Owners of Wholesale Tools ZX45

[pobanion]

I am looking for opinions on Wholesale tool's ZX45 (RF45 knock off). If you own one, or have any experience with one of them, I would like to hear if they are decent machines or not. Any other details you can give about them would also be great.

Thanks...

[davo727]

I have a 7045M from wholesale tools and I like it. I picked it up at the store in Houston. Have had it about a year. The column was out of tram quite a bit but I fixed that by squaring up the bottom of the column. Most of the rf45s probably come the same way. My tram is darn close to perfect now left right and front to rear and the mill cuts very accurately. Looks like they dont sell the M model now just the ZX. But I noticed on there website the ZX is only $1295 now. I pd 1595 for my M model. Dave

[Runner4404spd]

if your looking at the RF-45 model, i would look at the Industrial hobbies model as well. its a quite a bit bigger than the standard RF-45. i have two of these at my shop and they took the place of a worn out bridgeport i used to have.

[pobanion]

Thanks guys...

Runner4404spd... I have looked at the IH machine already. It is pretty sweet. I was thinking for the extra $800 I might rather have a DRO for the ZX45. I am still kind of on the fence though. It does look like a nice machine. How do you find the relatively low top RPM speed?

Davo727... Thanks for the feedback. I am glad to hear that you are happy with it. I was kind of expecting it to be out of tram. As long as I can eventually tune to to give some accurate results I don't really mind. I figure I will probably have to take it apart to get it in the basement anyway. I do like the price Wholesale Tools is asking for it.

[Runner4404spd]

i ran the slower motor for about 6 months. for cutting steel and cast iron and stainless it was fine. it was a little slow in aluminum, but would be fine for home use. i have since upgraded to a 220v 3400 rpm baldor motor on both of my mills. one is single phase and on the cnc model i have a 3 phase that can be over sped and run up to 4000 rpm. the extra rpm is great to use although i sometime miss the slower speeds when cutting steel on the manual mill.