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Hands-on Review of Dremel’s New Cordless Rotary Tool
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tk mckenzie
i would be able 2 use the dremil on the spot any and every where. add detailed textures and patterns for sculpting. if i had the right ends ild be able to shape rock/stone to the shape i wanted, do bone carvings etc in ma work shed az iv got no power points or electricity in the shed. it would save a whole lot of mess being made in the back room ov the house.ps my work shed is atleast 50 meters away from the closest power point
Grant
Hi there.
Could you do me a big favour and blog the exact specs of that battery and charger?
I’m a Dremel reseller in New Zealand and we have the 8200 but in 10.8V version. My Rep says that our 10.8V and the 12V max are one and the same and it’s just the Dremel Marketing Machine that came up with the 12V Max for the US market. The problem is all my customers want the 12V Max, because that’s what the Interweb is awash with.
The specs on our machine are as follows, please tell me if they are the same as yours?
Markings on Charger
3.6V – 10.8V 1.5A Li
Markings on Battery
2607336867
Li-ion 10.8V 14Wh 1.3Ah
Dremel Europe
Battery Pack 875
Any help appreciated!
Stuart
The battery pack on the Dremel 8200 model 875 battery is marked 10.8V/12V Max, 1.3ah.
Your rep is correct – 10.8V and 12V Max are the same thing. When these tools all started coming out a few years ago, brands marketed their tools as “10.8V”. Then a few brands started marketing their tools as “12V” to gain a marketing advantage. After that, everyone started advertising their tools as “12V”. Now, it looks like they all settled in an agreement with each other and are marketing their tools as “12V Max”.
Essentially 12V Max means 10.8V nominal, so you can assure your customers that they’re getting the same thing whether the box says 12V Max or 10.8V.
Matt
That is correct. 10.8 vs 12v max they are the same thing. I worked for one of the major power tool companies for nine years. Hell I worked for Bosch who owns Dremel.
Grant
That’s a huge help and thanks for getting back to me so quick.
After I posted the question I charged one up and checked the battery voltage which was about 12.2V so at that point I thought it may have been something to do with taking a different measurement of the same thing. Running the 8200 at full speed (no load) showed a voltage of 11.4V.
What I still don’t understand is why for the US market all the branding is ’12V Max’ yet for New Zealand (and so far as I can tell, Australasia and Eurpoe) the branding is purely ‘10.8V’. And that’s in our printed catalogues, on the box of the tool, the tool itself, and the Dremel websites. It doesn’t make sense, but is no doubt only a question the people in leather chairs at Dremel (actually Bosch who owns Dremel) can answer!
Stuart
It’s not just Bosch and Dremel, it’s all of the major manufacturers. At this point, there’s nothing that can be done about it.
“More is better” is a common consumer belief. That’s why some brands (Craftsman) market 19.2V and 20V cordless power tools that aren’t any more powerful than quality 18V models – because 19.2V > 18V, so it must be better.
Makita was one of the last 10.8V holdouts, but they too changed over to “12V Max” branding.
I recently contacted a level manufacturer asking about the difference between two of their product lines. They basically said that one design is larger and heavier and sells much better in the USA and that the slimmer design sells better in Europe.
As I understand it, the major power tool companies maintain separate international marketing efforts. The move in the USA to “12V” was more of a reaction to one brands’ advertising by the others, and then the move to 12V Max was done almost universally from there to avoid confusion and lawsuits for misrepresentation.
I cannot be certain, but I believe it was Milwaukee’s “M12” product line that forces the other brands to shift from their 10.8V product labeling.
Matt
Well when Bosch came out with the 10.8 volt they where first to market they wanted to be honest with the voltage and set a standard when it came to li ion batteries. Then a competitor came out with a similar tool and called it 12 volt. Bosch came back and changed theirs to 12 volt max. It is 12 v max but under normal conditions it is 10.8. You can get it to read 12 v on a meter I’ve seen it done. I’m a former employee of a power tool corp.
Grant
Yeah it’s a shame that they have to employ Smoke And Mirrors to make sales, but I totally nderstand that as soon as one does something like that the rest have to follow or they’ll get left behind.
The more is better tactic works for dumb.user but for the rest of us who are more technically adept would be good if they qualified their specs better with the info you gave above, i.e. This is a 12volt machine, 12 volts being the battery voltage after it has been charged.. I know, that kind of honesty will never come from a marketing department.
Ironically when looking at battery drills I tend to compare the maximum torque (Nm) it can put out that’s a better measurement of how powerful it is, a 100mm x 10 gauge Pozidrive certainly doesn’t care about voltage but definitely does torque. Not sure if there would be a comparable measurement however for high speed rotary tools since they are more effective with their speed than power. Hmm.
“I recently contacted a level manufacturer asking about the difference between two of their product lines. They basically said that one design is larger and heavier and sells much better in the USA and that the slimmer design sells better in Europe.”
Ha nice! I can see how that works, just look at all the big cars/SUV’s in the US and the piddly little cars in Europe. It’s the different mentalities and perceptions depending on where you live and makes sense that it carries over to all manner of things for consumers.
It will be interesting to see where the ‘voltage race’ goes in the future because obviously there is a limit to how far it can go. I suspect it will go like the digital camera megapixel race where it reached a ceiling and consumers became wiser and realised that pixels weren’t everything and so the manufacturers began to differentiate themsleves in other ways with features that consumers wanted more (than just megapixels).
I may have started to see that already in the Bosch range of cordless drills. They have so many models and I have noticed lately they are grouped by characteristics like ‘compact’, ‘basic duty’, ‘standard duty’, ‘heavy duty’, impact’ and so on. Before they did that it was so hard to see how each drill was different from the other.
Stuart
I think that people will always tend to look at numbers, even if they’re arbitrary. This is true across the board – megapixels as you mentioned, but also gigahertz, voltage, torque ratings, contrast ratio, magnification power and so forth. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not a trend that’s bound to change anytime soon.
Maikeru
“I recently contacted a level manufacturer asking about the difference between two of their product lines. They basically said that one design is larger and heavier and sells much better in the USA and that the slimmer design sells better in Europe.”
We can find that sort of philosophy in regards to firearms, tools, and knives. When the M-16 was being used in Vietnam a lot of troops complained about the composite parts making the weapon feel “cheap” and toylike. A lot of people still apply this philosophy to knife handles—despite most modern composites and polymers being light (good for activities where keeping weight low matters), resistant to abrasion, less subject to chemical corrosion, more grippable when covered in a slippery substance, and less likely to transmit extreme heat or cold to the user’s hand. A lot of folks still believe that powertools must have full-metal construction or be chunkier looking to be durable. However, full-metal power tools can be fatiguing if not impossible to loft for long periods at particular angles or cannot fit into certain places due to bulkiness of the casing—power tool with a polymer resin body can be made lighter and slimmer, thus making it possible to use in places where you’d normally not be able to get a power tool.
There’s something of a resistance to the usage of plastics as a lot of times (especially in the past) the variety used was being applied to the wrong sort of situation, with structural engineering that wasn’t properly designed to match the material’s strengths, and possibly corners were cut at key points during the manufacturing process. Plastics don’t necessarily make something poorly made; poor design and poor manufacturing does. I think that due to having bad experiences with poor design and poor manufacturing, a lot of people are driven towards overbuilt things. Thankfully this is not everyone or else no one would go diving for fun—those old brass helmets, oilcloth dive suits, and lead-filled boots are quite overbuilt, but that quality quickly puts a damper on recreational usage. Also, few people would E.D.C. knives as tools since the typical “pocket” knife would be a fixed-blade, tacti-cool knife with metal handles—they’d weigh 10-15 lbs and cost $500.
“I think that people will always tend to look at numbers, even if they’re arbitrary. This is true across the board – megapixels as you mentioned, but also gigahertz, voltage, torque ratings, contrast ratio, magnification power and so forth.”
Also, vehicle horsepower is the traditional “bigger numbers” to sell better situation. Those in the know will tell you that really that spec is mostly useless without what RPM that was measured at.
That reminds me; a friend of mine used to joke around about how he’d listen a particular radio station because it had a higher frequency in Mhz and was thus “higher performance”. Numbers mean nothing if there’s no context.
olat
please, one resistor got burnt on my dremel charger, the resistor is behind the mosfet around the input power section. pls i need your assistance.
Dutch
I would like to submit my name for the drawing of a new cordless dremel tool 8200.
Usage: Drilling , cutting parts to relocate them, smoothing parts down on plastic model cars and aircraft.
Don
Are there any torque ratings for the Dremel 8220 and some of the older (lesser) models. This would be a help in deciding which to purchase. Thanks. …Don
Cindy
I would love to try the cordless 8220 in my nail salon in Homer, AK!! It looks incredible!