Help on rotary tools, what to buy

[Michaeltamayo92]

So, im planning to buy a beginner kit, and im trying to decide what to buy, I got two options, The normally priced one, Dremel 3000, comes with few accesories that I will probably use(10pcs), or a lotus dremel which has 218 accesories, most of which I will need. I am compelled to buy the lotus, since its cheaper and has more attachments which I will likely use, but still, the quality is nagging at me, telling me to buy the dremel 3000 instead, but then i will have to buy accesories for it, for about half the price too. So Im asking, what to buy?

[ToolBane]

I’m not a rotary-tool connoisseur but some people say positive things about the Milwaukee 12-volt cordless. Also Ryobi came out with a cordless rotary station which is a different take on things but possibly very pragmatic for some. I have a Dremel (I believe an old 3000 model) and really liked it for a number of years but my desire for cordless inclined me to replace it.

[ChrisK]

I’ve got the Bosch 12v and like the Milwaukee M12 it will accept Dremel accessories.

[Michaeltamayo92]

8 hours ago, ToolBane said:

I’m not a rotary-tool connoisseur but some people say positive things about the Milwaukee 12-volt cordless. Also Ryobi came out with a cordless rotary station which is a different take on things but possibly very pragmatic for some. I have a Dremel (I believe an old 3000 model) and really liked it for a number of years but my desire for cordless inclined me to replace it.

These two are the only choices. Some I cannot afford, and some just not available. The dremel 3000 is 2k, while the Lotus one is 1.7K. I know, not much difference, but I dont have a lot of sources of money, and the attachments costs a lot, like if I buy the dremel 3000, I will need a lot more attachments like sanding wheels, grinding discs, brushes etc, and it might cost around 715, while the Lotus has all, for only 1.7K but the quality is not certified, this may be a gamble, I want quality, of course but cost needs to be low as possible

[ToolBane]

I totally understand the budget thing. How long, how frequently, and for what kinds of projects do you expect to use this?

 

I have no familiarity with Lotus; what little I see on a brief google search suggests it doesn’t look so cheap I’d be uncomfortable with purchasing it. The tolerances of the plastic molding isn’t sloppy looking. It appears to have decent venting. Of course pics can be deceiving. Would you be buying from a store or online? What are your options to return if you check it out and find the real product does appear inadequate? 

 

I used my Dremel on and off for many years on tasks that were honestly probably too big for it. It’s worked consistently and is a safe purchase in my opinion.

 

But I’d be much less concerned about a lower-price product being used just a few hours every other weekend, to clean edges or trim little doodads on plastic models or whatnot. Also, the less it costs, for better or worse I tend to have a lot less anxiety about yanking things apart to repair myself.

 

I have a number of “premium”-ish tools these days and while it’s hard not to like the extra ergonomics and accuracy they have provided, when I look back on the days I used to mostly run less expensive tools due to budgetary constraints (which, to be honest, has been most of my life), it’s not like they ever couldn’t “do the job”. At my hobbyist-level of usage I’ve hardly ever had even budget tools outright fail on me.

 

And this being a rotary tool, it’s not like there’s much there for a manufacturer to get wrong. You just have a motor, a switch, a plastic casing, maybe a speed adjustment...a lot of which they probably source from the same suppliers that their competitors are using.

 

Sure there will at some point be a price below which they will likely have used excessively brittle plastic, cheap electricals, or a motor that isn’t up to the voltage/current it’s being asked to pass, but as long as you don’t see a bunch of online reviews citing frequent early failures with a product it’s hard to go seriously wrong in the grand scheme of things.

 

Don’t run it too hard and back off the tool if it seems to get hot. And heck, even if it does fail say in a couple years, sometimes the fact that you’re left with a bunch of still-useful peripherals ends up making the money spent worth it anyway. Not trying to steer you in the direction of the Lotus but you probably don’t have to be too terribly afraid of it is my point. My opinion at least.