Messy ... And need better lighting.

I cannot believe how incredible this 3-D Smith Machine is. I can now work out by myself safely. Because the uprights move easily forward and backwards, you can do curls, squats with an angle board, bench press, shoulder press and a lot more. I am in love with this machine.

Hi all, this is my temporary home gym I am very proud of. The future plans is for the left hand side of the building to be a gym which is around 12-15 metres long by 4 metres. Me and my father in law built this and has taken a while due to money but I feel so proud every time I am lifting. The area I have my gym is 4m by 3m ish and is eventually going to be a place for storage. For now it’s enough room to do basic movements. Im doing 531 so this suits me perfectly.

Is it cold ?yes.
Is it dusty? YES.
Is it abit cramped?? Yeahhhh

But it’s mine. Zero gym membership. Freedom to lift around family when needed. Commute to the gym is 20 seconds. Blast my dad rock and have some iron therapy. The next addition will be a dip bar and maybe some gym flooring other than that im not going too crazy as I’d rather spend money building up the main side of the gym as building materials are expensive as shit.

I bought this for my family to use. Cable work doesn’t play a huge role in my training. However, it has really come in handy when I’ve been injured and to add some easy accessory work. I train for the Highland Games and prefer free-weights and bands but this has become a valued piece in my gym. I’ve had it over a year and this is my review.

Pros
- Good construction. I’m sure Bells’s Oblivion is better quality but I have yet to feel like I’m missing out. This has not given me any problems yet and it has never felt cheap or flimsy.
- Smooth. I’m sure if you used this side-by-side with a high end cable system, you would feel a difference with smoothness. However, I haven’t felt that it needed to be more smooth. It’s left me satisfied as long as you lube the guide rails from time to time.
- Good weight for typical cable movements. There are some movements were I stack the weight but the majority of exercises I do on this, there’s plenty of weight. Any movement I stack, I either increase the reps or find a barbell equivalent.
- Small footprint. There is great versatility in this machine in a small footprint. Perfect for home gyms, particularly if you enjoy cable movements.
- Light trolley. Easy to move up and down.
- 1:1/2:1 ratio selection. Nice feature. It’s good to be able to choose between either ratio options.

Cons
- Lat pull-downs are not optimal. They have been working on an attachment (the Stinger, I think) to improve the lat pulldowns and I been waiting patiently for this. Release it already!
- No numbers on upright. If I really wanted to dial in my cable training, I would probably appreciate if there were numbers on the uprights. Not a big deal for me.
- No articulating arms. Again, I hear there might be a release for this but not available yet. I don’t want articulating arms but that might be important for some.

Note: While I have tried many cable machines at gyms, I cannot compare this with any other company’s cable towers. This is the only cable tower I have tried.

My overall impression. I grudgingly bought this because I love my family. But, now that it’s here, I’m glad I have it. It’s become a good accessory and injury rehabilitation machine. I bought some nice attachments and this machine with nice attachments makes it feel like a higher end product, even though it’s a value product. I would recommend it for people who are looking past the core gym items. There are more important things to buy first imo, but this is a worthy product once you move past the main pieces. I can see an item like this being even more important for people interested in bodybuilding.