Bendpak XPR-10S review
To start with, I would be grossly remiss if I didn’t bring up the woeful excuse for an installation manual supplied with this lift, the omissions and mistakes are so prevalent it will be hard to mention most of them in this writing.
One of the first glaring items comes with the instructions to install the equalizer cables, the manual fails to mention that the location of the lockplate the cable buttons need to be inserted into is buried in the middle of the carriage and takes a very thin arm to be able to reach the slot, all unsighted.
The manual also does not mention that there is no method to lock the cable into place once it is in the slot. Any service work that might require one side to be lifted will easily dislodge the cable from the locking slot and require much additional work to relocate it, a very poor design.
One of the six cable sheaves was very poorly machined, one side of the sheave was machined far passed the normal edge location, making the edge razor sharp, and the surface of that side of the cable contact area has a very prominent undulation, totally unusable, Bendpak was asked to replace the sheave, which they agreed to, but decided to ship it by FedX ground, from California, one week.
The safety lock release cable pulley mounted to the safety switch side of the top bar was welded to the wrong side of the plate, left to right, it was cut back off and re-welded to the correct side leaving a mess which was subsequently painted over.
The welded mounts for the safety switch bar mounted to the top crossbar had holes drilled in them at 9mm and nearly 11mm yet supplied with 8mm bolts & nuts, the hole in the sliding end bracket had a hole in it over 11mm.
Both ends of the welded brackets and the bar mounting brackets had to be drilled and fitted with 7/16” bolts to take the slop out of the fit. After fitting the properly sized bolts, the bar would then hit the edge of the welded switch box so it couldn’t reach the switch operator, likely the reason they supplied 8mm bolts to the larger holes, the switchbox edge had to be ground to accommodate the bar location.
The mounting holes for the safety switch cover were drilled too small to accommodate the screws supplied, even after scraping the paint from the inside of the holes. The original screws were scrapped and proper sized and fit screws were used.
The torsion springs that mount on the ends of each of the carriage lock pivot pins are wound opposite of the ones in the manual drawing.
The power unit motor supplied with this unit is not the one depicted in the manual, not even close, the motor supplied with this lift has the model number they show for this lift but is far different than the one in their manual and in their records.
Two of the seven wires coming out of the motor inside the control box were not connected to anything, the wires had terminals on them but were not connected. This motor is a cap start/cap run motor, not like the one depicted in their manual, I contacted Bendpak about it and requested a correct schematic of the motor controls, they sent me the same drawing as in the manual.
I again reiterated the differences in the motors, even sent them pictures, and finally a line drawing I had to make of what was in the control box, so far I have heard nothing back from Bendpak, it’s been three days now, I have been corresponding with a guy named Simon. The lift sits idle until wiring instructions from Bendpak arrive.
The electrical drawing and the power wiring for a 220vac unit are incorrect, they show , black/white/ green wires, black white and green are the colors used for 120vac In the US, they also call the white a neutral, which is also properly called out for a 120vac system. These lift power units do not operate at 120vac. 220vac systems are supposed to call out black/black/green for power, at least in the 18 countries I’ve worked in.
The columns supplied with this lift are a primer gray color, not blue as depicted in their adverts, the columns had numerous large scrapes and abrasions which look like they came from rough handling at the manufacturer end of the chain. Bendpak loaded the flatbed trailer that was requested to minimize the potential for handling damage, the lift had not been moved on the trailer from Bendpak to me and was not damaged by my forklift in any way when unloading.
To date, two months later, after numerous attempts to get Bendpak to supply a proper electric schematic of the motor/capacitor connections, all they have supplied is the lame schematic shown in the manual which does not depict the proper connections from the motor to the two start/run capacitors.
They have consistently stated they do not have the information on the product they sell and the supervisor of Simon the genius named Gary, email address supplied, stated that nobody should be concerned with the capacitor connections, that after receiving the unit in an inoperable conditions with wires not connected and not sure of the safety of applying power to a unit with existing connection issues.
The lift is still sitting powerless waiting for an intelligent response from Bendpak, TWO MONTHS ON.
One should seriously consider finding an alternative lift supplier than Bendpak.
After two months of no response to my requests for documentation on how this unit is supposed to be wired I advised Bendpak if I had no resolution to this issue I would be forced to make this issue public, pay attention people, the lift seems to be built reasonably well from something from uncle Fong’s lift garage, but the people responsible for it’s sale and service have fallen off the edge of acceptability.
I will gladly provide the email trail of responses to me from Bendpak upon request.
The email addresses of the unresponsive parties are:
[email protected]
[email protected]
By the way, Brian at ASEdeals has been very helpful in attempting to resolve this issue, unfortunately, Bendpak has fallen far short of expectations.
Gary B.
[email protected]
