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Post by zukinut on May 15, 2018 18:29:12 GMT -5
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Post by thehandyman on May 15, 2018 21:07:37 GMT -5
The Bosch 1250DEVS Rotex sander is a better option from what I've seen. I have the Bosch as well. Made is Switzerland. Great sander at fraction cost of RO 150 with equal dust collection
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Post by aas on May 16, 2018 5:29:41 GMT -5
I got the Rotex a couple of years ago - my decision was between the Makita, Bosch and the Festool. What swung it for me was the myriads of reviews and comments saying how the Rotex is in a class of it's own, etc.
My view after a couple of years of use - it's a sander, it works, but really nothing exceptional (like most of Festools range), I wish I had purchased the Bosch for a lot less.
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Post by huntsgemein on Jun 7, 2018 7:15:42 GMT -5
I have an older style Rotex. It's pretty good. In fact one of the better Festo/ols I own. What I particularly like is the "standard" style M8 mounting grub screw that allows exchange aftermarket pads at less than ripoff prices. Other people - who've had their grub screw seize solid - hate this configuration.
Modern Rotexes have a rather dodgy plastic bayonet pad exchange system. Quick & convenient, but expensive & subject to premature wear too. I've seen some tradies actually glue their pads to the machine in desperation to stop them repeatedly dropping pads.
What I don't like is their occasional bad manners in regard to controllability in rotary mode in rough going.
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Post by oncomeme on Aug 8, 2018 23:22:22 GMT -5
I have one of the "newer" Rotexes that I've been using pretty aggressively for three years as neither the Bosch nor the Makita options existed at the time I made my purchase and I find that the pad is almost impossible to remove even when I want to do it on purpose. The notion of it coming loose on its own is somewhat unfathomable to me and makes me suspect that these folks aren't putting it on properly in the first place.
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Post by huntsgemein on Aug 9, 2018 8:31:36 GMT -5
I have one of the "newer" Rotexes that I've been using pretty aggressively for three years as neither the Bosch nor the Makita options existed at the time I made my purchase and I find that the pad is almost impossible to remove even when I want to do it on purpose. The notion of it coming loose on its own is somewhat unfathomable to me and makes me suspect that these folks aren't putting it on properly in the first place. Huh? Both the Bosch & Makita variants of the "rotex" concept have been commercially available for at least 20 years! Possibly even longer. An (earlier??) version of the Bosch tool I seem to recall dates back to the 80's There were also additional variants (albeit not very reliable or highly regarded) from both Mafell & Kress as clones up until a couple of years ago too. That one all but sent Kress to the wall unfortunately. Whilst Festo's original Rotexes (Mk I & II) are still probably the most successful iteration, their "new" bayonet pads seem to work most successfully on the smaller 90 & 125 sizes, less so on the larger 150mm versions. Pad mounting failures are not an unusual occurrence at all in certain trades such as painting, plastering & auto refinishing, renovation etc. The bayonet fitting is I suspect yet another example of Festo/ol's rather cynical attempt to preclude aftermarket half or even quarter-priced pad availability as much as it's a solution to circumvent the mounting grub screw seizure phenomenon. Apart from anything else, the availability of cheap aftermarket multi/micro-hole pads specific to Webrax & Abranet abrasives easily trumps the addition of edge protection guards available on the latter day rotexes. Call me cynical, but I personally don't regard any Festo/ol product release since the change of name on or about the millenium as being in any way a worthwhile purchase. Some like the speed & convenience of their Festool loose tenoners; as a jointing method I consider it a cheap 'n' nasty alternative to dowelling/biscuiting. Probably ideal in synthetic board substitutes yet all but without merit in timber jointing as it relies merely on an adhesive's efficacy as opposed to the structural integrity of the source material & the time-honoured careful layout, cutting & residual integrity of more traditional joints. My older Festools have stood up well to the depredations of time & duty whereas my more recent purchases have been fairly poor performers in comparison. My old Festo vacs have served me well well without those ridiculous, flimsy hose garages. My CTL-Sys is a ridiculously incapacious, noisy, unreliable & unwieldy toy in comparison, useful only for small sanding jobs on stairs. My old Rotex, Deltex & RS1 sanders have been tough, crude but reliable workhorses, whereas my 2 Duplex sanders have proved useless at my intended tasks (paint removal from Victorian mouldings). The RO90DX rotex is a joke. Unruly, ill-handling, & incapable of accessing the stepovers & concavities that other equivalent deltas (Festo, Metabo & Bosch for instance) & ROS (Metabo's SXE400) find easy & handle intuitively. Festo's meagre cordless offerings are little more than badly executed, abysmal performing, antiquated jokes. After wasting about a grand or so on them I'll never spend another penny. Ever. My Trion jigsaw is easily my worst ever, despite being my most "expensivest" by a factor of two! A 30 year old Elu runs rings around it for parallel & perpendicular hardwood performance! As does an old Slovakian AEG at about 1/4 the price. Of course, a Mafell trumps all, despite (or perhaps because of) its outrageous expense. The Kapex is a very well-designed but extremely poorly executed & ludicrously overpriced SCMS. Mine was nicked thankfully, as it was never the reliable workhorse it should've been. It was replaced by a much larger & heavier Bosch Glide saw @ half the price & a little gem of a featherweight delight of a Metabo Cordless SCMS at (wait for it...) ONE SEVENTH!!!! of the price of the Kapex. The feel, power, performance, ergonomics & even in one case the dust extraction of my seriously old Elu & slightly more modern DeWalt routers easily eclipse the equivalent 3 Festool models. They also form part of the world's best & most extensive aftermarket accessory programme for which the compatibility of all other manufacturers are found wanting. Only my old HL 850 E planer is probably bettered by its modern iteration simply by virtue of the addition of an electronic braking system. I suspect that about the year 2000 Festo must have sacked their entire R&D department, replacing them with staff specifically selected for their low IQ. I guess that it's probably a more humane destination than their Teutonic fellows received in the late 30's & early 40's: Dachau, Majdanek, Matthausen, Treblinka, Bergen Belsen, Auschwitz Birchenau et al.
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Post by kraftt on Aug 9, 2018 11:26:26 GMT -5
Muf, the perfect apéritif before a visit to Fog.
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Post by reflector on Aug 12, 2018 14:58:49 GMT -5
You can get the Festool levels of dust collection/cool running on the Bosch too. The Bosch will take the 5" Bosh pads from the ROS65. I had a beat up one that I took a drill bit that I had sharpened a point on and stabbed holes through the sides into the middle where the screw is. Now when suction gets drawn through and you place your hand in over the pad, you'll feel make up air exiting through the middle hole. Looking back on what I did, I probably should have heated up that remain of of the drill shank before using it to make the holes.
Best part is it works with standard 8 hole 5" sandpaper (And theoretically 6 hole 6" sandpaper if you use the 6" pad). The only real modification you'll ever have to do is to stab a hole in the middle of the sandpaper so make up air can come through it.
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Post by oncomeme on Aug 12, 2018 19:28:01 GMT -5
Huh? Both the Bosch & Makita variants of the "rotex" concept have been commercially available for at least 20 years! Possibly even longer. An (earlier??) version of the Bosch tool I seem to recall dates back to the 80's That's entirely possible, but they certainly weren't being sold anywhere around me and I'm not seeing anything on ereplacementparts.com that looks like it would fit the bill. Have a model number handy? The Bosch sander lacks the edge guard that the Festool and Makita have, which was a massive deciding factor for my use cases. If you don't need it, then there's certainly no reason to pay an ungodly sum for it, but I did and it has more than paid for itself, so I have nothing to complain about. It's highly unlikely I'd buy another Rotex 150 today if mine gave up the ghost given the way the new OSHA laws have finally forced other manufacturers to start taking dust extraction seriously, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near death and I've used it to dry surface a whole lot of GFRC in places I couldn't bring a wet polisher. My condolences if your pads fly off, but I personally have to get a second person to hold the arbor lock button in while I crank the thing off with two gloved hands to even budge it a little. The RO 90 is slightly easier given the fact that you simply switch it to delta mode rather than hold a button in, but still, the friction is substantial and mine handles like a dream. Your case for the superior strength of biscuit joining over dominos isn't something I'd call "cynical;" I'd call it "absurd." There is absolutely no way in hell a biscuit is going to out-perform a 14mm tenon in any strength test, loose or otherwise. And if you went out and bought a CTL-SYS expecting capacity for anything other than tiny cleanup jobs then I'm not sure it's the IQ of any product designer you should be worrying about, but that's just me. I like making stuff more than I like complaining about the things other people make which I can either choose to buy or not. My Erika was shipped to me in a completely unusable state which required several hours of disassembly and rebuilding. This cast serious doubt on Mafell's basic quality assurance standards in my mind, but that does not mean that Mafell is run by Nazis, and frankly, I find your concentration camp comment both offensive and moronic. Surely there must be some children playing on a lawn somewhere that you can go yell at instead.
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