What's the deal with non brushless new tools ?

[AlexThePalex]

Ok, that sounds interesting. Mirka has replaced the entire Ceros series (external supply) with the newer Deros (internal power supply). Does that mean Mirka doesn't offer electric sanders suitable for wet sanding anymore?

Probably. I am not that familiar with Mirka's entire line. But I grew up in a body shop, and it was clear that Mirka wanted to offer their electric sanders as a replacement for the air sanders used in that sector, that's why they made them look exactly the same. When you work up your grits and you go above 800 you go over to wet sanding. Not a problem with an air sander, but not allowed with 220v electrical sanders. So they had to think up something, and the transformer was the answer. It was already used by diamond drills with water cooling and tile cutters.

But it is not hard to see people didn't like the separate transformer. Why carry two lumps around when you can just plug an air sander into your compressor line?

Smart move by Mirka to get rid of it. Their sanders are pretty popular now.

 

[acknowlli]

Water cooled drills and cutters use an isolation transformer, so that the 230V coming out of it isn't referenced to ground, but floating. That prevents electric shock when touching a live wire while standing on conductive ground.

The low voltage DC power supply Mirka used for their Ceros sanders is an entirely different animal.

 

[Cheese]

Interesting...I went to wet sanding at the 400 level.

From my era, I’d use 400 grit on bare steel to abrade it down to a 500/600/800 level, who knows what level it was at, all we knew was that it was more than 400 grit.

30 years ago we didn’t have the luxury of choosing a 1200/2000 grit paper, it was simply a 3M Wet or Dry 400 paper worn out sanding steel. That was the best of the best.  [big grin]

 

[AlexThePalex]

Cheese, you can wet sand at any level you want. When you get in the higher grits, the change is not as big as in the lower grits. The difference between 120 and 240 is bigger than between 400 and 800.

In the body shop we had a rack full of the black waterproof 3M paper, it ranged something like 400, 600, 800, 1200, 1600, 2000. Can't remember exactly anymore, that was around 40 years ago, but we had a lot of grits to choose from.