This is an excellent piece of equipment and it is a big brute of a drill press. I compared specs of other manufacturers in some detail. I called Ellis and other manufacturers with questions to assure that I knew what I was buying. I bought an Ellis saw recently and I liked it so much that supported my decision to go with the Ellis 9400 drill press.

Understand that this machine is Chinese in origin. Ellis gets them in and inspects and tests them before shipping them out. They program the VFD and drill some big test holes to assure that the machine operates as expected. I got the sense that the other primary competitor that I was considering did not manage their business in this way.

I was not disappointed with my decision to buy this machine. The column is machined extremely well and smooth, larger than the competitors, and quite stout to match the duty. The machine has almost non-detectable runout on the spindle. I checked the table squareness to spindle with a tramming set up that I use on my milling machine and found it to be excellent considering it a drill press. The accessory drill chuck is outstanding in terms of runout and I was quite surprised and glad I bought the chuck with the machine. The machine is quite heavy and the machined table surfaces are good. I also bought the 6" accessory vise with the machine and it is of similar function to that on their saw that I have.

This press has lots of power and is easy to use. It has both mechanical and VFD variable speed. The combination gives the machine an acceptable speed range for use as a multipurpose drill press in my shop. The VFD drive setup works reasonably well. I do not like using the small knob on the VFD for the variable speed/frequency adjustment via the VFD. I wish it had a separate speed control but that would take extra space and for the majority of operations, you will likely use the mechanical variable speed adjustment the machine has on its primary drive pulley. The VFD controls are dumbed down and do not work other than the little speed control knob. This is programmed that way by Ellis when they test and program the machine. This could be changed using the VFD configuration software on a laptop and connecting to the VFD via its USB interface but there is really no reason to do so. The VFD braking appears to be programmed aggressively to stop the motor very quickly when you hit the eStop.

The primary drive belt on the machine is a Gates Tri Power BX style belt and runs smooth as glass on its variable pitch motor pulley. Its alignment to the idler pulley was spot on. Unfortunately the secondary drive belt on my machine was supplied with a Chinese belt. It had an inconsistent cross section and vibrated badly. At high speed the amplitude was bad enough to rattle the cover and vibrate this 675# machine. Not sure why Ellis didn't catch this but can only assume they did not do a high speed test. I changed this Chinese belt out to an American made BX style belt to match the quality of the primary drive belt and solved the issue. I wish Ellis had added the very small incremental expense to do it right from the get go. I would have gladly paid the 10 dollars more to save myself the majority of a day it took to find the belt locally, go get it, do the changeout, and readjust the throw on the mechanical variable speed setup due to slight change in belt length that one invariably gets with a change in belts. But happily this correction makes this machine top shelf and very smooth.

So all in all, this is a fine machine that is square, has little to no runout on the spindle, has lots of power, and is stiff, robust and stout enough for the service. I am proud to have it in our shop and I can easily recommend it. I would buy it again.

Thanks to Elite Metal Tools for their fair pricing and very fast delivery process. Thanks to Ellis for managing the Chinese supply chain well enough to deliver a good machine.