Dremel 8200 Review

Dremel is one of those names everyone knows.  This rotary tool is just about the all in one power tool and could be used for a variety of applications.  Today we are going to review the Dremel 8200, which is their cordless version.

Power Tool Review– Dremel

Power Tool Model – 8200  1/28

Pros: Cordless, very good power, great balance, items in tool kit, easy to use, number of applications you can perform with this tool.

Cons: Only one battery comes with the kit (Model 2/28 comes with two batteries)

Specifications of the Dremel

• 12V Max Lithium-Ion Cordless
• 22 oz.
• 5,000 – 30,000 rpm
• Quick Collete Lock
• Battery Gauge
• 2 Year Warranty
• 1 hour charge time

Nuts & Bolts of the Dremel

The Dremel is like WD-40 in the fact that there are so many uses for the item.  It’s the tool that you can just about doing anything with, well that might be a little exaggeration, but you sure can do a heck of a lot.  This rotary tool can sand, engrave, carve, grind, sharpen, clean items, polish, drill and more.

Specifications

The first thing you will notice once you open your new Dremel is the case.  The whole kit comes with a nice hard plastic case.  The great thing about the case is all the room to hold other accessories.  There is a small case they supply you with that has 28 different accessories to get you started.  A user can fit even more accessories in this small case or even a lot more in the large case.  Everything in the case has a place, so nothing slides around and you don’t have any loose items banging into each other.  Inside the case you also have a cutting guide, one hour charger, 1-12V Lithium battery and best of all the rotary tool itself.

The overall specs of this tool are very impressive.  We like the variable speed of 5,000 to 30,000 which lets the user match the speed to the type of application they are performing. Since the Dremel comes with one battery, we had to look at the charger more closely.  The charger is a one hour charger and for all practical purposes, it is a one hour charger.  We drained the battery five times and our average charge time was 47 minutes, so it did charge a little quicker for us.  We do like they incorporated a battery gauge which allows the user to see how much juice is left in the battery.  Note this review is for the 1/28, we would recommend paying the extra money and buying the 2/28 which has two batteries.

The Dremel only weights 22 oz., so it is very easy to maneuver and be extremely accurate without getting any type of fatigue.

The cutting guide is also very nice for three reasons.

1. It’s a cutting guide and lets the user have precise cutting depths
2. The depth lines are very easy and nice to read
3. Once the guide is set, it is very strong and will not break loose until the user wants it loose.

Review

We have to admit we were a little bias going into the review because we have used this tool a lot over the years and has always scored very high on our radar.  Second, Bosch owns Dremel and Bosch is one of the best power tool manufacturers around.  They don’t make junk.  While some power tool companies have tried to hit lower end markets and produce cheaper tools to compete against the no names tools, Bosch has stayed true to providing professional quality power tools to users.

With that said, we still had to go into the review with an open eye thinking maybe this is different.  We thought one thing we would be able to knock the Dremel for was the balance since the battery sits in the back of the tool, but to our amazement the Dremel has great balance.  When holding the tool in your hand, it has a nice wide base to grip and hold the tool.  The weight is evenly distributed across the tool, so its not front or back heavy as we first thought it might be.  Balance is always crucial for any power tool, but especially with this rotary tool.  The Dremel can perform detailed work such as engraving, cutting tile, cleaning grout, so a steady hand is very important.

Changing a bit is very easy.  The lock feature to change a bit is towards the front of the tool.  You don’t have to put a lot of pressure on the lock button in order for the colet to lock, which is nice.  Once you have a bit in the collet, it stays in place and is very sturdy where we never had a problem.  The variable speed is at the handle of the tool.  Again it is very easy to adjust and it always stayed in place where ever we set the speed.  The vibrations, which are small, never moved the speed up or down by itself.  Also we thought where the speed function was placed, we might have a problem when holding onto the tool and accidentally changing the speed, but again that never happened, so we are not worried about that.

The battery lasted a long time especially when we were just polishing or even doing some light sanding.  We do wish the kit came with two batteries as heavy use, as with any battery, caused us to charge it quicker.  But for the price of the kit and the price of the extra battery, it is well worth buying this kit and an extra battery.  For everything you get, it’s a steal.

As we stated the Dremel has easily over a thousand different applications you can do with this tool, so on our video we didn’t want to bore you with a lot of different uses.  Plus all our videos are on youtube and they only give you 10 minutes of video, sorry, but we are too cheap to try and figure out how to host and pay for our own videos.  The main thing we wanted to show you was some of the features and benefits, so the cutting guide and just show you with a drill bit punching through some wood.  As you can see the Dremel went through the 3/4″ Plywood with no problems and as you can see how fast it cut through the wood, without it bogging down too much.  Yes it was only plywood as opposed to a harder wood, but our goal was for you to see it in action.

Conculsion

There are a lot of other companies that have tried to compete with the Dremel, but they are just too hard to touch.  The 8200 is by far the best rotary tool available on the market.  Yes we even like it better then the corded Dremel versions because this has a lot of power and we love the versatility of taking it anywhere around the house and not being tied down to bring extension cords or having power near by.  The variable speed gives the user complete control of the tool.  The balance allows the user to easily use this on any project and not get fatigued.  We would recommend buying the model 2/28 as that comes with two batteries.