My original post was trolling for opinions on getting a Diamond Pacific Pixie, but with lots of input and research I instead purchased Kingsley North's Stainless Steel 6" NOVA Grinding Polishing Machine.
I have been using it daily for the last 3 months on average 2 hours per day.
I love it! But it does have CONs along with the PROs:
PRO: Being stainless, it well, doesn't stain as does the plastic of the DP trays; it was worth the extra $$ for the NOVA wheels (325, 600, 1200 and 3000). It has a great smooth operation, nice and solid and well balanced (it came with the wheels assembled on the arbor). I really like the reservoir water feed system, because I didn't think of it until working with this, with a spitter you are spitting dirty water up at your wheel (and I read somewhere about cross contamination of grit is a big negative).
My CONs are mostly with the water system! I did see a review that the spigots tend to leak - my 325 and my 3000 both do, even after I undid the whole system and put pipe tape on all the fittings.
I also just discovered the other day that the nut holding the spigot from the reservoir was NOT stainless and it was rusting and contaminating the water. I found a brass fitting in the toilet section of HD to replace it.
And lastly and mostly - the water system spigots are screwed into holes in the stainless hood, and the hood is held in place in three spots by thumb screws.
I realized (luckily before I ruined my wheels), that the water sprayers were not lined up with the wheels and I wasn't getting full coverage (I wondered why the wheels had "tracks" on them, and well my cabs were cruddy!)
I wrote to KN and am disappointed to say that they have not responded, but I found a solution:
I took out the thumbscrews and I shift the hood to line up the sprayer over the wheel I am using. I plan on writing to them again, as they really should do a better QC on these machines!
So, there you have it!
If you have any questions I would be more than happy to reply within my own (limited) knowledge :)