Novakon Support is actually very good

[steveb946]

I have been in contact with Khai for sales support on a NM-145 mill, and he has always answered my emails and many questions within a few hours.

Several months ago, our University of Arizona machine shop needed a spare part for their model 200 and found that their emails were not initially answered for tech support. A quick call to John, the owner of Novakon, easily took care of the problem. It turns out that the tech support email box was not operating at that time, so John took care of it after the phone call.

[JoeBean_NEW]

Sales do respond quickly. And ordering spare parts is not a problem.

But if you get a machine with serious defects you're SOL. There's still no fix for the BLDC spindle problems in the series 2 mills, for example, despite a fix being promised months ago. The solution is replacement of the spindle drive with a 3ph motor and VFD, at owner's expense. So I'd still say caveat emptor.

[Novakon]

Sales do respond quickly. And ordering spare parts is not a problem.

But if you get a machine with serious defects you're SOL. There's still no fix for the BLDC spindle problems in the series 2 mills, for example, despite a fix being promised months ago. The solution is replacement of the spindle drive with a 3ph motor and VFD, at owner's expense. So I'd still say caveat emptor.

Dear valued customers:

Thank you for your genuine observation. Since the first request for a replacement AC motor KIT, we have moved forward to provide this. While most customers are utilizing the BLDC motor without problems, some customers have expressed the desire to change to the AC motor for the improved performance. We would like to take this opportunity to outline the progress we have made in providing a custom conversion KIT.

To develop and procure the KIT for the retro upgrade takes much longer than we would like also. One fact about ordering machines and parts, almost nothing is stocked in China. We procure spare parts months in advance to have them available here. Special KITS like these are very tough to expedite. Firstly, the motor mounting plates are here and available. The AC motors have been custom ordered, but must be modified by our factory to fit the mounting plates. The C300 VFDs are stocked and waiting for motor completion. The new motor pulleys are also custom made which have been procured with the next NM-200 production build already in progress. The kits will then be sent with a “special NM-200 shipment” that we are holding to coincide with the KIT completion in order to reduce the cost of the ocean freight.

Once they arrive here, we will make them available for shipment. It is very unfortunate to have to deal with such a lengthy process, and we are working to reduce lead time in the future. This is what happens behind the scenes most are unaware of. We can, however, shorten the time significantly by using air freight and we would be happy to quote the direct shipment option also.

Regards,

Novakon Team