Help with choosing Extractor/Sander combo!

[peter halle]

Get the MIRKA if you want reliability. If you are hypnotized into the festoy cult, then stay away from the brushless motor products.  I think people are catching onto festool’s marketing tactics.  Pros are leaving the brand.

Do you actually own a Mirka?  Are you speaking from experience with the Mirka? 

Peter

 

[grbmds]

Glad I'm not trying to choose a sander and vac based on the wide variety of feedback given. Just remember, whatever Festool vac and sander you buy, you have 30 days to return for a different one if they don't work the way you want them to on the job. If you are using them almost everyday, you will know quickly if they work for you. So, maybe your best shot, is to try out what you believe to be the best choice and see what happens. You still have the 30 days to change your mind.

On wood, I personally don't notice any difference in results between the ETS150/5 and ETS125 (not the EC's) due to their difference in rotation. The ETS125 is lighter than the ETS150 and, for small areas and vertical sanding, a little easier for me to use.

 

[Rip Van Winkle]

Get the MIRKA if you want reliability. If you are hypnotized into the festoy cult, then stay away from the brushless motor products.  I think people are catching onto festool’s marketing tactics.  Pros are leaving the brand.

This is quite funny because people will rather complaint about Festool being late to adopt brushless motors. All other popular brands already made the plunge into brushless a while ago. Oh and I would like to know why brushless is not a good idea.

P.S. Color matter to me and I don`t like yellow  [tongue]

Mario

Brushed motors have been around for more than a hundred years. While there are still sometimes problems with the design, if a company wants to build a durable brushed motor they pretty much can. If problems occur, the source of the problems is usually easy to fix. Aftermarket brushes and switches are usually available, and these are two of the main areas where problems might be caused.

Brushless motors by comparison are much newer technology that uses circuit boards to switch the motor poles. A number of different manufacturers are currently using different designs, with different numbers of motor poles. The circuit boards that switch the motors are usually proprietary. Sometimes the circuit boards are built into the tool switch, and other times they’re separate components, and still other times the switch is built into the circuit board. Current circuit boards in tools are usually potted making removing and replacing a bad component either impossible or annoyingly difficult. Circuit boards are also usually far more expensive to replace than a switch or brushes, and unlike brushed tools with speed control circuitry, you can’t simply bypass the bad circuit board to get a tool functional in a pinch, or due to a bad board design. The brushless motors also rely on sensors connected to the motor or other components, all of which can go bad leaving a tool none functional, or partially crippled. Lastly, the more components a tool has, the more areas where something can go wrong.

 

[Mario Turcot]

Brushed motors have been around for more than a hundred years. While there are still sometimes problems with the design, if a company wants to build a durable brushed motor they pretty much can. If problems occur, the source of the problems is usually easy to fix. Aftermarket brushes and switches are usually available, and these are two of the main areas where problems might be caused.

Brushless motors by comparison are much newer technology that uses circuit boards to switch the motor poles. A number of different manufacturers are currently using different designs, with different numbers of motor poles. The circuit boards that switch the motors are usually proprietary. Sometimes the circuit boards are built into the tool switch, and other times they’re separate components, and still other times the switch is built into the circuit board. Current circuit boards in tools are usually potted making removing and replacing a bad component either impossible or annoyingly difficult. Circuit boards are also usually far more expensive to replace than a switch or brushes, and unlike brushed tools with speed control circuitry, you can’t simply bypass the bad circuit board to get a tool functional in a pinch, or due to a bad board design. The brushless motors also rely on sensors connected to the motor or other components, all of which can go bad leaving a tool none functional, or partially crippled. Lastly, the more components a tool has, the more areas where something can go wrong.

[member=42462]Rip Van Winkle[/member] thank you for the clarification. I thought there was something very bad about brushless. I'm totally with you when it comes to the more components the more prone to problems.

Mario

 

[tallgrass]

I hear steam power has useful advantages as well. You can make them run on almost any fuel and have can have less moving parts as well. You might be on to something..... AC power brings added complexity as well.