What is the best Dremel tool? Having finally bought one I can pass on the results of my research to help you if you are about to buy one. What’s the best Dremel tool if you are on a budget? What’s the best if you want a cordless one? Hopefully, this article will attempt to answer any questions you may have.
A Dremel tool is something I’ve thought about buying quite a few times. I almost bought one but made do without it.
Having now owned one for a short time I can tell you I wish I’d bought one years ago.
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Item | Prime | Buy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best budget buy rotary tool | yes | ||
| Best 170W buy rotary tool | yes | ||
| Best cordless rotary tool | yes | ||
| Best Dremel rotary tool | yes |
Why do I need one?
Whether you are drilling, sanding, cutting or grinding a Dremel tool will do it all. With the right accessories of course. Also known as rotary multi-tools when you need something doing in the workshop it can probably do it. Oh I forgot to include cleaning as well.
In my hobby of electronic construction it’s one of those things that you just keep finding another use for once you have one. Right, now you’ve made your mind up that you want one what things do you need to consider? Look carefully at these things and you will get the correct tool for your needs.
Cordless or corded?
This is a major consideration so I’ve put it first. Cordless or corded? At first thought it easy to jump straight in and say cordless. Of course you don’t want the bother of a lead and you can take it anywhere. It seems easy at first but there’s more to it.
I do almost all of my hobbyist work at home. About 99% at a guess and it’s all in the same room at a bench. For me cordless is more of a problem then a benefit. I somehow always manage to all of my cordless tools flat at the time I need to use them. Yes I should keep them charged but I don’t. Having a corded model means it’s one less thing for me to bother about. Another consideration is power. Corded versions of rotary multi-tools are usually more powerful than their cordless counterparts. Then there is the cost. You will nearly always find a corded version is cheaper.
Taking all of this into consideration, a corded version was best for me.
Power output
As I briefly mention above some cordless versions have less power, but what power do you need. More power gives you more torque. It’s always better to have more power than not enough. The one I got is rated at 130 Watts and plugs directly into the mains. I haven’t found an occasion when this felt not enough. It’s a difficult question to answer as I don’t know what your needs are. All I can advise is that 130 Watts is normal for a corded version and the most powerful multi-tools I can find are 175 Watts.
If you are in any doubt I would either get a 175 Watt version or see if anyone has a 130 Watt one you can try out.
You will struggle to find a cordless version that gives you this sort of power.
RPM speeds
Along with your power needs which gives you more torque, you also need to consider the maximum RPM. I say maximum because you can control it with the speed controller. The 130 Watt model that i bought has a maximum speed of 30,000 RPM. I’ve never used it at maximum speed. Most of the things I have used it for mean its on the minimum and I just tweak it up a bit if I feel the job needs it.
Incidently the slowest speed it runs at when the speed controller is at it’s minimum is quoted as being 8,000 RPM.
Accessories for your multi-tool
Apollo-multi-purpose-rotary-combitool-multi-tool accessories.
Apollo-multi-purpose-rotary-combitool-multi-tool, the tool itself.
I basically thought of the accessories as a bonus.
The actual tool is quite impressive with a nice feel to it, not too big and not too small for a hobby device. The bits get tightened into to chuck by pressing a button while tightening with the included wrench. I’ve so far got by finger tightening and not needed the tool. Maybe my fingers are strong. It has an on off switch and a speed controller. One thing I noticed straight away is that the spin is very accurate. I’m not sure how else to describe it. You notice when it’s not as I have a small PCB drill and when its spinning you can see the vibration when it’s revolving.
This gives me confidence when it comes to drilling pcbs as you don’t want the drill bit moving around.
Sharpening hole punches
I just bought a set of punches from amazon.
9 Pieces Hollow Leather Punch Set Heavy Duty Round Leather Hole PunchI wasn’t expecting much considering the price so I wasn’t too upset to say the first try with the 8mm punch wasn’t up to much. I did read that someone had commented that the punches were useless as they were supplied blunt but if you sharpened them they were usable.
The set of punches from Amazon.
The newly sharpened punch.
So first job was to see if I could sharpen the 8mm punch. The instructions supplied with the Apollo multi-tool are pretty useless when it comes to what the tools are and how they should be used. As I considered anything useful in there a bonus anyway. I picked up the tool shown below. It looked like some sort of grinding tool and the shape looked like it would be good for sharpening the punch, shaped for inside the punch and for the outside edge.
One of the included accessories, this worked very well for sharpening.
I gave it a few seconds working around the inside barrel and then did it round the outside edge then tried the punch again. The difference was apparent straight the way. Neat clean holes punched through plastic and card. I was immediately impressed by how well the punch worked when sharp and sharp it was after a few seconds of sharpening. So first job was a complete success and not something I’d even considered using it for.
Cutting with a dremel tool
One of the jobs I had bought it for was to attempt to cut the metal shafts of some variable resisters. There didn’t appear to be anything in the supplied accessories that looked like a cutting device so a quick look on Amazon and I had located reasonably priced. I say reasonably as you can pay huge prices for some accessories.
Dremel 690 EZ SpeedClic Cutting Wheels Accessory Kit with 10 Rotary Tool Saw and Cutting DiscsOne thing I would definitely recommend with something like this are like theses I don’t want to get all boring with health and safety but you really don’t want to damage your eyes, end of lecture.
Don’t forget safety glasses when using the dremel tool
It’s always a good idea to use safety glasses with any power tool but even more so with a rotary multi tool because with drilling, cutting and grinding there will always be something flying around and you don’t wan’t anything to end up in your eyes!
safety glassesSo second job was to cut the shafts of the variable resistors, they are too long by about a centimetre. So with the medium cutting wheel inserted into the Apollo and with goggles on. I held the shaft of the potentiometer with pliers and started to cut.
I found it was best not to force the cutter and to just let it go through slowly. It wasn’t as quick as I’d hoped it to be but theses weren’t the most expense cutting discs and they did actually cut the shaft off. It did save me having to hacksaw them. I tried this but got bored after a couple.
The medium sized cutting tool.
In hindsight I would have used a cardboard box to cut them in using it as a screen because after I had finished cutting a few I noticed that a lot of metal dust had been spread around where I was using the tool.
So the second job was also a success if more time consuming than I had thought. Maybe better cutting discs would have been the answer.
Drilling with a dremel tool
Next job was to drill some small (about 3mm) mounting holes through some plastic angles. The supplied drills worked fine but it was only plastic that I drilled. You get different size chucks included in the accessories to hold different size drills. The gripping mechanism isn’t like that of a “normal” drill where the chuck alters over the range of about 1 millimetre up to about 10 mm. With this the chuck only changes slightly hence the interchangeable chucks.
Next job, I’d made a front panel out of white coated aluminium dibond board but I wanted it to touch bear aluminium to make an electrical screening connection. At first I lightly sanded the area with a small piece of sandpaper but because of the confined area of it being surrounded by wires components and circuit boards.
I couldn’t really get much purchase or pressure on it to make any impression. I should have done it before I built stuff onto it I know but I didn’t know I wanted a screening connection at that point so I thought I’d try the the multi-tool. Instead of a grinding bit I tried a sanding cylinder to see if that was sufficient. You may read that the cylinders don’t fit properly and are loose.
People have even resorted to putting elastic bands around the inside, none of this is necessary. You just slide the loose sanding cylinder on and then tighten the screw at the end. This compresses the rubber and grips the cylinder. Just literally touching the revolving sanding cylinder on the surface had the desired effect and exposed bear aluminium and job done.
You can see from the picture below and this was literally done in one touch.
Best budget Dremel Tool
This is the tool I eventually ended up buying. You get a 130W tool, so pretty powerful. The speed is variable from around 8,000 RPM to 30,000RPM. You get over 120 accessories with this kit, from drilling, sanding, engraving, grinding and sharpening. You don’t get any diamond cutting discs though so you’ll have to get those yourself. These are the best ones for cutting metal.
Best 170 Watt Dremel tool
If you want more power this is very similar to the above model but with more power at 170 Watts.
Best cordless Dremel tool
This is the Dremel 8220 cordless rotary tool. It is powered by a 12 volt lithium-ion 2.0Ah battery. It’s speed can be varied from around 5,000RPM to 35,000RPM. You get 45 different accessories for grinding, drilling, cutting, sanding and engraving. You can swap between them easily as you don’t need a wrench with the EZ Twist nose cap. It also has an LED lamp on the front to illuminate the work area.
On Amazon it has a very high rating of 4.7 out of 5 with well over a thousand ratings.
Best dremel rotary tool
This is the Dremel 4000 rotary tool. It is corded and gives you 175 Watts of power and a variable speed between around 5,000RPM to 35,000RPM. Like the cordless model above it also features the EZ twist nose cap for quickly changing accessories. Comes with 65 of them for all the normal drilling, cutting and sanding.
Like the cordless version above it is very highly rated on Amazon with a 4.7 out of 5 rating and over three thousand ratings.
Final thoughts about the best dremel tool
To conclude this review I’d say that I was very pleased with this purchase. I think it’s going to come in useful for many more jobs that I just wouldn’t have expected. The more you use it the more you wonder how you got by before. While writing this conclusion I’ve just had some PCB’s manufactured.
If you are thinking about having someone else manufacture boards. I can thoroughly recommend it. It saves no end of time and he results are fantastic. Read my article here about the best PCB manufacturer for hobbyists.
The pre-sets I’ve got to go on the board have wide flat legs that are too big for the holes. I didn’t want to enlarge the holes by drilling as they are plated through so I thought I’d put in a grinding bit and see if I could file down the flat of the pre-set legs. It was a simple task and in seconds the pre-set fitted perfectly on the board. I could probably have done most of these jobs some other way but this tool certainly made it easier.