Question on "Dual Mode" 6" sanders

[Kevin Murdock]

All,

I've been looking at the 3 (are there others?) different models of 6" dual mode sanders common to the US marketplace:
- Festool
- Bosch
- Metabo/Ridgid

And I'm having a hard time coming up with how each defines "dual mode".

Looking online, I've found that the Metabo defines it as 1/8" stroke vs 1/4" stroke. The Festool site mentions that it has has a 5mm stroke for one of the settings, is the other a locked no-stroke or 3mm? And for the Bosch, I didn't find anything but for the vague "Turbo Mode for aggressive, fast stock removal, random orbit mode for fine swirl-free sanding"

Without getting into the other points of comparison between these three, I was wondering if anyone knew what the Bosch stoke is for both modes, and what Festool does for stoke in the stock removal mode.

Thanks,
/Kevin

[Bob Childress]

Kevin,

It is my understanding that the Festool RO150 FEQ alternates between true gear-driven rotary sanding and ROS with a 5mm stroke. Uncle Bob Marino will correct me if I'm wrong. Don't know about the others.

[Josh Krahn]

I have the Ridgid. The long-stroke mode is somewhat more aggressive than normal mode, but probably nowhere near as aggressive as the Festool spinning away like an angle grinder. Wish I could afford that one! Don't know about the Bosch though (would like to).

Josh

[Jim Becker]

On the Rotex, it's "round and round" for agressive sanding/grinding as well as polishing and 5mm stroke ROS for finish sanding. I have used both modes "recently" on the natural edge bench project...the former for taking out lines left by the drum sander and some edge shaping and the latter for more refined sanding after using rotary mode.