Well i just placed my order, says pick up tomorrow. With 2 gift cards, i am getting a hell of a router for 55 bucks!
Aza said he uses 1 (10k) most in his videos. My dewalt has been default 30k (dw660). What is best way to learn speeds and feeds? (Mostly speeds!)
So not every store does this so it may not be the case but my Loweâs does. And I asked about it before. And basically they are doing a trail run. See how well it sells. If it sells well great they will stock it. If not it will be an order online thing. For example my Loweâs carries 1 router in stock currently⌠the dewalt. Even though almost all of the brands have one they just donât sell well there. However the Loweâs by my work. Has almost everything they sell. Again I maybe wrong but this is what they have done at mine before.
Exactly! If this sells well, it will go into âpermanentâ rotation.
Such an awesome story for everyone involved in the development. Congrats!
That is a cool story and writeup. It is a classic grass-roots story of a passionate maker influencing and contributing to the greater good. Congrats on the press Ryan! Youâve earned it! At my day job we hear a lot about the âvoice of the customerâ and it sounds like Kobalt did just that with you representing all of us as makers and potential customers to get the features we need at a reasonable price. For me, it was an honor to be a small part of this. Thanks!
Thanks for volunteering and being a part of it. I literally would not have wanted to do it alone.
Congrats to @vicious1 and all those involved in making this happen. As with most things, I havenât been on the forums lately as I have had a pretty busy schedule, so I missed the lead up to this. I did catch a FB post where someone asked about the LR3 on the box this morning, and wanted to investigate further and took some time out to âcatch up.â I still have aspirations for an LR3, and will be heading to my local Lowes to pick one up (they say they have 9 in stock)!
Congrats to all again!!
It was really more of a âhands on focus groupâ than an exhaustive test. They have their own mechanisms for determining MTBF or risk of different failures. We were focused on sharing our experience in a real DIY CNC. There is a person in these forums (I wonât dox them) that is integral to the product design. Their idea was to focus on CNC users and they knew where to find them. Ryan picked us out in DMs. Sorry if you werenât invited.
It had to be done over email and zoom. We had to sign NDAs before we even knew who we were dealing with. They shipped us preproduction models which were the right color blue, but didnât have graphics on the box. Some of the details were chosen for a small production run and would be different in the one that hits the shelves.
The email thread felt very much like a forum thread. Except it was missing a lot of the 31 flavors of people here. There were several people from the âkobaltâ company (you know power tool manufacturers have funny names and relationships). IDK if they thought were weird or enjoyed the banter.
There was a lot of âreal worldâ testing and analysis (we are all engineers, even if not officially). There were changes w.r.t. the collet, some creature comforts, the operating temperature, rpms, etc.
They sent a second router (pretty soon, I wonât ever have to change bits). We did more testing and shared our opinions.
I have to say, Ryan was doing a lot of good tests. Considering he was the only one that was there professionally and he wasnât getting paid (directly, AFAIK), I am sure he is very excited about this. We all contributed something though. It was a good group.
My $0.02:
The changes were all for the better and the result is something that really comes in at a great value vs the competition. It isnât festool, but it also doesnât break the bank. 5 year warranty is nice. I probably wouldnât replace the makita if you already own one. But I would recommend this if you can get it in your continent, and you donât have a router or spindle you like. I definitely think this is better than a china spindle, but I thought that about the dewalt and the makita too.
I wonât be buying one (I have two already). But I will go by Lowes and take my picture with the box. So I can tell my grandkids about it while they ignore me and watch 0.5s videos in their neural link computers. Unless I am too busy with my own neural link computer.
I am very glad i ordered ahead. I did not find them on the floor at all. Looked all over. But by ordering ahead they placed in to their locker system. Said they have 4!
I ordered ahead and used the lockers mainly because I donât trust myself to wander through Loweâs. The system said my location had 10, and I really donât need anything from Loweâs right now. Well, maybe a lightbulb. And some batteries. Maybe some nuts and bolts. Foam for the Primo rebuild? Maybe some thin stock for laseringâŚ
See? I canât be trusted in that place! Plus, I really do have way fewer spoons for dealing with people than I used to. Even strangers that I donât interact with stress me out. 
This is so spot on. Truth.
I somehow always go there. Leave with more than I needed. And usually forgot something I went there for. Itâs like a never ending loop
Well, arenât you a lucky lemur!?
Congratulations. I am glad you won.
Now the trip to Loweâs isnât necessary.
Are you kidding? Now I have to return the one I bought. Although having two means âeasierâ tool changes⌠Anyone have a quick-release Kobalt mount for the MPCNC, yet?
Or⌠IDEX.
yeah, it is called a screwdriver.
IDEX!
