Review of the DeWalt Cordless Sander (DCW210)

[Mike Henderson]

I bought the DeWalt cordless sander and have some time on it now. Thought I'd post some comments on it.

Pros:

1. Effective sander - seems to work as well as my previous sanders.
2. Relatively low vibration.
3. A 5Ah battery lasts a long time.
4. The weight of the battery did not affect use. It's on the side so the sander is not top heavy.

Cons:

1. I use a shop vac with my previous sanders and have it set up so that the shop vac turns on when I turn on the sander. Since this is cordless, there's no way to automatically turn on the shop vac. That adds a step every time I use the sander.
2. DeWalt uses a special hookup for the dust collection - I had to purchases a new end for my dust collection hose. The special hookup is good in that it won't allow the hose to come off. There's pretty much no way to connect to the dust port except with the special DeWalt connector.
3. The vacuum at the pad does not seem to be as strong as with my other sanders. I don't know if there's some kind of blockage internal to the sander, but with the shop vac running full speed, and the sander runing at full speed, there's not a lot of suction at the pad. Certainly not as much as on my other sanders. With both the internal fan and the shop vac sucking there should be a lot of air being drawn in. The internal fan should be adding to the shop vac suction.

That's about it. I'll keep the sander but I'll go back to my previous sanders for most of my use.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

Good review, Mike.

The vacuum on/off thing is the reason that Festool brought out the Bluetooth control for their more recent generation of extractors including a button that can be on the hose for any tools that don't support the function. It will be interesting to see if other manufacturers move in that direction for extraction given the growing popularity of battery operated hand-held tools that make dust and chips.