DONOW Smith Machine: Power Cage & Cable Crossover

This thing is a beast and worth every dollar you pay for it!
This first review, is about the receiving of it, the unpacking of it, the assembly of it, and the quality of it.First, be ready for eight, mostly heavy boxes. One of them is 50 pounds or so, and the rest are all like 80+ bordering on 100 pounds.Assembly: Once you unpack everything this is where the real work begins. There is a video on YouTube that is invaluable and should win a short film Academy Award for those of us that go about building something with 1000 parts. I’m joking about the number of parts.First of all, one of the most amazing things about the organization of parts is the way that they have each of the bolts and nuts organized by the section you’re working on. Some cover multiple sections, but what’s nice is that 90% of the nuts are all one size. They say 17 mm but in all actuality a 16 mm wrench was perfect.I set out to not be in a hurry in building the rack. In fact, I did not take YouTube out to the garage with me where I was building it. When I had a question, I came back into my house, sat down in my recliner and watch the video back-and-forth a few times (for the section I was working on – not the whole thing). I slowed YouTube down to 50% speed and no volume because the music might send you over the edge mentally.Stepping away for the video, was incredibly helpful.Everything went smoothly, and I built it all by myself without an extra person to stabilize anything. As I said, I was slow and methodical, even so I still got things backwards and had to undo things a couple of times.Pro tip: when assembling the large cable with the ball at the end, pay very close attention. When you run it through the very front set of pulleys – make sure you go underneath a metal piece there on the back of the lower pulley. Going from memory here. I think it was the lower pulley either way look at the back of those two pulleys and you’ll see it. Otherwise you’re gonna have to undo quite a few pulleys, but it wasn’t catastrophic.As for the parts, they were pretty much perfect. I ended up with only two extra washers.Stability: You’re gonna be very impressed with how stable the set up is there is no rocking or wobbling, unless you lean into it and force it to wobble.So you might ask yourself why not do a review on how well it is to work out with?And that’s a fair question. You see I’m 61 years old and have not worked out with any kind of weights in five years so after moving everything into place and getting it all set up, I feel like my first week in a gym. My back was sore. My glutes were sore And my hamstrings feel like a weedeater got to them.In other words for those in my age bracket, I’m the scrawny kid on the back of the comic book getting sand kicked in my face. Unfortunately, there’s no Charles Atlas to rescue me now.Give me a week or two, and I’ll come back and write a review about how well it works, the smoothness and all the mechanics.My first inclination is that I may have to go back and back off the tightness of the pulley bolts. It could also be from being brand new, and I only grabbed the balls at the end of the cables. Once I put a proper handle or grip on it, it might work a lot easier. Once I sit down on a bench or start working the cables properly I’ll be able to tell if this thing is smooth and fluid with the cabling and pulleys and weights.First impression there may be more expensive ones out there with brand names, but this thing to me seems top of the line. The only reason I can see not buying this is if you wanted something American made versus Chinese.Having said that, if you’re looking at an American company, do your due diligence and make sure they’re not importing it from China and putting their name on it. Because as of right now, this Chinese product is top-notch, especially in the price range being sold.

Gets the job done
I’ve been working out with this machine for about 2 weeks now. Overall, this gets the job done! You can’t beat the bang for the buck. A smith machine, stack weights, and the ability to have an actual squat rack. It has everything you need. Though some of the construction seems to be on the cheaper side, it all lines up together well. I’d recommend getting the better model with 1-1 pulley ratio and steel stack weights, but my base model is just fine. It took my friend and I 5ish hours to install. Paper instructions are a C- at best. The video helps, but they move so fast that you have to rewind 3-4x just to see what’s going on.Customer service was great as well. I was missing some bolts and washers for the stacked weight guards. They shipped out the parts basically the next day and I received a couple days later. Ballin on a budget? Get this!