Hi all,
I have been busy sanding my deck lately, and I gave the sander a good workout. I quickly learned to appreciate good sanding abrasive. Anyway, I bought this ryobi sander thinking that I rarely need a belt sander so I spent less. I was right, it was cheap... Out of the box, the sanding frame doesn't fit correctly to the plastic moulding. Okay I don't need it so that's fine. The noise... well it's not very nice noise, I use earplug anyway. The cyclonic collection is only 40% effective at collecting heavier dust from 40 grit sanding, improves to 70% with a vacuum hose and dust collector attached. The dust extraction channel isn't highly effective. There is still quite an amount of dust spewing out, the suction channel gets choked sometimes, then it's 0% effective until it gets cleared. The rubber wheel wears out if force is applied you can smell burning rubber and you will see black dust from the wear.

All those are not massive issue, still works fine. The result is great.

Now the bigger issue.

The self adjusting belt mechanism started to seize. This causes the belt to wander. I had to take it apart, luckily it was constructed in two parts which quickly mended it by clearing the dust and spraying some lube around the belt adjustment slider mechanism. That fixed the problem. However, the dust quickly wick away the lube and it will seize again. A permanent fix is to reduce the thickness of the slide or enlarge the plastic slot where the slide contacts. I did neither of those I wanted to get the job done quickly. Luckily additional lubing can be sprayed from outside with straw type aerosol cans without contaminating the belt path. It didn't require any disassembling in the first place. I always thought those aerosol lube cans with straw are useless but now I see the use. This happens around 15 hours of heavy sanding.

Second issue, weak flimsy wire with wire strain relief/ wire gland pointing downwards is a massive disaster. I happen to be one. It tried to kill me when the cable was accidentally chewed into the belt path, causing a massive voltage spike and sparks on the sander! Funny thing is, it didn't trip any fuse despite that my house is built recently(new electricals) but my wife notice the lights dimmed a few times. There were smoke and the sanding belt burned a few area.

I couldn't be bothered to bring it back for an exchange, a same one will be likely to kill me next time and they probably would blame it on user fault. I am also the type of 'fix it' rather than 'toss it' person. So a I undid a few screws, and with the adjustable front handle removed the cover came apart. Undid the cable grip and wire screw terminal. Snip and install a new thick and stiff 10A cable, and 20 minutes it's back to live again. The idea is to have a stiff cable which will push itself away from the belt when reversing and thick enough so it doesn't fit in the belt path.

Btw the built is excellent. It's pretty robust, I knock it on every corners to remove the dust clot. It would probably survive a 6 feet drop.

From the pictures you can see dust got everywhere. The motor, around the bearings(hopefully sealed), around the commutator and brushes. Nothing is sealed from sanding dust.

So to summarise,
Sanding frame doesn't fit correctly.
Self adjusting belt mechanism fail to work after some use - can be fixed with straw spraying lube.
Rubber on wheel wears out - will Ryobi supply parts?
Weak flimsy cord can easily be sucked in and cause fire - very dangerous

.P1100324.JPGP1100323.JPGP1100320.JPGP1100319.JPG

I just googled, most cable strain relief of other belt sanders points upwards!