The Dremel Micro, which came out just last year, has been recalled due to a burn hazard. It seems that the internal circuit board can overheat and melt the enclosure. If you’re holding the tool when this happens, it could burn your hand.
Additionally, even if the circuit board doesn’t melt through the enclosure, it could still fail, causing some tools to lose their speed control. If this should happen, an affected tool might shift to high speed unintentionally, turn on by itself, or fail to turn off, posing other injury hazards.
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About 93,000 Dremel Micro rotary tools are being recalled, plus 2,750 in Canada.
If you own a Dremel Micro, model 8050, and it has date code 407 through 505, you should discontinue use immediately and contact Robert Bosch Tools for information about a free repair.
These tools were sold from July 2014 thru May 2015. In other words, if you bought one prior to May (or even since then – check your date codes!), your Micro is likely affected by this recall.
More Info(via CPSC)
Contact Bosch/Dremel at:
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855-866-1291 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. CT Monday through Friday OR at dremel.com
Jimmy D
I just pulled the ones I had left off the shelf. That is the worst thing you could have go wrong with a Dremel. Can you imagine it turning on by itself while you are holding a bit to install or to have it turn on and burn down while in your shop… no thanks!
Thanks for the update Stuart!
Neo
It happened to me, just turning on itself to full speed when charging with no way to stop it until it totally drained its battery after 20 minutes. Horrible experience 🙁
Jen
Same here! We heard a strange noise, so I fallowed it. Found it spinning and tossed it outside!
Kathy Henke
Mine is working normal so far. But, the charge doesn’t seem to get fully charged
William Soffiantino
I tried several years ago to get help on mine. No help. Trashed it. Thanks Dremel.
Cheryl
We just had our turn on by itself in the charger in the basement!! Took a while for it to wear itself out. Scary. It was running at the highest RPM. We’re sorry we missed the recall.
Dee
They are still accepting returns…
I sent an email 6/18/21 and they responded immediately.
Scott B Payne
The same thing happened to me as soon as I started using it. I turned it off and it would turn on by itself at high speed. Then it wouldn’t charge
glenn
Since they changed the circuit board back in May, the cynical part of me questions the reason they changed it and why it took so long to recall.
Stan
Typical corporate/white collar mentality of not wanting to spend any money and of course not take responsibility for their actions either. Naturally they will blame this on someone else and similar to most corporations/white collars they’ll hide their lawyers and money.
Bosch, similar to a vast deal of global manufacturers, only cares about how much this is going to cost them, not about how this could injure/kill others. Money is more important than human lives, which I’ll never understand.
Pupinski
I doubt that’s their motivation. If a human life were lost it would cost them a lot more in compensation, lost sales and reputational damage.
Stuart
Recalls take time to execute. There were 6 incidents reported, and 0 injuries.
It probably took them time to reproduce and correct the issue.
Hang Fire
There may be valid reasons beyond what Stuart said. A typical scenario is finding out that the circuit board manufacturer has made unauthorized changes. This is not just common but almost expected as the circuit board manufacturers know more about making a good circuit than the designers, but sometimes it goes awry. Also almost nobody makes their own circuit boards, it’s cheaper to let the specialists do it.
John
Actually, the opposite is more likely from personal lenthty experience in the prototyping, production, and then the final mass deployment production. What happens usually is if there is an error in the board or design, if not caught immediately before mass production, the outsourced manufacturers will make absolutely no deviation from the design at all. Unfortunately this is the massive problem with cheap outsourcing to places like China. While you would think board manufacturers would put their experience and know how into addressing a potential problem, to meet the bottom line they don’t and will give you *exactly* what you gave in specs so you have to be absolutely careful. If there is a problem, it will be replicated in every single deploy. Addressing any post problems are iteration changes from in house, which are then again are sent to the outsource producers.
Joey
Have you seen fight club? “A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don’t do one”
WILLIAM SOFFIANTINO
I have a Micro 8050. I can’t see the date code but a QR code of 2610033431. It became erratic about charging and now has quit. Can you help me on this?
Stuart
You’ll have to contact Dremel.
Diego
Hey thanks for the heads up, seem that i have one of the defective ones.
Barri
Reminds me of Toyota. Put out a shot product with known issues. Fix known issues on new models and deny old models have issues and fight to fix them. Then once made to fix them blame someone else.
Chris
Toyota, more like GM…. GM is the worst one of the bunch
Pablo
Was it a voluntary recall?
6 out of 95,750 sold seems hardly recall worthy, that’s 0.006%.
Stuart
The 6 reported safety incidents were likely traced to reproducible failure, indicated a recurring defect or design flaw which would mean that any or all of the affected products might have the potential to fail in the same or a similar manner.
Once a safety issue like this is identified, the company is either self-obligated or otherwise compelled to proceed with a recall.
Gadget Guy
As an owner of one of these units that could not be turned off, I suspect the number of units with issues is way more than 6. When I reported my issue back in January to Dremel they dismissed my incident and didn’t express any interest in following up. I’m glad to see the recall. I’ve been concerned about using it knowing that from time to time it jumps to full speed and can’t be turned off, unless you plug it back into a powered charger which apparent resets a run away micro controller.
Stan
Now granted, this is only ONE post, but this just goes to show that these big corporations don’t really care about the end consumer. Fair enough the person this guy spoke to probably makes minimum wage and even if he wanted to, there is nothing he can do, but to brush a person off with a legitimate safety concern isn’t very professional.
Now before someone defends these big corporations and claims there is only so much they can do and how often they are victim of lawsuits and are actually good g uys etc, let me first ask where was the quality control at all when this happened? Surely a giant global corporation such as Bosch can afford to perform a quality control check on products they put their name on.
Bosch screwed up and no matter what their lawyers might say, the fact remains this had their brand on the product, hence they share responsibility. They can blame the factory in Mexico and the components likely coming from China all they want, but the fact is, they could have done more, but chose not to. Money is all that matters to the share holders and the CEO, so anytime there is expenses, these need to be as non existent as possible.
Stuart
I emailed Britax about my son’s USA-made car seat, which is currently included in a massive recall, and they haven’t got back to my 2 emails, nor have I received the recall repair kit yet.
Where a product is made has nothing to do with customer service, recalls, or anything of the sort.
Bosch is also a private company – no shareholders.
Bosch doesn’t “share” responsibility. Dremel is a Bosch-owned company, and so the product is entirely their responsibility. This isn’t always true about relabeled products. It doesn’t matter to end-users whether the issue stems from Dremel’s engineers, their contract or owned factories, a sub-component designer or manufacturer, or part supplier. It doesn’t really matter, as we’ll never hear about it.
Quality control might not be the issue here, as the fault could have just as likely stemmed from component selection, circuit board design, or who knows what.
Al
Do the newest 8050s have any known improvements aside from fixing the recall issues? Just arranged for a replacement for my 8050-409, and I’d love to get a bit more battery life between charges.
Ahze
I have a 411 and haven’t had any issues with medium or light use. I did contact dremel via email on their recall page: http://www.dremel.com/en-us/customerservice/productsupport/Safety-Info-Recalls/Pages/Safety-Info-Recalls.aspx
Ahze
Update: You don’t have to call dremel to initiate the recall RMA process, you can start it on http://www.dremel.com/en-us/customerservice/productsupport/Safety-Info-Recalls/Pages/Safety-Info-Recalls.aspx and do handle everything else via email.
LJ
I have the 8050 but it seems you have to send it in for repair for God knows how long. Since I use it everyday for my business I have to go buy something else now, they don’t offer any refunds or replacements which would be the classy thing to do.
Also their recall procedure lacks much information, I think they expect you to take it to UPS as well. So maybe I’ll just wait for the class action to happen I guess and go buy something else.
Ahze
> you have to send it in for repair for God knows how long.
I shipped mine to Bosch/Dremel on November 12th and received the fixed version on November 19th. Overall, it was a pretty painless recall process.
> I think they expect you to take it to UPS as well.
You will have to drop it off at a UPS drop off OR if you have a UPS account, you can schedule a home/office pickup OR do what I did, and just hand it to a UPS driver as he was driving down my street.
Here is a copy of the recall email I received from Bosch, which includes a tiny bit more information than the recall site.
Dear Mr. XXXX (XXXX),
Thank you for your cooperation with the recall.
The following remedies have been assigned to your tool(s)
Model Serial Number Remedy Inbound Label Outbound Label
8050 Repair XXXX
Download Label
Track Shipment XXXX
Download Label
Track Shipment
The approximate wait time for processing your remedy is 7 business days.
Please follow the instructions below as the next step of what to do and where to send your tool for your assigned remedy.
RECALL INSTRUCTIONS
If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please call 855-866-1291. Monday thru Friday between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. CST or visit Dremel website.
We appreciate your cooperation with this recall and thank you for your attention to this safety matter.
Best Regards,
Recall Management Team
RICK Love
Put my 506 on the charger light stays on but will not turn on ?
Stuart
Dremel’s customer service should be able to help you with this.
Rich
My Dremel stopped spinning intermittently. I had to shake it when I turned it on or hold the speed control buttons down to keep it spinning.
mike
Have had mine about year and a half. It now stopped working. Used it rarely and lightly… to clean-up watch parts. I think one of the biggest scams Dremel has produced!!! Have had other Dremels all my life; but not any more.
Roland
Love my Dremel and today I changed the bit to a cut off wheel and as I turned it on and placed it in my hand THE DREMEL WENT TO FULL POWER and could not stop it. Jumped on internet and found others with same issue. Now to see what will happen with repairs.
NOT COOL! That could have been my fingers or worse.
Wayne
Had mine for about 2 years without any problems. Sent it in for the recall and 1.5 years later the recall replacement failed. Not covered by warranty. Should have kept the original one.
Erika Phillips
I’ve had my Dremel for around 3 yrs and yesterday, while I was using it, the handle suddenly got so hot that I could not hold it and it burned the skin of the palm of my hand. After I cared for my burnt skin, I tried to power it on and finish the project I had started. It would not power back on so then i put it back on the charger and it would not even do that, either. I’m assuming that it must have fried or burned the wiring inside it. I’m going to call about a replacement or repair because mine does have the recall code. Not only is my hand burned all to crud but I am highly angry about this tools malfunctions as I need this tool to finish a project that I have a very short time Limit in which it must be completed. Not a happy camper!!!?☹️???
alejandro castillo
I bought 2 for a grooming salon and both just stopped working days apart from each other no burns tho just stopped working
chris mcpeck
My wife put the Battery charger in the wall to charge it up to 3 hrs we were going to go to church but found out its close to the china virus
with in 60 mins we heard a big shot , like a gun went off we both got up and looked at the window to see if someone shot at the windows and then she look over and seen all this white stuff all over she went to pull it out of the wall and burnt her finger , thank to the closing of the church we have are home still and lucky we didnt go because a fire was next so i want to know who do i sent this in to and have it replace for free and the burning on my wife finger is bad too
Dawn Downs
I have a micro that wont turn on or charge. The date code is blank. I love my dremel. I have 5 of them. I work with wood and these are great for wood work. Im not sure if this one is a recall or not
Susan
Oops forget that last or first comment.😋
Do I have to get a hold of Dremel about the recall
Stuart
Yes, that’s how you get a repair or replacement if your tool is affected by the recall.
Pat Lambert
An acquaintance wants a Dremel micro 8050 but they sell on eBay for over $100. Does anyone know if the 8050 is still made or if there is a model that replaced the 8050?
Stuart
Not really – there’s the 7350 4V Dremel, and new/modern 12V models. I don’t know of any direct replacement for the 8050 Micro.
https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/dremel-usb-cordless-rotary-tool-7350/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Kim Willis
I just found out that a new one is coming out soon that is supposed to mimic the micro 8050. I have one with a date code of 607, and needed a charger for it. So called Dremel and was told it was discontinued in 15′, funny that they did not tell me about this recall. Thanks to this site I know, but does not appear my date code was effected, still makes me wonder.
Kim Willis
Just got a better update. After reading this article it bothered me so much that the first person I spoke with never said anything about nor offered to support the one I had, which was not part of the recall.
So… I called Dremel back. But not before I spent a bit of time finding a charge system for it. When I called back I got Adrian and boy was he good. He knew his stuff. He was apologetic she said nothing about the recall to me, and even still after finding out the date code on my Dremel, that they could order me the charger station and cord, she did nothing. I mean seriously, I wasted two hours on that stuff after the first and original call to Dremel, which could have been taken care of then. Thankfully after this article I called and fussed about her not telling me about the recall. And found out he was able to actually order the charging system.
I also wanted to confirm my unit was okay to use seeing how I did actually find a charging system at a part company. And this article had it correct on the date code and it ended at 505.
I had to send him a photo of my date code so he could confirm my Dremel was not part of the recall. He also said they are still handling all recall micros. I liked this Dremel unit because it is small and easy to handle for smaller hands, and I like the light. For for those who have a defective one and did like this type of unit, look for the new one sometime in the future. The one that was supposed to replace the micro 8050 does not… and not sure why the first person told me that, it was nothing like it. But the new one is supposed to be like this 8050. When you call Dremel ask for Adrian… he was super great.