So earlier this year, I upgraded my cheap and cheerful pendant drill to the Foredom K1070 Micromotor and I have had quite a few people ask me what I thought about it.
So I thought to myself, why not write a full review on it?
What I like about the Foredom K1070 Micromotor
The experience of changing from a pendant motor to a micromotor was definitely as positive one and I was up and running in no time and below are the main things I like about using it.
No Flex Shaft
One of the things I always hated about the pendant motor was the flex shaft as it never gave me the freedom of control that I wanted. This is not a problem with the micromotor as the motor is in the handpiece and it connects to the control box via a very flexible, thin cable.
This means that you are not fighting the cable and you can easily manoeuvre the handpiece and use it at any orientation and angle that you do wish.
Soft Start
I wasn’t quite sure what to call this but I found that when you start using the handpiece, there is no ‘kick’ that I used to get with the pendant motor as the torque came from the motor, down the flex shaft and in to the handpiece.
For me, this gave a greater sense of control and the start is very gentle has made it much easier to make minor adjustments whenever I am adjusting seats or removing metal.
Quick Release Handpiece
I know a lot of the pendant motors come with quick release handpieces but the ones I had with my pendant motor were the chuck and bar and spanner, which made changing burrs or another other attachment a bit of a faff.
The quick release is really easy to use on the handpiece, simply twist left to unlock and right to lock. It has probably cut my time between changes by over 50% and can be done without much thought.
Speed Control
Having complete control over the speed of the handpiece is something I didn’t know I needed! With the pendant motor, I found it difficult to maintain the speed I wanted and would often find myself ‘feathering’ the throttle (foot pedal).
This is not an issue with the micromotor as you can set the max speed that you want the handpiece to run and I found that I could focus more on the job in hand as part of my brain wasn’t focused on maintaining the right speed.
Reverse
I know that this is a feature on the Foredom SR pendant motors but nearly all other pendant motors run in one direction only. With pretty much all micromotors, you can run the handpiece in reverse as well as forward.
Now there probably isn’t many instances where you would need this feature but one thing I use it for is hart burrs as it makes them much easier to control, without losing much in terms of cutting power or performance.
Its Compact
While pendant motors don’t take up much room at the bench, you do need a hanger for them. This is not the case with the Foredom micromotor. The power unit is very small and doesn’t take up much space, it is also very easy to move out of the way when you are not using it.
What I Don’t Like About the Foredom K1070 Micromotor
While I wish this was the perfect tool on the bench, there are two main things that are negatives about the micromotor.
Lower Levels of Torque
Due to the way they work, it is known that micromotors generally have less torque than pendant motors but for the majority of jobs such as cutting seats in a claw or cleaning up a casting this won’t be an issue.
The only time that this has been an issue is when I have been burring out a hole for either flush or pave/micro-pave settings as I have found that you can get chattering or jumping when moving up to a larger burr. I found this can be countered by:
- Moving up in smaller (0.1 – 0.3mm) increments
- Running the handpiece at a higher speed
- Applying more downward pressure on the handpiece
The lack of torque is also more noticeable with larger burrs (2.2mm+), which wasn’t an issue I encountered when I had my pendant motor.
Would be interesting to see if the K1020 (M.MH-120) high torque is any better at this?
Cost of Additional Handpieces
Ok, so this isn’t directly related to using the micromotor but the price of the hammer handpiece or the high torque one mentioned above are expensive additions and much more expensive than adding additional handpieces to a pendant motor.
Conclusion
I really do like using the Foredom K1070 and I am definitely not regretting my decision to upgrade and for the majority of what I do, which is cleaning up castings and stone setting, it does the job perfectly and in many ways is much easier to use than a traditional pendant motor.
The lack of torque is frustrating at times but you can work around it and as I mentioned above, I would like to try the high torque handpiece to see if it remedies this situation.
There are a couple of UK based suppliers for Foredom equipment and I will leave links to them below:
Cooksongold – Foredom Rotary Micromotor Highspeed
Betts Metals – Foredom K1070 Quick Release Micromotor
I'm Paul Haywood FGA DGA, a fully qualified Gemmologist and Diamond Grader from the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and a lover of all things jewellery.