Bargain Alert: Dremel-style 163 piece kit for 15 quid

[Mike Tomlinson]

Looks a good buy: "Xenta 163 Piece Rotary Tool and Accessory Kit"

15 of your Earth pounds with free del.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I had a much loved Ryobi cordless one. Ideal for the odd hole in a PCB etc without using the proper PCB pillar drill I have. Small and neat and fitted my hand perfectly. Of course there are similar sized 'mains' ones, but the lack of chord made this one so very much more wieldy.

The motor on it died, and I searched for a similar replacement. Nothing at all from the decent brands. Eventually found a 'no-name' one at a low price. Absolutely useless due to too much run out with the collet chuck.

It's very odd when I find a tool so very useful and can't get a replacement at a later date. The other one was a Mark O Matic tape rule. It has a pencil lead at either end of the body, so you could measure something like an alcove and transfer that measurement accurately to wood instantly.

[Andy Burns]

Speaking of Dremels and their like ...

I needed mine the other week, probably not been used for a couple of years, turned it on, nothing, off/on/off/on, nothing, checked mains to shed hadn't tripped, nope, tapped it a bit, nothing.

This was just after someone had posted here about a transistor in the speed control failing, and I wondered if that was it, thought I'd look at the brushes first, removed them and they looked OK, put them back and it was happy again.

I'm sure everyone's familiar with the thin cut-off wheels shattering every time you accidentally put a bit of twist into them? Well I tried one of their newer "klik" wheels and those are much better.

[newshound]

I *thought* it might be the triac in the speed controller in mine and replaced it, in fact there turned out to be a failed field coil (should have checked that first). I've replaced it with a Proxxon but I don't actually like it as much, first it's rather slower (20,000 rather than

30,000) and secondly it has a stupid on-off switch which it is easy to activate accidently when putting it down. Also, the first one blew up after two minutes use, although at least the Amazon replacement process was painless. So at some point I might have another go at repairing the Dremel.

The Klik adaptors are good; you need to distinguish between the plain abrasive disks (thin, cut quickly, but very fragile) and the ones with the obvious glass fibre reinforcement (thicker, cut more slowly, but very robust).

[newshound]

Just had one delivered, looks pretty good value. Runs smoothly, nice speed control.

[newshound]

The first mandrel I tried was bent, though.