a compact electric machine would be a T-O-M with inject button and clean button. Clean button will have spoon come out for you to clean.

Just found something on youtube, a korean machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze8X2psS4vI

[ohiophil]

To clean out, just lift the lever and close again.

You'll get faster with it, I could crank out a lot of smokes in a short time with it. Poweroll is faster though

Shags don't do very well in the Poweroll either. I have to cut into 1" pieces and rub out to get it to work. Kendal gold is worth the extra effort imo

[masklofumanto]

"Just made a couple of sticks with the Powermatic 2+. Sorry to say but It doesn't seem to work too well with shags. I find it much harder to get a balanced loose stick compared to a manual T-O-M. The surface on the Powermatic way too small which is hard to loosen up shags and easy to drop tobaccos all over. I also find it quite hard to control the overall compaction if you don't make a semi stiff stick."

"Shags don't do very well in the Poweroll either. I have to cut into 1" pieces and rub out to get it to work."

The Fresh Choice machine handles Three Sails fine, so long as you drop the tobacco loosely into the hopper.