Apparently the Arvada, CO Home Depot decided to try selling their XGT clearance tools one last time and moved them out of what was the XGT cage into a temporary home on the raceway.
Every other HD just got rid of them, but the manager here said they should be here at least a week or until they sell, whichever comes first.
I wonder if the Olive Garden on 88th will remain or if this will be an additional location.
Guess that makes it pretty firm that Macaroni Grill will not be reopening, as most commercial leases would not allow two restaurants serving the same category of food to operate that close to one another.
At least in my area, the XGT items remaining on clearance have all disappeared overnight with the former XGT cages now containing only LXT tools.
So if you were waiting for the "final" clearance price on these, for at least my area stores you missed them. 🤷♂️
Just from what I've seen at my local HD, the mini-BMSM seems to be driving pent-up sales.
I've seen people checking out with decent stacks - at least $500 worth - almost every time I'm in, 90% of them with the Rolling Drawer Box on the bottom but a few classic three lidded box stacks as well.
I've seen a few DoorDash drivers checking out with them as well, indicating "same day / within a few hours" delivery customers from the web site.
I associate it with the new promo because I hadn't really seen people buying any boxes - PACKOUT, MAKTRAK or others - since mid-January, but now it's a big thing again judging by how often I see large empty holes on the PACKOUT wall and not so much with the other systems.
Buc-ee's wanted to start carrying bottled Coke products and Coke made them remove all Pepsi products from their coolers as a part of the deal.
This apparently went into effect last week, at least in Colorado.
This means no more Mountain Dew and, by extension, no further reason for me to stop at Buc-ee's, whom I love otherwise.
Now I have to stop at a different gas station instead. 😥
Do most eBay sellers with these somehow get them from real Makita distributors or are they fakes?
I know fakes are a big issue in batteries, not sure about chargers though.
I normally only buy from dealers, but $159 new from a dealer compared to $68 on eBay is a pretty major price difference that has me wondering whether to roll the dice.
Authorized Milwaukee distributor Way Source (the online site of authorized distributor Safety Source Supply Corp.) is blowing out M18 8.0 FORGEs for $129 each.
No idea for how long…
Example here:
America 250 Collection V770 Single Rifle Case
I wish they had perhaps done red, white or blue instead, or just perhaps a black case with an America 250 sticker. 🤷♂️
I know the serial numbers are often different on the tool kits (e.g. the serial numbers on an XGT GT200D kit are not the serial numbers on the tools themselves) but I got an LXT tool where the serial number on the box did not match the tool inside - and unlike the case of someone buying a new tool and returning their old one to Home Depot for a refund, the serial number on the tool inside was newer than that on the box.
Still, is that indicative of a returned tool that was put back on the shelf, or is there another way this can happen? I can't imagine Makita USA putting a new tool in a box that once held an older one, and Makita's tool boxes already look like the packing tape that seals the top was applied by part time help.
• The dividers are grey rather than orange. Personally I like how visible the dividers are in the regular boxes, as items can blend in with the grey. The PACKOUT drawer dividers are black, but the drawers themselves are red inside rather than orange or grey on black and so items stand out more.
• The cups in the organizer are also black. This is a much bigger issue as darker items get lost in the cups, not an issue with the orange cups of the original organizers. This can be a problem when searching for small items like black or grey screws or black rubber grommets in limited lighting and is IMHO one of the downsides of other box makers' black cups or the black cups or trays.
This isn't meant to be a negative review, just a caveat if you've been wanting to jump into MODbox for a bit and were tempted to pull the trigger now due to the new limited edition stack.
Finally, the last photo shows what I have mentioned is a shortcoming of the Gen 2 latching mechanism; if you look you can tell the medium toolbox in the middle isn't latched closed but you need to look CAREFULLY, where the unlatched bails of the Gen 1 box make it pretty obvious. This could lead to unpleasant spillage incidents, particularly with the Gen 2 organizers.
A few bits of news from Makita USA reps today:
New XGT angle grinders with low profile heads have been announced, the GAG15Z and GAG16Z.
Makita USA will be discontinuing X-Lock angle grinders. Though they are popular in the rest of the world, US customers don't like that they can't just grab cheap wheels from anywhere and use them. Makita will continue to make and Makita USA will continue to sell X-Lock wheels and accessories.
Additional MAKTRAK boxes and accessories are coming, dates have not been decided.
New drill bits are coming with a new design that will chew through wood faster.
Finally, and sadly, the gas cylinders inside Makita's new nailers are not user-serviceable and will require a trip to the service center to refill. Though they use standard Schrader valves, there will be no user-approved procedure or information released on how to refill them, like Milwaukee and unlike Hikoki/Metabo HPT or RIDGID.
I belong to a rather small church that purchased a location with a CMEd DR12 Unison Dimmer Control Module (running Unison 1.9.2.9.2.6), but after a recent series of power failures forced upon us by our utility, it's lost its configuration. We've been making do by manually doing a "Set All" to a lighting level through the "hidden" interface (180-190 works well), but we'd like to get this up and running again. The fact that "Set All" works tells me it's probably that it's just dumped its configuration, not that the controller board is toast.
We only had five settings, have no configuration floppy, and calling ETC, they had no record of the initial installation, so we're stuck. The local tech won't even try sending us a floppy, he wants to come out and replace the board for a fee we can't afford and frankly we can't even afford to have him come out and diagnose it.
Our budget for anything is basically zero. The way it is, when we need to relamp the conventional bulbs in our Source Fours we can only afford to rent a 16' ladder from Home Depot once a year to do so.
I'm pretty confident if we could get a floppy to reload a config we could get things to work again, but there's no way to get one without access to the software.
Is there anyone here with access to the LightDesigner software that might be able to help us?
If we had known about this we would have done a Save Configuration to a floppy at some point, but we didn't and so are stuck; the people we purchased the church from didn't have a saved config floppy, either.
One of our zone remotes for reference:
For at least the really big sales, tool flippers seem to be more prevalent than they used to be.
For example, Murdoch's had a killer deal this week - the 3697-22 M18 Gen 4 Hammer Drill/Impact combo with a free XC 6.0 for $199.
I know a few people who work there and they said at most every store, someone walked in at store open on Wednesday and bought them all - $1990 at my local store that had ten.
They're all on Marketplace now for $275, as Home Depot and most other dealers wanted $399.
(Update: As of May 4, Home Depot will be charging $349, but the deal no longer includes the free extra XC 6.0 battery, which costs $199 if purchased separately.)
I guess if Murdoch's cared they'd add quantity limits; today they started a big DᴇWALT sale and someone did the same for one of the combo kits and bought them all, $2500 worth. 🤷♂️
We have a couple of these inexpensive mixers that serve us well for instructional uses (classes where audio sources need to be connected to self-powered speakers) but they've both developed 60 Hz AC hum issues (not ground loops; you can hear the hum even when nothing is connected to the mixer.)
Since the power bricks output DC, the only place this could be coming from is from those same power bricks.
It's hard to just try swapping in something else as they use a proprietary four pin connector for power rather than a ⅛" barrel connector.
If I can't find a better power supply I suspect I'll just order replacement Mackie Mix8s or Behringer 1204USBs to replace them, but thought I'd check here for group wisdom before doing so>!​!<.
Thanks in advance!
As you may know, Home Depot is reducing the number of stores that will carry XGT power tools in-store and has put them on clearance.
This is the first drop in prices from the clearance prices that went up at the start of April.
At least at stores near me the selection is getting very thin if you're waiting for additional price drops which will be coming if they have any left.
