A question about maintenance costs

[DianMayfield]

I will add my 2 pennies worth

It really depends a LOT on how you maintain and use it between major maintenance periods. I am to the point where I clean and re-lube the rails between each job. I replaced my first set of bearings at 100 hrs due to rough travel. It has now been 300 hrs without wear with this easy step.

My first few hundred hours were a lot of cutouts. This puts additional stress and wear on the motor. I found that I was replacing brushes at 150-180 hours. The key would to periodically check them once you get around 150 hrs. At about 1/2 of the original length, we would see intermittent motor issues - fluctuations in speed.

My first two years were chasing problem after problem. Once I got better at basic care and feeding most, if not all, of the problems disappeared.

Get dust collection EARLY, and use tape on every board!

[easybean]

My shop is a professional shop and I set the machine up on the big, grounded, dust collector immediately, Aside from a small amount of dust that is building up on the rollers and the miniscule amounts that fall between the belts, the machine seems to run perfectly clean. I started out with the tape and, even cutting out a member from a 5 ft 3/5" white oak board, the machine had no problem tracking; there was ZERO drift even cutting with just 1/8 max. depth cut. VERY impressed! Basically, barring some major machine failure, which seems mostly preventable, with care, you all seem to be saying that it is unlikely to spend more than around $200-250/ 250 hrs. Does this seem correct? That would be an extra $1-$2/hr for maintenance after the first 200 hrs covered in the warranty. I am curious how many hrs are the most logged hrs. any of you have on your oldest working machine?

[cestout]

I do ok starting at about $40 a sqft. Then look at the comnplity.
Clint