Newbie- Should I purchase extended warranty from harbor freight for mill?

[Micro Milling]

They want $30 bucks for micro mill and $50 bucks for mini mill for an extra 1 year warranty.

Is it worth the money? Do these things break often enough to warrant purchasing the extended warranty?

I think its only 30 day warranty without buying the extended plan.

Thankyou for any help and your opinion and what you have done on this matter.

[groundmaster]

Two things to consider:
How often are you going to use it?
What are you going to use it for?
I know from experience that buying a piece of machinery from harbor freight is a hit or miss thing. It not the fact of it being sub-par either, its mostly that the equipment that comes partially pre-assembled is often done too quickly or sometimes even missing a few pieces. I have had one instance on several vises I bought from HF having rust pockets in the casting and most of them would bust if it was cranked on too hard or used in cold temps. I would recommend two more things to consider: 1.If you do get one, do not buy it off the shelf pre-assembled, that way you can be sure before you use it that everything is assembled correctly and most of all, nothing is missing. 2. Usually anything bought from HF will break within the first year if it is going to, I have tools that have lasted 5 years and some that have lasted 30 sec. If you are going to spend 300+ you might as well be sure you are covered for a year rather than 30 days.

[BrassBuilder]

Personally I would not spend the money on the warranty for a couple of reasons.

1. About all that can really go bad is the motor or controller. These are popular upgrades and if one or the other goes bad, it would just be a good reason to upgrade. The $30 can go towards the motor. I looked at replacing both of them and they are still running...I'm waiting for one or the other to go belly up.

2. If you CNC it and do it right, you are going to basically throw away the whole machine except for the table, the upright, the motor and controller, and the spindle. There won't be much left to insure...

I bought one of the bandsaws from HF. Within a half hour of using it, I smoked the motor. I didn't even bother waiting for them to send me another one. I went down to the local hardware store and bought a better Dayton motor. Been running great since.

Mike

[yantra3d]

I would only consider the extended warranty if you planned to put it off for up to a year before breaking into it. If you plan to set it up right away and do a proper inspection of it then I would pass on the extended warranty.

You should be able to locate any problems within the initial setup, inspection and test run. Once you get past that point you should be in good shape, unless you do have electrical issues and then I would consider upgrading as Mike mentioned.

[roninB4]

What is likely to go bad is the plastic drive gears because they're crappy Chinese made parts. Nothing wrong with using plastic for drive gears if you know what you're doing but the Chinese see fit to make gears that will blow up with any cut deeper than .010 and scatter shards. Do the homework yourself and get a belt pulley system or the metal gear or be prepared order several crappy plastic gears at once.

Beyond that there's not much to buy the warranty for. It's a crappy Chinese made mill, there's not much point in expecting much from it. I fully understand the need to purchase one, I did too and I've been in shops for 30 years. My advice is to either save for a better machine or scale back your expectations a bit because Chinese made machines are crude, innacurate, and flatly suck 9 times out of 10. Rant over but it's still true. Good luck.

[Crevice Reamer]

The standard HF warranty is if the machine breaks within 90 days, bring it back and take home a new one. They will NOT send you any parts to repair it. If you have made extensive mods, the only way to get your warranty coverage is to restore machine to original condition.

The extended warranty is the same as the standard warranty, only you have a YEAR to return it for a new one. This is okay for a micro mill or a mini, but when the mill gets larger, it's not so easy to lug it back.

I like the Grizzly warranty much better: Firstly, the Grizzly is less likely to break, but If the machine breaks within a year, call them. They will help you diagnose problem and then quickly send out parts to repair it. This works much better on large or modified machines.

CR.