Wow. Just, wow.
I am impressed. It's capable of more than I thought. I originally thought I was going to be sanding with four different grits, and going to have to swap belts. The tech told me this morning that with this machine to not bother and run a 120g on the first pass, and a 180g on the second pass, whereas I was planning on doing a 80g & 120g on the first pass. Swapping belts and doing a 180g & 220g on the second pass. That means a door, drawer part, or a face frame will go through the machine only twice, and it does so at about 40% higher rate of feed. With the old sander, I sent everything through six times. The lower number of passes alone cuts the machine time by two thirds. Throw in the higher feed rate, and the less effort required to finish sand product, I think it was money extremely well spent. Although I still have some buyers remorse at dropping almost $40k on the beastie.
Apparently it's ability is due to two things. The speed at which the abrasive moves is huge. My old sander chugged along at about 1800 ft/min. The new one is 4000 ft/min on the first head, and 5000 ft/min on the second head. The second thing has to do with the size of the drum that the abrasive rides on. The larger drums, means it isn't working as hard.
Using the same brand of belt, and grit for a final pass, it leaves a much smoother finish and time spent with a palm sander will drop dramatically.
I am thoroughly amazed.