Flex with Meg's MF DA

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bhk1004

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So i seem to have made a boo boo and ordered the MF DA cutting pad 6" with d300. well i was going to just try and suck it up and use it, but it seems that alot of people were reporting lack luster reports on results using this.

so with that i ran off and bought the flex 4 3/8 adaptor a bunch of 5 inch pads, Menzerna 85rd, SIP, power gloss, and for good measure just in case the power gloss didnt work properly i also got a bottle of 105, since ive been told the 105 works faster and seems to cut a little bit better than the power gloss... whether it does or not, i have no idea but i wanted to try to 105 out anyways eventually so was a good excuse.

anyways what i was curious about is, should I keep the MF DA cutting Pad? contemplating returning it and exchange it for something else? if it really just does suck for the flex id rather return it before i get tempted to give it a try. Thx for any recommendations.
 
It'll work fine on the Flex, just use lower speeds as the pads were designed for. I'm talking about speeds 3-4 vs 5-6.
 
To me it doesn't sound like you ordered the wrong components to use with your Flex 3401 dual action polisher.

Meguiar's DA Microfiber Correction System

2 Disc Components

  • Cutting Disc - New microfiber disc technology cuts through moderate surface defects with no swirls - guaranteed
  • Cutting disc optimized for use with DA Correction Compound D300
  • Finishing Disc - New microfiber disc technology refines surface to a high gloss finish
  • Finishing disc optimized for use with DA Finishing Wax D301
Introducing our new DA Microfiber Correction System - Car Care Forums: Meguiar's Online

The Flex 3401 is a powerful machine and is right at home with the 6" diameter pads. Meguiar's Dual Action Microfiber System should work well with this machine.

Make sure you've primed the cutting pad correctly then place 4 dime to nickel size dots of D300 compound 90 degrees apart and this should be sufficient to do a full panel; or 1/2 a normal hood.

Many times space and body contours make it difficult for pads 6" and larger so one option is to use the smaller pads as you mentioned with the 4 3/8 diameter backing plate.

If you've read where the smaller machines like the Porter Cable 7424 style polisher seem to perform better with the 5 1/2" pads you're correct. The reduction in surface area and reduced friction allow these machines to operate so mush nicer I personally think this size pad should be standard in the kits sold here and elsewhere.

You'll be very pleased with the performance of the Menzerna line.

Pinnacle makes some nice products that work well for removing swirls and medium scratches. Use these with the correct pads and you'll be amazed how the finish glows!

Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover

Pinnacle Advanced Swirl Remover is the remedy for medium to heavy swirls and scratches on your vehicle’s finish.

Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish

Pinnacle Advanced Finishing Polish is an incredibly mild polish that puts the finishing touch on the paint prior to wax .
 
07 z-oh-6 said:
Return it, trust me.
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Flex or Meg's MF?


The flex will be fine like stated above. I don't see any reason why it would not. From what people have said the Meg's MF pads help the lower machines correct better. I know Mark says the flex is not needed,but to each his own. You will be fine with what you have. The 6 inch disc will fit the regular flex BP fine. Remember the stock flex bp is only 5.5 inches.
 
loudog2 said:
Flex or Meg's MF?


The flex will be fine like stated above. I don't see any reason why it would not. From what people have said the Meg's MF pads help the lower machines correct better. I know Mark says the flex is not needed,but to each his own. You will be fine with what you have. The 6 inch disc will fit the regular flex BP fine. Remember the stock flex bp is only 5.5 inches.
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I wouldn't use the MF pads with the Flex 3401. It's like mixing water and oil, they don't work well together. JMO. If you knock the speed down to 3 with the Flex, you're spinning the pad @ ~3K OPM and the forced rotation has a negative effect on what the MF pads are trying to accomplish.
 
Nick Chapman used it and said it works fine, just a little grabby for his liking. Micheal Stops also said it works fine with the flex. It like using the flex with a foam pad. If your not used to it, it will walk on you a little. Both men said it will work, just use it a the lower speed.
 
loudog2 said:
Nick Chapman used it and said it works fine, just a little grabby for his liking. Micheal Stops also said it works fine with the flex. It like using the flex with a foam pad. If your not used to it, it will walk on you a little. Both men said it will work, just use it a the lower speed.
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I spoke to Nick about this. Even if using it at a lower speed, there's absolutely no way it will produce as good results compared to traditional DA. I've done testing with both tools and the Flex 3401 does not do a good job with the MF pads. It's not a little grabby, it's very grabby, and the Flex 3401 produces "balding" in the middle of the pad, and the Flex 3401 just does not work well with the MF system. :) The 3401 and foam pads is the ticket, awesome!
 
I'll take your word for it since I haven't tried it yet. The flex has been good to me for years, no need to give it up yet. PC is still good too. I like how you can one hand it on a SUV roof when needed, apply cleaners one handed and 4 inch the bumper/pillars.
 
Depends on the paint. I have 3 cars. A brand new BMW that has very hard paint. A 2009 Genesis, paint is also hard, and a 16 year old Lexus with soft paint. The PC&MF system takes a long time to cut the BMW paint. The Flex knocks it out in 1/2 the time, maybe even less. Same with the Hyundai. Both share the fact that they're new and factory paint. The older Lexus does not like the Flex and the MF system. Like mentioned, it's grabby. The trick is to have both machines, with both foam and MF pads. I know this isn't practice for most people, so I guess you should ask yourself, what kind of paint do I have to work with.
 
gatoman39 said:
Depends on the paint. I have 3 cars. A brand new BMW that has very hard paint. A 2009 Genesis, paint is also hard, and a 16 year old Lexus with soft paint. The PC&MF system takes a long time to cut the BMW paint. The Flex knocks it out in 1/2 the time, maybe even less. Same with the Hyundai. Both share the fact that they're new and factory paint. The older Lexus does not like the Flex and the MF system. Like mentioned, it's grabby. The trick is to have both machines, with both foam and MF pads. I know this isn't practice for most people, so I guess you should ask yourself, what kind of paint do I have to work with.
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What speed do u use with the Flex?
 
gatoman39 said:
Have you used it only on the Corvette or on many different cars?
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Yes, on the vette(hard paint), the GG DA worked much better. I also used it on a dodge ram(hard paint), and the GG DA worked much better. The "feel" when using the 3401 and MF pads is horrible, IMO.
 
You've got 4k posts, so I am gonna assume you've seen the tutorials. The only thing I can think of is that somewhere along the line you're doing something with the Flex to affect the results, that don't manifest with the GG. Either way, since you have both machines, it's not an issue.
 
Courtesy of Todd Helme....

Random Orbital DA's do not have a fixed rate of OPM's vs. RPM. Take any of the newer style DA's and run them at speed six (which is usually rated between 6000-6800 OPM). Press down VERY hard on the paint, to the point the pad stalls or almost stalls. If you press down just right you can get the pad to spin at a greatly slowed rate, like 1 time per minute. While the orbits will stall slightly, most of the slack/friction is taken up in the bearing of the machine. You have created a rate of 6800 (roughly) per rotation.

Forced Rotation DA's have a fixed rate. The orbit is actually driven by the rotation, so that if the rotation stalls, so does the OPM, and vice a versa. In regards to the Flex, you are correct. The Flex orbits ten times per rotation and this never changes. This is easy to verify, spin the pad 1 time around and count the orbits, it is always ten.

This means that at maximum speed the Flex is limited to 4800 OPM. (480 RPM x 10 orbits per rotation). Flex uses a 'unique' way of rating the machine, but if we are comparing apples to apples then random orbital DA's produce more OPMs and are less likely to have the OPM rate stall (since the motor is not responsible spinning the big pad).

Now with most polishing systems and with foam pads, the Flex is going to produce more cutting power because it is a forced system and correction is dependent on how fast the foam is moving across the paint. The combination of a forced, high speed rotation, and the orbital motion means you transfering more energy to the paint.

Things get flipped around a little bit when you use something like a Surbuf or Meguiar's DA microfiber system. The texure (little fingers or the microfiber tuft) of the pad makes it more efficent with the orbital motion than with a rotational motion.

When something is orbiting it is like moving your hand in tiny circles (wax on/wax off). This exposes ALL of the microfiber (or micro finger)'s sides to the paint. Since the abrasive grains in the polish attach to the microfiber, the increase in surface area (and the amount of abrasives working) means that most of polishing action is coming from the orbital motion instead of the spinning motion.

In fact too much spinning motion is a BAD thing (hence Meguiar's recommending a SLOWER speed for the DA system). This is because spinning the pad too fast will cause centrifugal force to pull the fibers outward and cause them to lay flat. Down you just have a standard sized pad vs. a pad that is using all of it's surface area (and far less abrasives are being used at a given time).

This is why many people are getting better results using random orbitals instead of forced rotation machines when using products like the Microfiber DA disks (or Surbuff's).

Hope this makes sense and clears up any confusion.
 
07 z-oh-6 said:
Courtesy of Todd Helme....

Random Orbital DA's do not have a fixed rate of OPM's vs. RPM. Take any of the newer style DA's and run them at speed six (which is usually rated between 6000-6800 OPM). Press down VERY hard on the paint, to the point the pad stalls or almost stalls. If you press down just right you can get the pad to spin at a greatly slowed rate, like 1 time per minute. While the orbits will stall slightly, most of the slack/friction is taken up in the bearing of the machine. You have created a rate of 6800 (roughly) per rotation.

Forced Rotation DA's have a fixed rate. The orbit is actually driven by the rotation, so that if the rotation stalls, so does the OPM, and vice a versa. In regards to the Flex, you are correct. The Flex orbits ten times per rotation and this never changes. This is easy to verify, spin the pad 1 time around and count the orbits, it is always ten.

This means that at maximum speed the Flex is limited to 4800 OPM. (480 RPM x 10 orbits per rotation). Flex uses a 'unique' way of rating the machine, but if we are comparing apples to apples then random orbital DA's produce more OPMs and are less likely to have the OPM rate stall (since the motor is not responsible spinning the big pad).

Now with most polishing systems and with foam pads, the Flex is going to produce more cutting power because it is a forced system and correction is dependent on how fast the foam is moving across the paint. The combination of a forced, high speed rotation, and the orbital motion means you transfering more energy to the paint.

Things get flipped around a little bit when you use something like a Surbuf or Meguiar's DA microfiber system. The texure (little fingers or the microfiber tuft) of the pad makes it more efficent with the orbital motion than with a rotational motion.

When something is orbiting it is like moving your hand in tiny circles (wax on/wax off). This exposes ALL of the microfiber (or micro finger)'s sides to the paint. Since the abrasive grains in the polish attach to the microfiber, the increase in surface area (and the amount of abrasives working) means that most of polishing action is coming from the orbital motion instead of the spinning motion.

In fact too much spinning motion is a BAD thing (hence Meguiar's recommending a SLOWER speed for the DA system). This is because spinning the pad too fast will cause centrifugal force to pull the fibers outward and cause them to lay flat. Down you just have a standard sized pad vs. a pad that is using all of it's surface area (and far less abrasives are being used at a given time).

This is why many people are getting better results using random orbitals instead of forced rotation machines when using products like the Microfiber DA disks (or Surbuff's).

Hope this makes sense and clears up any confusion.
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Fantastic post Mark. You are not the only one who said that the FLEX get worse results with the MF DA System. Even the guys at Megs have confirmed that the D300 will not finish as well with the FLEX.

The D300 works best when being rubbed in. It actually produces its best results (IMO) on the weakest machine available, the PCXP. On the weakest machine (PCXP), the pads last the longest and it finish's the best (again IME). The guys on the Detailed Image blog have been using the D300 on the PCXP on speed 3.5 with a lot of pressure and are getting wax ready results with one step on super hard Lambo paint.

I think you did a great service to the AG community with your input on this system when it comes to trying different machines. Thank you. I'm thankful I stumbled upon your posts before I invested in the Megs MF DA system.

BTW I have the GG and PCXP. Like I said before, I am getting better durability out of the pads (foam and MF) with the PCXP. I am finding that my GG is very hard on pads.

I just picked up the MEGS DA polisher and am going to test it with the MEGS MF DA system to see if it gets better results than the PC and GG.
 
mg6045 said:
Fantastic post Mark. You are not the only one who said that the FLEX get worse results with the MF DA System. Even the guys at Megs have confirmed that the D300 will not finish as well with the FLEX.

The D300 works best when being rubbed in. It actually produces its best results (IMO) on the weakest machine available, the PCXP. On the weakest machine (PCXP), the pads last the longest and it finish's the best (again IME). The guys on the Detailed Image blog have been using the D300 on the PCXP on speed 3.5 with a lot of pressure and are getting wax ready results with one step on super hard Lambo paint.

I think you did a great service to the AG community with your input on this system when it comes to trying different machines. Thank you. I'm thankful I stumbled upon your posts before I invested in the Megs MF DA system.

BTW I have the GG and PCXP. Like I said before, I am getting better durability out of the pads (foam and MF) with the PCXP. I am finding that my GG is very hard on pads.

I just picked up the MEGS DA polisher and am going to test it with the MEGS MF DA system to see if it gets better results than the PC and GG.
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I always glad to be of help! :dblthumb2: I agree, on hard paint, 99% of the time I'll go straight to the LSP after MF/D300.

Very interesting take on using the weakest machine. I'm curious to know how well the G110v2 works with the MF system considering they're both Meg's products.
 
07 z-oh-6 said:
Very interesting take on using the weakest machine. I'm curious to know how well the G110v2 works with the MF system considering they're both Meg's products.
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It does pretty good, as I can attest (so can Nathan, who is the one running my G110v2 in this pic):

G110v2a.jpg


On the other hand, if we're going to talk about the system's results on the "weakest machine" let's talk about the Gen-I Porter Cable.... which will stop rotating even with almost zero pressure. I found that it doesn't produce anywhere near as much cut, though it does leave a bit less hazing than the G110.

G100.jpg
 
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