DREMEL VERSA POWER CLEANER REVIEW

The Dremel VERSA is a cordless power cleaner. Which is basically a small motor with battery that spins a cleaning accessory so you don’t have to.

The idea behind the Dremel VERSA is to approach cleaning differently than you can by hand. When cleaning by hand, you basically have four options to tackle anything that doesn’t easily come clean. Use an appropriate solvent, apply more force, use a more abrasive cleaner, do it longer.

Sometimes those aren’t great options. The right solvent may be toxic, or there may be nearby materials the solvent would be harmful to. Applying more elbow grease doesn’t work on delicate objects, and it’s a lot of work! A more abrasive cleaner might remove the trouble but also scratch up what you’re trying to clean. And just scrubbing longer? Cleaning isn’t fun as it is, who wants to do it longer?

The Dremel VERSA is the fifth approach, get an appropriate power tool. The usefulness of the Dremel VERSA is that it cleans in a way we can’t by hand, spinning an abrasive at 2200 revolutions per minute. That’s the same as wiping a spot 36 times a second. So in those situations where the only real solution used to be just spending more time to break down the gunk, that’s where this little guy is going to save a lot of time.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Quick charge Lithium Ion Battery

• Charges with common micro USB cable

• Tool free accessory changes

• Features four cleaning accessories and splash guard

• Unique high speed low torque design

FEATURES

The Dremel VERSA has four cleaning accessories. A stiff bristle brush, an eraser pad (think like a magic eraser), non-scratch pad, and heavy duty pad. If you want to read more about each of the pads, I did a separate review here. It also includes a removable splash guard that snaps on and off to help contain the mess if you’re using any cleaners or water.

Being cordless is a given for a tool like this. It would hardly be convenient if it was corded. But more than that the folks are Dremel were considerate enough to set this up with a common micro-USB charging port (cable and USB brick included). So if the cable gets misplaced, odds are you have several others laying around. Proprietary cables are for the birds (looking at you, Apple).

DESIGN

This is a straight forward no fluff tool. At 2 pounds it’s light enough to be easily used for it’s whole battery life without getting fatigued, but has enough weight to get the job done without pushing on it. It’s comfortable and feels pretty good in the hand. I went through a battery with it and wasn’t bothered by hand fatigue or anything like that. And the single button on/off button is as intuitive as you can get.

The splash guard is simple to install and remove, it turns and clicks into place. The motor arbor is threaded to receive the brush, or the backer for the pads.

PERFORMANCE

As I discussed earlier, the idea behind the Dremel VERSA is to just work faster. There is a heavy duty pad that’s fairly aggressive, but the other three accessories are meant to be used on more delicate surfaces that you don’t want to scratch. To oversimplify things, it works by wiping really fast, way faster than is possible by hand.

Because of that, this is something you need to just let work. Bearing down on it will only wear out the motor prematurely. That said, if you choose the right accessory for the task (reviewed here), it’ll get the job done.

The splash guard is handy, but the accessories do protrude below it so they can do their business. That makes sense, but the result is the splash guard really only keeps you from getting splashed. Whatever accessory is being used can still sling stuff around under the reach of the guard.

How much work can you get done? My run time has been about 15-20 minutes per full charge. So it’s perfect to keep under the kitchen sink and grab for those stubborn spots occasionally, or to help out when you dive into a deep clean with stubborn areas. But, if you have something neglected and you plan on spending a few hours cutting grime, that’s not what this was made for - unless you plan on frequent breaks.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is a handy little tool, not just in the house, but in the shop too. One of my hand planes fell victim to some overspray and I’ve been too lazy to take the time to scrape it off (I’ve already restored it once for crying out loud). But the VERSA striped off the paint dots in seconds without hurting the plane! It’s not something I knew I needed, but now that I have it, I’m finding loads of uses for it.