Dremel has a new cordless rotary tool, 7350-5, that’s powered by a built-in 4V (3.6V) battery.
The new Dremel 7350 cordless rotary tool operates at a single speed, 12,000 RPM, and is recharged via USB power adapter (not included).
The tool comes with a micro USB charging cable and a 5pc starter set of sanding, grinding, and cleaning accessories, plus a collet wrench.
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Dremel describes the 7350 as being “simple to use, easy to love.”
According to the spec sheet, the Dremel 7350 has a 2Ah battery.
Dremel says that their new 4V USB-recharged cordless rotary tool is compatible with most Dremel accessories, and that it is NOT recommended for cutting, drilling, and routing tasks. They say it’s suited for sanding, grinding, sharpening, polishing, and engraving applications.
Price: $30
At the time of this posting, there’s a “clippable coupon” that takes $2.50 off the price.
Compared to Ryobi
Ryobi also recently came out with a new USB Lithium cordless rotary tool. The Ryobi tool has an adjustable speed range, from 5,000 to 25,000 RPM. It comes with 15 accessories, a storage case, collet wrench, and a single replaceable battery.
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The Ryobi will soon be available for $60, which is double the price of the Dremel.
At the other end of the spectrum, Dremel also recently came out with a “Smart” cordless rotary tool with Bluetooth connectivity and brushless motor.
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Jared
I know any tool with a built-in battery will attract some heat, but this looks like a good concept to me. Cordless, simple and cheap.
Sure, there are many things that could be improved, but there’s other, more expensive tools that have those other options.
Koko The Talking Ape
Sure, but lacking one specific feature, a replaceable battery, means you’ll have to throw the entire thing out in a year or two, where with other options like the Ryobi, you can just swap in one of the many batteries you have lying around (if you’re a Ryobi guy.) Also, you don’t have to wait for it to recharge. So, longer lasting AND more usable. (The other features aren’t as important, I’d agree.) And I don’t see how making the battery replaceable, even as an OEM part, would add to the cost.
Also, they don’t recommend it for cutting, which is half of what I use my rotary tool for. So it’s just not very capable.
So I personally am not interested. Like Chuck says, PEDICURE. 😀
Matt the Hoople
Pedicure…exactly. Gonna get one for trimming my dog’s nails. Use my corded models for heavy stuff. Would like at least a low/high switch but for $30, why not. Been putting off getting a cordless one just for the doggy pedicure due to cost.
As for the battery, my skil cordless screwdriver is still going strong 4 years later. I suspect similar life from this. If I get 4 years, that’s less than a dollar a month for the convenience.
Of course, I have a use for it. Sounds like you don’t really. Agree it’s limited and not for everyone.
Koko The Talking Ape
I do have a use for a cordless rotary tool, just not this one.
You don’t worry about running out of juice halfway through your dog’s manicure? Somebody else said this thing will take 4 hours to recharge.
If you have any Ryobi batteries, their cheapest rotary tool is $50. If you alternate using and charging two batteries, you can work indefinitely.
Jared
That’s the thing though, this is is a basic (pretty low speed) cordless unit. It’s for someone who isn’t invested in a cordless platform and doesn’t want one.
A Ryobi like you mentioned gets expensive fast if you’re adding batteries. The model Stuart mentioned is a better competitor – and a better tool. BUT! it’s twice the price.
If you’re doing automotive work and might need to cut off a bolt or some such – there’s better tools. If you’re more on the “craft” end of the scale and want minimum investment and complexity, this seems like a winner.
Doresoom
Why on earth is any manufacturer still using micro-USB in a newly launched product? Must be a few pennies cheaper than a USB-C connector.
Stacey Jones
Micro USB probably provides more than enough current to charge this at max speed. The cables are cheap and plentiful too.
Munklepunk
Micro USB has and always will be a bad design. They used it because some idiot penny pincher weighed the cost of breakage vs savings and found it that’s is going to make more money on whatever warranty issues come up and having all the garbage charging ports going bad after warranty is up. No company should be selling any product with micro USB. Imagine if some company came out with an ipad accessory but it used the old 20 pin connector. It’s been at least 6 years since USB c became standard on devices, there is no reason to not be using it.
Perry
It kind of makes sense to me. With the new usb-c PD standard coming out, it prevents people from using a 40 to 240 watt charger into one of these and blowing up the battery. If that’s the reason, it means they didn’t want to pay to add circuitry to control the input current
N. Berg
That’s not how USB-C works. When you plug in a USB-C device the charger will tell it how much power it’s capable of delivering, and then the device tells the charger how much it wants. The charger can’t blow up the battery because the end device is the one really in control. The circuitry to control that input is fundamental to having a USB-C port that functions at all, they can’t really cut costs and just leave it out.
This omission has nothing to do with protecting consumers from their devices and entirely about saving (at most, with scale probably even less than) a couple dollars per unit. I realize for a budget tool that can be significant, but to me absolutely worth it in every situation.
Luke
Yeah I may be in the minority here, but there’s zero chance I’d buy this micro-USB tool for $30. I would however consider this USB-C tool for $32.
Maybe overall it’s worth it to make it as cheap as possible, but here’s at least one instance where shaving a dollar or two in manufacturing costs cost them a sale.
Farid
I have had many USB-C connector failures but not a single mini-USB yet.
The oval metal connector housing on the male end is often too soft and deforms easily, even on high quality cables, and often end up with connectivity issues.
Franck B.
You must not have used USB 2.0 portable hard disks… lots of connector failures there on both the plug and receptacle. I believe the rated lifetime of the early mini-B connectors was 1000 insertions. On a portable drive you could easily do that in a year.
I mean, the whole reason it was deprecated was because of the poor mechanical design (since the replacement didn’t have any major electrical improvements).
Munklepunk
Micro not mini
Chuck
I see “PEDICURE” written all over this tool…
Dave P
Built in battery will be junk in a few years. Save your money and buy a corded one and your grandkids will inherit from your kids.
No way, not ever….
Frank D
No way. I avoid anything that has a built-in non-replaceable / non-serviceable battery as much as possible. The $$$$$ of dollars of functional devices my family has had to replace over the years, solely due to batteries not holding a charge, there not being a replacement, the batteries being so integrated replacement is next to impossible or cost prohibitive …. and that is just 1 family … multiplied by how many on the planet???
Franck B.
You do know on most of those items that have non-replaceable batteries… you can actually replace them? I mean, this IS a tool blog, and I would presume the readers are actually USING the tools. Fixing tools is one of the things I would expect from tool owners. SBD makes a lot of parts available easily, and Bosch parts are available although with some difficulty.
I’d be less concerned with the battery life and more concerned that the vast majority of recent (maybe even going back more than 10 years) Dremel tools have cheap nylon parts in the drive.
MM
Yes indeed. Take it apart, remove the old battery, solder in a new one. You don’t even need to get the battery from Dremel, it’s surely a standard size battery, just find out which size and order one.
Now that may be more work than some people are willing to do, and some tools are a pain in the rear to get into to repair. Most cordless power tools have obvious screws and are easy to take apart but this might snap together which makes the whole thing a bigger pain.
Franck B.
Or ultrasonic welding. A good squeeze with some pliers (I recommend Knipex over ICON) and then some CA to close it back up (I recommend Bob Smith thin with some Instaset)!
Matt the Hoople
Swappable batteries wear out and die also. And they generally cost a lot more to replace than a plain 18650 or similar.
For a low power, low usage tool like this, internal makes sense to keep the price down. The 18650 in my $20 Skil cordless screwdriver is over 4 years old and still works great. When it dies, a name brand 18650 battery is like $6.
If I bought a competing model with swappable battery, initial price would have been double and the battery would still need replacing in5 years…. If they still make the same battery.
Frank D
Yes, it is a tool blog and yes, I will open up the item and do my best identify the battery and repair; and have succesfully given life to a few things like a tool, flash light, vacuum, … with a new battery. I love to tinker a little, but I am not an electronics engineer and so many things do have rather custom batteries (laptops, power tools cleaning tools, hand tools, pen tools, … ) are not made to be serviced and end up being destroyed in the process. Or an off the shelf solution (my old Makita batteries) costs more than the tool kit. Or they don’t exist (my old Ridgid batteries) You may give it a try. I may give it a try. The average person?
Jeffrey Miller
“micro USB”. No thanks.
Unmesh
I’m one of those that finds the USB-C connector more robust than micro-USB even though they are both rated for 10000 mating cycles respectively. (USB-A is only rated for 1500 mating cycles!) I particularly like the ability to blind mate the former because of its symmetric profile.
I’d be willing to pay a few bucks for USB PD support but have devices that use only the USB-C connector with the standard USB BC protocol adhering charging ports.
JoeM
Ugh… Not another one… It doesn’t even have the attachment collar to add the pet nail groomer, or even the EZ Twist Wrench!… These 4V internals need to charge for Four Hours each time you use them up!
This isn’t even worth $5, let alone $30… If you’re pondering This model…. Yeah… Just go with the Ryobi… It’s these dumb Home/Starter series tools that make me jump ship from Dremel… When I can afford it, though… Totally going to upgrade to the 4300 and the new 8260… Probably get my Niece those as well… Let her do some more work with my Brother when he’s got her… she deserves the real quality tools from Dremel… I’ll teach her young little maker self to stay away from garbage models like this one if it’s the last thing I do! Yeah… She’s like… 10, I think… but I was 9 when I started with Dremel, and pretty much all tools, so she’s well into the phase when it’s ideal to teach her the real way to do things.
Ugh… Tools like this one make me feel sick for endorsing Dremel for so much of my life… The stupidity factor just makes Dremel users look bad…
JML
The Dremel Stylus was the most useful battery-powered tool they ever made. The ergonomics were (and are) unmatched. I don’t know why they don’t do something similar now. (I just hope the batteries in mine remain useable.)
https://www.dremel.com/imagestorage/en-gn/dremel-stylus-lithium-ion-298-2016-png-org-2357_w_3200_h_1600.png
JoeM
Personal opinion here, partially based on participating on the Dremel facebook page several years ago (Before the invasive sponsorship came in.) but the Stylus original, and even its micro screwdriver kit it once came with, were among Dremel’s most popular tools. I wanted one for my Mother at the time, because she was getting on in years, and arthritis was setting in… so her Dremel needs were becoming less about power, and more about detail. It was perfect.
Then they discontinued it. And I started looking deeper into why. No Attachment Collar was a big one with the masses, compatibility with the full range of Accessories was another. And it was superior to this new one in that it had its own charging Dock to use, along with that combo set with an equal form factor/design mini screwdriver. I would genuinely love a slightly larger edition of the Stylus, that was increased in size to incorporate an Attachment Collar, and a larger platform for holding Accessories and spare Collets for the tool. Perhaps a wider speed range, or at least something that could be more precise in what speed you set it at. Not that it ever had that problem, just, if it comes down to having to compromise on what we get, if we get a new one, I would rather more control if we can’t get more speeds in such a small package. It really was a beautiful, ergonomic tool, and I still regret never owning one.
Now… One of the few times I genuinely cannot remember the model number on the attachment, came out of the wake of the Stylus being discontinued. The Detailer’s Grip. Fits all the other Dremel Rotary Tools with Attachment Collars. One came with my kit for the 4000 when I bought it, and I have to admit, it works well for what it’s meant to do. It gives you that grip space the Stylus had, except for larger tools. The downside is… it’s not the same flat design, it’s like a pistol grip, only it’s meant to act as a kind of lever to take the weight off your fingertips while holding the Dremel tool by the nose alone for detail. It just transfers the larger weight of the tool to your palm, or whatever surface you lay the edge of the grip on, in order to get into the detailed space. It handles (no pun intended) the weight of the full-sized tools for you, rather than the way the Stylus just moved the weight of its small size so that you could grip it many different ways, always ideally for detail.
I do also regret that this was also the end of the 400XP era. There was some real promise to the heavier attachments it promised. I was lucky enough to get the two that were released. The MultiSaw MS400, and the Planer PL400. Parts for the MS400 are easy… like a Leatherman Surge, it takes T-Shank Jigsaw blades, and turns a Rotary Tool into a slightly shaky Recip Saw. But the PL400? It has an extremely specialized spiral cutter, and if something happens to that thing, there’s no replacing it. They don’t make it anymore. Sharpen it all you want, but at some point, its life will end, and that’s going to be very sad.
Oh, and their new Stylus+ can’t hold a candle to the Stylus. It’s a nice, ergonomic Corded Design… but it is majorly outclassed by nearly every other tool in the lineup.
Dave the tool
I used to be a battery snob and wouldn’t purchase any tool without a replaceable battery but the advancement in lithium batteries has allowed me to become more open minded regarding battery powered devices. NiCads soured many of us on non replaceable batteries and Dremel used them too. Nothing worse than having a dead tool when you need it or having a tool die because of the battery when the tool has a ton of life left in it! For me now it’s a decision based on features vs price vs usage time. I have a corded Dremel, Milwaukee M12 rotary tool (the best IMO) a Ryobi cordless micro tool and lastly a Hyper Tough 7.2v lithium rotary tool. All have their advantages and disadvantages regarding horse power, usage time ,weight and size of tool.
I am surprise that the Dremel has only one speed however. I use different speeds on my rotary tools frequently depending on the project! As another commenter stated, they should have, at minimum, offered a high low switch. I would avoid this tool just for that fact alone.
Plain grainy
Off Topic: Lowe’s has a Skil 12 volt deal($199). Six tools, two batteries (2,0 ah, 4.0 ah), charger, and it might have a case( description not real clear on the case). Model-CB7434-21
Raycr
It is nice they are brushless to offset 12 volt. Last,black,Friday Acme and Home Depot had the Makita 18 volt 6:piece set with the vacuum $100 off at $299. It was not brushless. The brushless 6 piece set with no vacuum but a radio was $399 on Black Friday.
With the 30 percent increase on April 1st we won’t see those days again.
Carl
They lost me at micro USB. USB C will be the only USB cord I’ll be buying going forward.