So the other day I bought myself a Hobby Drill type thing. However after very little usage it seemed to develope a motor fault and lost a lot of its power and became very hoy if it ran for a minute. So I had to take it back and get a replacement. And here it is.
Now this one was only £26 so I got a couple of pounds back. However it is also a brand I have never heard of so I had no idea if its a good comapny that makes good tools. Only way to find out was to test it.
As I mentioned in my previous hobby drill post the main reason for buying one is to help with some practical work at uni but would also come in useful for modeling purposes. So to test it I tried it out on the piece I'm working on. The first thing I noticed about this one was the power cord is fitted into the drill itself. Teh previous one had to be plugged into both the transformer and the drill. This one just had to be plugged into the drill. Thats a plus as on the previous one it had a tendancy to fall out of the drill. I also noticed that it is a bit lighter than the previous one which is very good as you don't want a tool like this to be heavier than it needs to be.
As I looked at it I also took note of the air vents cut into the casing. On the previous one the vents were cut into both sides and the top and bottom at both the front and back. Thats 8 different vents. It ment placing your hand was awkward as you would end up covering some up and you obviously don't want that. Another downside to that was sanding dust was getting in to it. This version however has the just cut in the sides which you can see on the picture. They're just before the logo and right back at the end of the handle. This is good as the ones at the very end aren't anywhere near where you'll be holding it and the ones at the other end aren't going to allow sanding dust to get inside while your using it. It also leaves plenty of room to position your hand comforatably without covering a vent. Also on that note it fits nicely in the hand and is comfortable to hold.
So on to how it did. Its speeds are set by a little dial at the end of the handle and is a simple case of turning it to speed up or slow down the rotation. For what I was doing I had it set at roughtly half speed. For its size it seemed quite powerful and did a great job on sanding the wood I was using down to the required size. Obviously you don't want to put to much pressure on it and instead let it do the work rather than forcing it. It did the job very well and did it in a reasonable time. I'm sure if I'd increased the speed it would have done it faster but that would probably also have led to a mistake. Before starting I did take it up to full power and it definately had some power behind it then. More than I'd have expected for something of its size.
Ok so what kind of stuff did I get with it. Well that are the sanding bands. Which are much better than the ones with the previous drill. On the previous one they would keep slipping off the little drum they fit onto while I was using it. They'd slide to the edge and then slide back again. Now thats not very good and made me have to stop a few times. With this drill that stayed on without a problem, not even a hint of movemnt of the sanding band. There are also some grinding stones, polishing wheels, cutting wheels and a few other bits and pieces. So all in all you get a range of things although as yet I've tried practically none of them. Also a bonus with this one is the increased range of collets that fir into the end allowing for a wider size of bits to be placed in it. the previous one had 3 sizes this one has 4 at 1mm, 2mm, 2.3 and 3.2mm. This may not seem all that impressive but as I said it does allow for a wider range of bits.
So thats my review of the hobby drill (multi-tool/grinder). Overall I'd give it 4.5/5. A very good product for not too much money. The previous one I'm not going to rate because it suffered a fault and so I didn't get too much use out of it but I will say that I think this one probably is the better of the two. For those interested the one I currently have is the 18V Mini Grinder Set by a company called Everise.
Thanks for reading and as always any comments are welcome.
Blackmane
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