I finally got the time to sit down and test out the new Stellen DaVinci and so far, it’s pretty decent. I bought it primarily as a table saw, but since some of the other comments on the Kickstarter mentioned the drill press arm breaking, I figured I’d test that as well.
Portable Corded Dremel
I had no issues charging the battery or using the power pack (turning off and on, adjusting speeds). The cord is long enough that I was able to take it outside and use the dremel to fix a gate latch while setting the battery off to one side.
Having the speed controls on the battery instead of the dremel was a little bit of an annoyance, but workable.
Table Saw
I tested the tablesaw with 1/16″ up to 1/2″ wood and had no issues with the cuts. I tested out basswood, basla wood, poplar, and pine and there was no splintering or burning on any of the cuts.
The protective plastic guard does not sit properly parallel, but thankfully didn’t touch the blade. It only goes up a bit above 1/2″, but that’s fine since it only cuts that high.
I had no issues assembling the table saw configuration, but I did notice I only got two of the orange screws instead of the three it showed in some photos. (Ah well.)
I didn’t opt to attach the DaVinci to the table, using only the rubber feet since the wood I was working with was light and small. If I was working with hardwoods, I’d clamp it down or use the option of screwing it into a heavier chonk or wood (or the table).
The only current downside is that the kit only comes with one sawblade and I don’t have any Dremel blades to compare it to. (I’ll come back and update this post once I do.)
Since this was the primary purpose I bought it for, I’m quite pleased at how the test cuts came out!
Drill Press
A few reviews mentioned the arm breaking on the drill press, so even though I’m not planning on using this as much I figured I’d better test it out… and good gravy is this a PAIN to put together!
The dremel slides into the holder, no issues (once you take the top off) but getting the holder to slide onto the metal rail took several minutes and a lot of muttering. I had a similiar issue getting the metal rail to slide into the holder in the case– and noticed that the plastic is soft enough that you can scrape it with the metal if you’re not careful. (sigh)
But it did all go together everntually and was nicely solid.
The bad bit was that there was only a little over 5/8″ clearance between the drill bit and the drill bit did not go all the way down (even though there is a hole in the metal top). I placed a 1/2″ dowel on a 1/8″ and was unable to get the drill bit to pass all the way through the 1/2″ piece.
I think this may be why folks were breaking the arm– it seems like it should go down a lot further!
Also the ‘all the way up’ arm position is significantly different that the pictures in the instructions if you want the drill bit to get down to that 1/8″-above-top.
Dremel Compatibility
One of the big concerns I had when getting the DaVinci was if it would end up having proprietary consumables… and I’m happy to say ‘not as bad as I feared’!
The chuck and collet are slightly larger than the Dremel parts I had, which means the chucks aren’t swappable. I did test out using the slightly smaller Dremel collets and the did seem to lock in well, but I doubt I’d want to use them for the tinier drill bits I have (which is fine, I wouldn’t want to drill press those anyways!).
The cutting wheels and sanding heads were all exactly the same size, so no issues there. The Dremel bit shafts are slightly larger than the DaVinci ones, which means the DaVinci collets won’t work. Which is a little annoying, since I was going to poach them for the Dremels since I’m using the DaVinci for table sawing, but ah well.
Overall Thoughts
For right now… optimistically positive!
I’m hoping to have enough free time to build some model horse bridges and fencing in the next week or so which will give me a good test on if this will work as well as I hope.
The DaVinci also had a belt sander that I was going to test, but I want to validate that I can use alternate sanding belts first– otherwise it’s not going to be much use in the long term.
I’ll post some more as I work with it and I’m trying to find a good way to post some ‘in use’ videos to YouTube. Onwards!