greenlee 555

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greetings forum,

Im in a bit of a bind. I'm trying to bend 2"emt with our greenlee 555 "tombstone" bender and we keep kinking the pipe as it goes around the shoe. The bender originally had the rigid shoe group and we just purchased the emt shoe group for the 555 classic. I was told by the people at greenlee, the 555 classic is the same as the greenlee 555.

The new shoe group installed perfectly, everything looks square and exactly like the drawings in the instruction manual, yet it kinks the pipe everytime when the shoe gets to about 25 to 27 degrees.

Attached are pictures of the shoe group as installed as well as the picture of the pipe kinking.

If anyone see's something I'm missing please reach out.

John 530-545-0141
 

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iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
I know that on the similar Greenlee smart bender there are squeeze adjustments that can be made to eliminate kinks or ripples.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
We had this very same problem with 2" on a 555 years ago.

It's been a while, but it was something like the roller set not being totally in place. By 'roller set' I mean the part that comes off and is replaced for smaller conduit.

It was only a fraction of an inch from being all the way set, very hard to notice, but if it wasn't, it would kink almost every time.

IIRC, we cleaned everything and lubed it up and made SURE the 2" set is all the way in place and had no more trouble.

I hope this helps.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Seems like 2" EMT is most likely to kink on just about any bender over other sizes.

Quality of tubing you are using does come into play some from what I have experienced and been told by others, so don't use the cheapest tubing you can find, for pieces you need to make bends on anyway.
 

jusme123

Senior Member
Location
NY
Occupation
JW
I will look at the squeeze adjustment closely tomorrow. It makes since.

I did also noticed when I first picked up the 2" emt out of the rack, it felt really lite in my hands. noticeably lite. The emt was made by Western Tube and Conduit company. I hope this isn't the case, because I'm working on the island of Molokai, and to get new emt is going to be a real process, involving planes, ships and automobiles.

Mahalo everyone
 

ADub

Senior Member
Location
Midwest
Occupation
Estimator/Project Manager
I will look at the squeeze adjustment closely tomorrow. It makes since.

I did also noticed when I first picked up the 2" emt out of the rack, it felt really lite in my hands. noticeably lite. The emt was made by Western Tube and Conduit company. I hope this isn't the case, because I'm working on the island of Molokai, and to get new emt is going to be a real process, involving planes, ships and automobiles.

Mahalo everyone

Hope that does it, I've worked with many 555s over the years and there's been several that had squeeze adjustments so temperamental we ended up selling or junking them


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

mike7330

Senior Member
Location
North America
555

555

I have an old 555, some of the new pipe today is thinner.
But I found you can try a different pipe manufacture
Make sure you adjust the 2 screws/bolts on the roller assembly
My 555 EMT shoe set came with a adjustment set tool
And the other problem you can run into if the rollers don't roll
They will hold the EMT from moving with the shoe and it will kink
 

Smart $

Esteemed Member
Location
Ohio
You can download the manual here http://www.manualslib.com/download/271951/Greenlee-555-22.html

And as I suspected there is a squeeze adjustment on the 555.

See page 11 of the manual I linked to for details.
https://greenlee-cdn.ebizcdn.com/media/IM1448REV09.pdf
INSTRUCTION MANUAL
Greenlee 555C Electric Bender Classic
Serial Codes AFB and ADE
IM 1448 REV 9 4/15

See pages 11-13.

Do not even begin to think you can bend EMT without reading and complying with the instructions!!!

If the rollers were formerly adjusted for bending IMC, you can be assured your EMT bends will kink if you don't adjust the rollers to what's needed for EMT.

From what I see in the picture of kinked EMT, the conduit isn't loaded properly. IIRC, the 2 rollers should cradle/center on the tangent point of the shoe, and squeeze the conduit, as the bend progresses.
 
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rambojoe

Senior Member
Location
phoenix az
Occupation
Wireman
the only time I kinked big pipe (on the 881) was when I loaded the follow bar backwards. we wasted one then tried the other seam up. oops. I swear one of our bars didn't have the arrow! I never liked those triple nickel electric benders only because of the rollers. double check your manual to make sure there isn't some goofy roller position for thickwall but I doubt it.
 
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