Hello everyone, I started reading the forum the other day to help with my descion to buy or not. To me reading a review site or actual forum for the product in mind is the same as reading the manual before turning on the machine and destroying it. Hopefully not reading the manual is the cause for many of these problems I been reading about.
I have a few questions to ask those you using the machine. I have a neighbor that works for sears that I talked to today about the Compucarve. He said he has sold 5 of them and none have had any problems so far. He also said he did a lot of research into the machine and warranty when he sold his first one to another good freind. I do believe he is one of the last customer service oriented salemen that cares. Hes also 73 and says yes sir and thank you.
I have an appointment with him Wendsday morning at the store to go over discounts, CC discounts, 5 year warranty and getting prices on the probe and complete bit set. If I am going to get this machine and invest over $2K I want to give myself the best shot at it and be prepared for whatever I intend to to do with it. I already know if I have any problems with the machine it has to be sent to another site for repairs. We are a very small town 110 miles away from any repair center.
I really would like to hear from everyone that has and has not had problems with their machine. Has it been a short down time, have you gotten to do many projects before experiencing any problems.
I also understand that the machine out now is a second generation machine. If so, has alot of the bugs been worked or do many of the originals still exsist. Like I said before, it looks like a lot of the problems were caused by human error. But some of the problems seem to be pretty serious like blown motors, drives and sensors.
My plans for this machine is to do small project to sell at a huge christmas expo in November. I was stunned by some of the portraits, lithophanes and other projects you people are putting out. Its fantastic that a lot of you woman are doing such great works as its really got my wife interested in it also.
I guess what I am asking is, can I expect my machine to break down or have most of you experienced little to no problems with your machines. Hopefully there is a huge percentage that has had no problems that just aren't visiting or writting the good reviews. And only the ones with problems are finding these review sites and forums to complain.
Thanks for any suggestion, advise and comments you can give. This is one of the biggest tool investments I have made in awhile other then my Craftmans Professional table saw and 18" thickness planner. Even at that they they were both about the same cost as this one machine. But what a fantastic concept at this price. If this machine work as well as they have over the years, then I have no worries.