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My decades old Ryobi angle grinder ceased working with a flash and bang. I liked it because I could run it from my little 600 watt Kipor generator on my boat. Tried to find another similar wattage angle grinder but no success. Just had to get something for working on home stuff and boat stuff at home.

For a few weeks I had a Bosch 620 watt unit I bought for $39 but the gearbox got so hot in a couple of minutes that I ended up getting my money back. Bought a Hitachi 730 watt one ($87) which does not get hot and seems to work well. The fine print in the instructions, so I read after a week, suggests NOT to use it for anything else beside grinding and cutting. Sheesh, what is the world coming to?



So, I still have no angle grinder which my little generator can run on the boat. For home use, I have experienced two new angle grinders both of which make me frown. The Bosch could cook eggs it got so hot. The Hitachi recommends not using it for things an angle grinder is supposed to do. I thought our society was supposed to be making progress? Getting more technically advanced? Seems like it is going backwards!

I'll keep the Hitachi, it runs well, and ignore the booklet where it says about only grinding or cutting. It was only a suggestion after all.

What type of angle grinder do you use for doing boat work and how good has it been?

troppo

Hi Troppo,
A couple of years ago I went cordless for nearly all my power tools, I have been fairly happy with Bosch Blue, I run the impact drills hard nearly all day(metal roofing), the cordless grinders chew through the batteries & you really should only use the 4amp batteries minimum with them.


This isn't any help for you though, I'd stick with just a cheapie if it works with the inverter, the virtually no questions asked return policy from some of the retailers is good for virtually disposable items like the cheap grinders.

The sanding disks that is shown in the photo is brilliant, just give a dust off after with some hand sandpaper, is all that's required on a lot of things.
cheers

Hi Shaun, the Bosch looks well worn. Thank you for your insights.

What's the sanding disk? Is that one of those flapper ones? I have never used one.

I may end up just buying an inverter which can handle the watts of the tools. I have a big battery charger which gets the best out of the generator on bulk charge. No point using the genny with charger on trickle charge, the solar panels can do that. So, I could run an inverter to run power tools my little generator can't but run the generator with charger so the battery does not draw down too far.

troppo

Not ideal, but if you run the grinder at low load you can keep the amperage down. If you have an ammeter you can watch it while you (carefully) load up the grinder and get an idea of the speed at which the amps is getting high. Hopefully the generator has a circuit breaker for the worst case.

Hi I went with the Ryobi 18 volt tools and have not found any problems with that - I have virtually all the tools available and run 3 batteries. The beauty is you can get a 18volt charger that runs of the 12 Volt cigarette socket and I have found the power tools to be good to use. Did the whole galley and hard dodger etc using these tools. the sander is great as is the angle grinder and drill. I have found the brad nailer really useful. So you could be out on hte pick and get all the work done! Cheers