yahoo group

[DrStein99]

I tried to join the yahoo group for this; went to "yahoo groups" (same dialog page where I go to find yahoo groups in the past) and "search" and type "hobbycnc" - it found nothing

did the same for "hobby cnc" and got about 13 misc. other pages.

Does that still exist?

[ger21]

Looking at their website, it appears that the group is now secret. Says they'll tell you the name of the group when you buy something. If you've already purchased from them, try e-mailing Dave.

[HobbyCNC]

Looking at their website, it appears that the group is now secret. Says they'll tell you the name of the group when you buy something. If you've already purchased from them, try e-mailing Dave.

It's no secret we have a Yahoo hosted support group for purchasers of HobbyCNC products.

Dave Rigotti
HobbyCNC.com

[tintruder]

Try the alternatives at www.cncresource.com or www.ohmicron.com.

They use the same basic chipset (SLA7062), but looked at the shortcomings of the HobbyCNC design and improved upon it in many ways.

I have a HobbyCNC board, and like a great number of customers, had to replace the driver chips when they exploded. Yes, EXPLODED with black plastic shrapnel all over the room. Just like 2 or 3 other customers each week. Plus a trace on the PCB burned up like a fuse.

The constant message traffic "How do I get replacement chips" is why you can't get into the support group until you buy the board. Dave sells them for $15 (reduced to $12 just this week when I posted where to buy them for $8) each and you need 4 of them.

It is possible to run the HCNC board without blowing it up if all conditions are perfect, but there is simply not enough information on the HCNC site or in the instructions to accomplish this. Further, even if you ask "how" and "why", you will get simple, single-phrase answers "do this". Enough to build or fix a board, but not enough to keep the problem from happening again.

The above is another reason why www.ohmicron and www.cncresource are better. Ballendo's unit is self-contained and complete including power supply and tested. Phil's products are tested and he shows with pictures and detailed text what it takes to assemble an entire system right on his website along with plenty of other useful information.

The measure of a company is not how they treat their happy, satisfied customers, but rather how they treat those with problems needing support. Here, HobbyCNC is flat out one of the worst companies I have dealt with in the last 10 years.

Chose wisely