Well, this is interesting…
Got a Harbor Freight giftcard for my B-Day & went looking around the website yesterday for something to use it on. Went back today, and this was newly announced:
No 1/8" collet or mention of ER-11 compatability, and stated speeds slightly different, but looks like a twin.
Ryan - any insight?
P.S. Anyone in the market - I would NOT consider the Harbor Freight. Even if it were of equal build quality & specs (unknown), the 1/8" collet and ER-11 compatability makes the Kobalt the obvious choice.
With the ones I’ve seen, it’s often the cast parts that are identical w/clones - they slightly change the injection molded plastic parts to differentiate. My Makita clone (Bauer from Harbor Freight) appears identical to a Makita except for the plastic parts. That’s what caught my eye with the Kobalt clone - it seems the plastic parts are the same shape and color. That, and the inclusion of leds - which my clone and others lack.
Kobalt, I believe, is made by Chervon, a Chinese company, which is also where Harbor Freight gets a lot of stuff.
Almost all tool brands are really just a handful of tool manufacturers at the top, so very likely they licensed it or manufactured it for them, with some slight changes, and possibly with the agreement that they “target” a compare to with a competitor, of which DeWalt is because that’s a Home Depot stocked brand.
If so, then it’s a clone that misses some of the key elements.
I wonder if this started in the pipeline before the refinements that Ryan and company suggested and the Kobalt one is the later (in design time) engineering refined derivative.
that’s small even for the makita
