C

Canadian_JOY

Well Known Member
After searching and coming up empty I thought I'd toss this question out to the fine folks of the forum...

At our hangar we have insufficient current carrying capacity to start a reasonable-sized air compressor. Please don't go off on a tangent about shop electricity - it is what it is and I have to live with it until multi-thousands of dollars can be found to implement a better solution.

In the meantime, I can't run my 1/4" straight and angle air-driven die grinders. I love these tools. The Dremel gets a good workout but just doesn't have the same level of utility offered by the die grinders.

Are there any decent 115Vac or battery-powered alternatives to these 1/4" die grinders? Something reasonably small and offering similar controllability. I have small hands so something like a Makita angle grinder is just far too big and doesn't offer variable speed control like a die grinder.

Thanks in advance for your helpful suggestions.
 
I have a Makita 110 volt die grinder, it needs two hands to hold it but I have not used my air powered one since I bought it about 10 years ago. I used to wonder what someone would use a die grinder for but now I would not be without one.
 
I recently moved into a hangar with a 15 amp breaker and have had a challenge finding an air compressor I could live with. Couple ideas: you might try buying a larger air tank and hooking your compressor up in series for more capacity. Or you might be satisfied with a flex shaft grinder. The one I've used was a big step down from a die grinder but was more powerful than a dremel and they do have a variable speed foot control. Good luck!

Jerald King
Tucson
 
Thanks to all for the responses - much appreciated. It looks like a Foredom flex shaft machine is likely the only thing that will have enough juice to spin a 1/4" shank tool with sufficient speed/force to be meaningful, while being anything like affordable. I've held the Makita electric device and it's just too big for me to be able to handle when doing fine work. Ingersol-Rand sells a battery-powered die grinder but it's priced at around $600 - likely 2-3X what I would want to spend.
 
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