Side by Side Comparison of: Ridgid vs POWERTEC

Needed one of these to spot strip my painted wood deck last summer and this worked out well with various grit sandpaper. Will use again probably every spring before rolling out the new layer.

Great compact reconditioned belt sander. Used this belt sander immediately upon arrival. Special feature to me is the self-leveling sanding belt tension. Additionally, the drive wheel is gear driven which means it doesn't dig in or stall. Very nice for a so-called-reconditioned sander. Seller shipped immediately and product arrived as scheduled.

I ordered the refurbished model, and was skeptical, as some have had a bad experience. I received it and gave it a thorough inspection. Looked good, fired it up for a project I was working on, and could not have been happier. DIY guys should all have one of these, very specific jobs as they take a lot of material off in a short time, but when you need this, you need it. Very happy, rigid tools always work, I have had great luck with them

i bought this sander reconditioned because i didn't plan on using it very much. It arrived in excellent condition with all of the parts and with the operators manual. i researched a bunch of belt sanders that cost less than $100 and the biggest complaint was the automatic belt adjustment. This one works fairly well, although you'll still get some belt drift, especially if you apply any pressure. I don't really know if there is a complete solution for that though.The device is hefty, feels well-built, is comfortable to hold, and has good speed adjustment. At top speed it sanded down the wood quite rapidly.

Great sander. I bought this reconditioned and it came looking like new. A few little scuff marks here and there but nothing worth sending it back. I used it for the first time and was really impressed.People have said that its underpowered but it does the same job as a more powerful B.Decker that I have.Belt tracking is spot on, It never moved over like my B/Decker which drives me crazy. Dust collection is perfect. Its not that heavy and seems well made and as for noise its quieter than others I have used. So far I love it and for $58 is well worth it.Also th belt that came with it did not break after an hours worth of sanding, unlike my B/Decker which eats belts.So far I am impressed and I am a professional Hnadyman

I bought this mostly for its variable feature and the great reputation of Ridgid power tools. I can safely say I was not disappointed. The first time I used it I restored the rounded corner of a long counter top in my shop which I had damaged testing a nail gun. This sander has enormous power and a solidity normally found only in larger belt sanders. It's more powerful than one of my 3 X 21 inch belt sanders and a whole lot lighter and easier to manuveur on a vertical surface. I've come to appreciate these smaller belt sanders over the standard 3 X 21 inch belt sanders because of their added convenience. I've tried two others besides this one, Makita, and Skil, and like this one the best. Price wise this was the best value, as the Makita was the same price but wasn't variable, and the Skil cost about half as much, but had some tracking issues. The variable Makita 3 X 18 inch belt sander was more expensive. Ridgid is tops for delivering consistent quality, which to me includes the long, lighted cords. With Ridgid you can count on their high quality no matter what tool you buy.

Works well but feels slightly underpowered after using a bigger one my whole life. It does not have much acceleration at first either.

Works VERY well after you get the hang of it, which takes a bit of time. The only complaint is that the dust catcher (which worked well initially) hardly works at all now. I asked Ridgid about that but their Customer Support Dept never responded.

I received my reconditioned Ridgid belt sander and it worked very well. The belt tracking finger adjustment screw works very well and easily adjusts the tracking. Replacing a belt was a snap with the easy pull lever. The only issue I had was the belt sander will leave "grooves" in the wood if you use it incorrectly and don't keep it level on the surface. This was my error as I was sanding an overhead wooden beam and let the sander get out of level.

This belt sander has stood up to some very hard use. I have run it for several hours at a time. While running, it gets quite warm, but the cooling fan doesn't let it get hot. It was shipped clean and with a new 80 grit belt. I am quite pleased with the sander.

I have no real complaints about the sander, other than the fact that it seems like you spend more time adjusting the tracking than you do sanding. It does a great job, don't get me wrong. I used it to sand some uneven boards on a truck bed, so I'm sure that had a lot to do with the tracking issues. Where it was level, the sanding belts seemed to track just fine. All in all, I would have to say it does just what it's supposed to do. Mine did have a few dings when I got it, but after all, it was reconditioned and not new.

I have no beef with this grinder - it is quite powerful under more pressure than you should reasonably put on a belt sander, tracks fairly well, has inexpensive belts available, and is comfortable to use. I would buy it again if I had it to do over, but I wouldn't buy it from CPO. The sander arrived filthy, covered in sawdust and swarf. It seemed that they didn't even have time to blow it off with an air nozzle when they got it back in, let alone be bothered to actually recondition it. Granted it worked, but a little offputting when the sander arrives with no packing material dropped in the bottom of a box two times too large, all filthy and greasy. Prior user must have had some really dirty hands when he was using it. If I had to rate CPO I would give them a 1 star rating just because it saved a few bucks, and give the sander itself a solid 4.

Doesn't have the power I hoped for. But, does the job.

Good sander. It held up over many hours of usage. The bag is really too small for big projects; however the dust exhaust fits your shop vac so that helps. Its a bit cumbersome but it works. The hot air blown out the front is something to watch for as it will remind you that it is there often. I found it handy to quickly blow off areas where dust had accumulated when the shop vac hose fell out of the dust exhaust port. The belt tracks well. I found that the belt it came with to be very cheap. The manual tracking helped a little but the auto tracking did fine. The rollers where not true which was an annoyance but it worked well enough.

Worked ok but i expected more with it being a Heavy Duty belt sander.

OK for light work. Motor is weak and bogs down fast.

I guess for the price and it being a reconditioned unit the sander is ok. It just doesn't have very much umph to it. It has a soft start, which I was not familar with and it takes time to get used to it. I bought it because I own other Ridgid products and have been very satisfied with them. I guess it will do for some light applications, but for fast heavy material removal it is lacking. I'm familiar with Makita beltsanders and that's what I'm basing my conclusions on. Maybe it is just this sander, but I was a little dissappointed.

It works but the belt doesn't spin very fast even on the highest setting. This is my first belt sander and I'm pretty underwhelmed. The belt that it came with was utter junk. I replaced it with a 40 grit quality belt and it worked a little better. However, it really doesn't sand much faster than using my orbital sander with 80 grit paper. It's also much easier to mar the wood or sand uneven. As a result, I don't use it that often.

It worked well for a while and then started making load groaning noises under load. It's going back.

Plenty of power, great variable control. Cord 8 foot not 12. Constantly have to keep adjusting paper belt for it to track straight and true.

Received the first unit D.O.A. and covered in sawdust. Return was pretty straight-forward, but I did have to take it to a special Fed-Ex dropoff 20 miles away. The replacement unit arrived and was also covered in dust and obviously well-used, but appears to work so far.Bottom-line, these "refurbished" units appear to be just returns at the store that weren't even wiped off before being dropped in a box and shipped out as refurbished. If the person returned it because they didn't like the color, then you luck out, but odds are, if it was returned, it had a bigger problem.I'd spend just a bit more for a brand new unit that wasn't all beat up if I were doing it again.

The Rigid sander is good, but whatever the problem was that made it have to be reconditioned got passed on to me. It runs fine, then slows down so you cant get anything done. I bought a new porter cable sander that now runs forever, and is quite a work horse. Would not buy reconditioned again.

I've bought 2 of these things so far, and I'll never buy another one. In fact, I may never buy another Ridgid product again. They are factory reconditioned, so in other words, they were broke and repaired. The first one I bought I used a few times (+\- 20 minutes of total use) and then something inside locked up. I thought maybe I just had bad luck and bought another one since the price was so good. The second one ran fine until you tried to use it. The belt would slip under the weight of the machine therefore you made a lot of noise and no dust. Maybe I've just had bad luck, but I've never had these problems with other tools. So my suggestion is that you spend the extra money and get a more established name brand tool if you really want to use it.

I've only use this tool three times and already sounds like the bearings going out. When you hit to trigger a loud screeching sound happens. I'll never buy another reconditioned tool.