Cheap tool failure ..... get what you pay for.

[ChooChooMike]

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or in the tools section.

I had 2 cheapy angle grinders I had bought from a local hardware store 5 or 6+ years ago. I'm sure they were junkie Chinese ones, especially given the $15/each cost : Not from Horror Freight, but they probably carry the same ones.

I had used one of them briefly for something long forgotten. 2 weeks ago I need to grind off the excess metal/crap from an engine casting kit I want to start working on. That morning I was thinking I should have stopped in one of the Big Box store and picked up a decent angle grinder.

Well, I put a grinding wheel on one of these grinders and turned on the power and just barely touched the metal and heard a loud snap. The motor was turning, but the wheel wasn't. Ok, figured that one was toast. Put the wheel on the 2nd one and as I was tightening the arbor nut, I felt something give way. Turned on the motor, that spun just fine, the wheel was just free-wheeling.

Ok what are my chances of 2 of these junkers breaking within a few minutes of each other ? th_wtf1 Well, must have been pretty darn good. : I pulled off the heads on both and you can see the results in the pictures below. The plastic ring gear (bevel gear or whatever you call it) had snapped in both grinders. LOL - I'm wondering if the plastic had hardened up and gotten rather brittle from sitting in the harsh conditions in my bedroom closet for years :noidea: Rof}

I do remember the sales guy at the hardware store saying those angle grinders were basically throwaways. Said the local contractors would come in and buy a bunch of them at once, use one till it inevitably broke, toss it and grab another one from their truck and continue on. Heck, there were even spare motor brushes included. If that isn't a sign of known brush problems, what is ?? Rof}

So I should have followed my initial instinct and picked up a new grinder. Wound up doing that anyway, got a decent 4-1/2" DeWalt for $60 at Home Depot. I then spent the next hour making iron dust all over my buddy's garage floor with the Chinese made DeWalt working like a charm Thm:

Mike

 

[Maryak]

Mike,

Maybe the motors are good for something

Best Regards
Bob

 

[Deanofid]

Ask Twmaster (Mike) if he might not need those brush caps for something.

Dean

 

[ChooChooMike]

Unfortunately, I was a bit pissed off at these and tossed them in the trash. I wasn't thinking clearly enough about saving the motors and arbors and other tidbits :wall:

Lessons learned

Mike

 

[Twmaster]

Heh. I have the same grinder. bought from H-F though... Nice. What a POS.

Dean, nope, the caps I need are square and snap on...

I wonder if the grease got nasty and somehow bound it up?

 

[Tin Falcon]

I would look at Lowes I got a nice dewalt for IIRC $ 50 ,59 less a 10 off for applying for a store credit cart. Lowes web site also shows a porter cable for 40 bucks also. also a skill for 29 probably not a good bet either. but have had good experience with dewalt and pc.
Tin

 

[Stan]

I think most Chinese tools give you a lot more than you pay for. The majority of members on this board would not have metal working tools if not for the Chinese imports. Spending $!5.00 for a tool and expecting the same quality and support as you might get for a $150.00 industrial tool is not a fair comparison. Anyone who has had to repair older industrial tools knows that most of the companies have changed hands and no longer provide support.

My first 4 1/2" grinders were Makita that gave good service. They cost $120.00 and when they needed repair the estimate was $90.00 at the Makita Service Center. I then bought $15.00 Chinese imports at a flea market and got good service out of them.

I did buy a $10.00 Chinese 1/2" drill that failed on the first few holes but I was not surprised. I would have been happy if it had made the ten holes that I bought it for. Since that drill left the factory at a price below $2.00. what level of quality and inspection could I expect.

 

[ChooChooMike]

I wonder if the grease got nasty and somehow bound it up?

Nope, one of them snapped while I was tightening the nut on the arbor to hold on the grinding wheel.

Even though I was ticked off, I still had to laugh. One of them had never even been used. I'm still guessing the plastic had hardened up and gotten brittle, so the slightest pressure shattered it.

Hmmm, got me wondering now if my DeWalt has plastic gears or not ?? I don't want to take it apart just to check that.

Mike

 

[rake60]

I got one of those from an eBay vendor for about the same price.
Any electric motor driven tools that come with a set of replacement
brushes should raise some questions.

Mine lasted 17 minutes before it caught fire. I mean yellow flames!

I replaced it with a Black and Decker 4-1/2" right angle grinder from
WalMart. It too was made in China but much better built.
I have been using it for 5 years now without a failure.

Now that I have brought by work tools home, I have a Metabo in the
basement. I'll keep using the Black and Decker here until it wears out.
I can afford to replace it if needed.

Rick

 

[bearcar1]

Failures are one thing but how about the availability or lack thereof concerning replacement parts. The reason I bring this up is it can and has been just as frustrating to have purchased a rather expensive shop vac (Rigid) and had it stop working out of the blue. Being mechanically inclined I took the beast apart and find that the braided copper lead that attaches to the brush had become severed. Also, there was a dual clock spring type of arrangement that supplied the pressure to keep the brush seated to the armature and it was made out of extremely thin material and had also broken in two pieces. The crux of all of this is that one would think that a suitable replacement could/would be available for a (at that time) $100 shop vac but, NOOOOoooo.
I searched high and low at all of the usual, logical places and made dozens of phone calls in a an attempt to locate said brush assembly. FINALLY, I called the factory and inquired there. The person on the other end of the line was very pleasant and seemed quite knowledgeable and stated that there was never a replacement part manufactured for that unit and that a complete new motor/fan assembly would be required to service the unit. Say What????? Ok, I said, how much is the new motor/fan assembly and his sober reply was $72. Say WHAT??????. Well screw a bunch of that nonsense. I thanked the man after picking myself up off the floor and cleaning up the soiled mess that I left in my chair and hung up. I still have all of the pieces and am in hopes of spotting one of these units at the curb during trash day sometime but C'mon. I am still in need of a shop vac (or should I say the shop is in dire need of one) but will not purchase another Rigid product or other shop vac until I am confident that any consumable piece such as brushes are available for customer installation. So, If I had bought a POS made in some third world country and it was $10 I could have cared less if I could not get pieces but an expensive unit made here in the USA and having to be repaired virtually for the cost of a new unit is in a word C-R-A-Z-Y.

BC1
Jim

 

[user 1493]

I bought a $500.00 Rigid 12 inch sliding compound miter saw when they first came out. It has a laser line generator that is supposed to align the blade with the cut line. It misses the edge of the blade by 3/32". I complained to Home Depot and was given another unit that was no better. Since I have used a chop saw without the laser for 25 years, I just forgot about it. About six months after I got the saw, I ran into a Rigid rep at HD during a contractor's show and complained to him. He said that he didn't think that the saw was off by very much. I told him that I hoped that they had higher standards on their other products. I was working as a construction manager for Habitat for Humanity and HD gave us big price breaks on the Rigid tools so we continued to buy them. I bought one of their ten inch table saws and it has been indestructible with six years of abuse by the volunteers. Both the plumber and electrician that we used swore by the Rigid 18v drill kits. I guess that some of the stuff is good and some is crap.

Jack

Jack

 

[ChooChooMike]

I did about 1/2 hour of online research looking at Home Depot/Lowes/Sears. The DeWalt I wound up buying had very good reviews as did a couple of others they carried. I wanted something immediately, else would have bought online.

The slightly more expensive DeWalt (about $85 vs $60) had a paddle switch that had to be held in all the time while it was running. That's a great safety feature, especially if you drop it or inadvertently set it down. But holding the switch in all the time tires your hand/wrist and may not let you move your hands around to hold the grinder in different position as needed. Plus some of the reviews specifically mentioned that switch tending to break. So bought the $60 model with a hard on/off switch.

>>> yellow flames

Rof} I can believe that !!

Mike

 

[radfordc]

I got mine on sale at HF for less than $10 a couple of years ago. I don't use it often but it's still going strong.

 

[compressor man]

I have learned in my tool buying life that when a tool comes with a replacement set of brushes its usually a dead giveaway that you bought an el-cheapo tool.

Having said that, I totally agree with Stan about Chinese tools. It is a absolute fact that without Chinese tools I would never have been able to afford a lathe and milling machine. No, they are not of the quality of a USA made one but show me a small US made mill that I can buy for less than $500. Walk around in Harbor Freight and you will quickly see some stuff that is total junk and some stuff that is completely servicable for (sometimes unbelieveably) low prices.

I really wish that I had the money (I dont) to support America by buying only USA made stuff. Places like Harbor Freight have allowed me to buy lots of things that I never would have been able to have otherwise.

Just my 2 cents..

 

[Twmaster]

It's a sad thing. But yea, I have to concede that cheapo Asian tools have allowed many to enter this and other mechanical hobbies. Including myself. My first lathe was a SIEG 7x10. It was in a word, junk. But it lit the fires in me.

Good deals on US gear do pop up. I bought my Taig mill new from Taig for $550 shipped on closeout. In fact I got the very last one they had. I could not be happier with this mill other than size.

I bought my Atlas 618 off Craigslist for $350. It included 2 chucks, motor/countershaft and some other useful tooling.

Now as I need a bigger mill I am looking at new Asian machines. Unless I find a deal on a used Emco or a US made machine beforehand.