Help! HF 16" Drill press misbehav'n

[oracle]

I am having problems with my HF 43389-4VGA drill press. I know a lot of BT3k folks own this DP so I thought I'd ask.

First, I am having way too much vibration coming from the motor. Thinking it was the belt that was causing the vibration, I ran the motor without the belts, sure enough the vibration is from the motor. It will walk the whole unit.

Next problem I have is that the chuck does not spin true. There is some wobble in the chuck. I tried removing it and re-seating it with no luck. Still the same wobble.

I've only had this thing 4 months and already it's giving me problems. Is this a case of "you get what you pay for" ???

---------------------------
Chill out Bro, the cavalry is on the way. I've sent you the WOLF.

[pushrod]

I can't help you with the chuck, but you might want to check the drive pulley and make sure the set screw hasn't come loose. Also check the motor mounts.

[Stick]

Try taking the pulley off and run the motor. Could be a poorly machined (out of balance) pulley. I have an el cheapo 8" bench grinder that drove me crazy. Turned out both grinding wheels were out of balance. Replaced them with good ones and vibration is gone.

As for the chuck, is it permanently attached, or is it on a morse taper/jacobs taper? If on a taper, take it off and clean both the inside and outside of each taper with solvent. To the white glove clean stage. Then reassemble, and usually that eliminates a lot of the runout.

[AlanWS]

Did it run true without vibration originally? If so, something must have worked loose or broken. From what I've heard, if it works well to start, this drill press tends to keep working well (mine does). Four months seems a bit long, but they might still be willing to trade it for a different one. If the base can wobble on the floor, that might encourage enough vibration to be a problem. You can try wedges under the base to see if it helps.

The extra cost to an HF tool in my mind is that you need to be ready to return it and/or swap part or all of it for a different one, since one of the reasons they can offer such low prices is that they seem to do no quality checks of their own. But they usually will accept exchanges or returns. I don't know how long they will do that, but when I swapped out part of my bandsaw, they didn't even ask to see the receipt.

Actually, from what you say, it sounds like swapping the entire drill press, or returning it, would be the best idea. I'd check if they will let you do that first.