A few observations- I don’t think I shall be needing an oscillating spindle sander on a daily basis, ever. So, I ordered this unit, based on reviews, and price point. At this price, this is a pretty good buy, given what you get versus paid for. It’s obviously 100% China sourced. The packaging survived, the unit inside was protected by top and bottom styrofoam inserts which held up well, about 30 pounds ship weight. First off, the mandatory dust collection works really well! It’s a 1-1/2 OD inch port, so you will likely need to adapt it to whatever your shop is set up for. I have both 4 inch and 2-1/2 inch predominately, and a few adapters, so this wasn’t a problem. The owners manual specifies it must be used with dust collection! There are a number of questions in the reviews about noise, and this is a fairly noisy unit. If you have a Bosch Colt 1/4 inch router, there’s your comparison. The table is larger than I thought it would be, (bonus) it is cast iron, the balance of the machine is various types of plastic. The table is pretty rough on the sides, the top passes for smooth, it was very dirty when I got it. Performance wise, it does a decent job for what it it, the spindle is square to the table, and seems to have enough torque reserve to deal with most sanding situations. Internally, you will find a DC permanent magnet motor, being driven directly from a full wave diode bridge straight off the AC power line. I suspect this raw, brute force approach to powering the motor contributes a lot to the noise. It’s a mystery also that this got by the “power factor correction” mandates, but somehow this does. I have wrestled with the idea of removing the “guts” of this unit, and building a more substantial (and noise suppressing) base, powering it with a much more refined DC power supply. But the effort and expense would take me into the territory of “just purchase a better sander in the first place”. Dunno, if I need to use this thing a lot, I might do that, but right now, it did the one job I got it for pretty well, and will be a place holder on the shelves otherwise. For the $138 at the time I bought it, it was the right price for the solution I needed. This is priced less than the other comparable units, which likely have the same innards, table, etc. Forget the “on board accessory storage”, just put the various rings in a zip lock bag, then put the bag and the sanding drums and sleeves in a toolbox drawer or somewhere.
