$10,238.41
That's how much I spent on March 23 of this year on what was supposed to be an investment. A means of doing more in the garage, a means to offer much more capability to others.
For those that don't know, I'm talking about my Langmuir CNC press brake.
Well, today I got an error code I've never seen before.
Thinking it was just some kind of error that can be cleared out, I went ahead and cleared it and proceeded to home it which it finally did.
I used the machine a few more times, having power cycled it, and the message appeared yet again. Three times actually.
So I posted on the Langmuir forum because there seems to be a lot less clutter on there than the actual Facebook groups. The popular FB group is littered with non-owners and the sort so I knew if I got a response on the forum, it'd be much more helpful.
Well surprisingly enough, one of the tech-support guys replied right away with step by step instructions on how to remove the main control board for replacement, and test a new board prior to installation to confirm everything works. This is because it apparently when the motion control board starts to fail, the warnings that trigger are those that I'm starting to experience now.
I was a little annoyed by the fact that I'd have to dig in there and do all that, especially if you guys saw the pictures I took of inside the console.
What stood out to me most was this part here -
Excuse me, what the ****?
I was of course, much more polite than that in that, I stated I've only had the machine in my possession for 2 months and 12 days now which is well within the 6 month warranty on electronics.
Some of you may be alright with that, cause $106 delivered to my door isn't all that much.
Not to mention, another poster said "maybe he didn't know that" when I stated how I only recently purchased my machine. I was thinking yeah, he may be right since after all they're posting
after hours (they're in TX, I'm in CA).
No **** I checked my email just for kicks and there it was, an invoice for me to pay the amount of $106 and some change for a replacement board. A replacement board that is deemed faulty, well within the warranty period.
So I didn't reply and told myself (and the forum) I'll just call tomorrow cause I hope it's a mixup but man I am now starting to see why so many people are having issues with this thing, and them, in general. I was hoping to be one of those guys that "got a good one". Even after the big oil leaks when it first arrived, or the wood tray that was broken even though the packaging was fully intact. Let's not forget the ram opening being way out of spec that I had to buy a dial indicator just to fix it, or the fact that the linear guide rail for the material support arms isn't fully installed because several mounting holes were way out of line and I couldn't get bolts on them.
To be fair, I did get a partial refund on the material support arms, because they told me they only check something like 6 of the 12 or 18 holes it has for alignment.
Anyway I had much more typed out but I just deleted it because it isn't fair to say just yet. Not until I call them tomorrow, but if I have to buy a new board then what the heck is a warranty good for anyway?
Sorry for the rant. I'll update tomorrow.