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HI, I'm looking at the purchase of a new drill, last one held together for 15 years!! Including heavy duty work, Ha anyone purchased a new one recently? can you recommend any of the recent ones on sale, other than 4 or 5 lines in advertising brochures I am unable to find out much else, I would appreciate your feedback, many thanks hj

Hi HJ

In the last 5 years we have gone though no less than 4 drills in our practice (multiple rooms, multiple pods).

Lenson "clean drills": we have had 2, terrible quality, total lack of manufacturer backup and hand pieces are lucky to last 3 months.
When we purchased them they were advertised with a 5 year warrantee. In the first year they both went back for repairs no fewer than 3 times each, when we sent one of them back at month 14 we were told that the warrantee had been changed to 12 months and we were no longer covered!
Needless to say after drawing lawyers at 10 paces we were able to come to a suitable arrangement involving a substantial refund from the suppliers for both units.

Suda drills various models: No service backup, no spare parts.
One of the red case models that has spent more time away getting fixed than we have had it in the practice.
One of the current model metal case units that is a total piece of fecal matter. The unit has broken down several times, poor dust extraction and 6 months after purchase no replacement parts available. End result full refund from the suppliers.
We have one of the old plastic case models that has been going strong for 8 years with basic maintenance.

Berchtold S 35 and S 30: Inherited an old S 30 when we purchased a practice that is about 10 years old and is still going strong.

Have purchased 3 x S 35 units and all seem to we working well with good suction and usability. Briggate Medical supplied all theses units and offer good service and parts back up. They can even supply parts and service for the older S 30 units.

In summary, make sure whatever drill you decide on has a good service and parts backup and try to ignore the initial cost. If a cheap drill only lasts 2 years then it’s an expensive purchase indeed.

Regards
Stuart

Have been using Berchtold drills for 4 years now and not even the slightest problem.

Cheers


Tom

Matt also did a review a while ago on the S 35
http://www.equusmedical.com/cgi-bin/...k&link=review2

Regards
Stuart

thanks for your feedback and honesty I certainly know where not to go regards hj

Hi Hj,
We purchased a Hadawe spray drill last year. I returned it for repair at the end of January 2006. ( The vendor is in Brisbane) Many phone calls and emails to them and to the Hadawe factory did not see the drill returned until the end of march. It still did not work, no spray this time. Returned it for repair again.We received it back at the end of the week following easter. This time one of the switches was hanging out the front. We did not return it again.
Hadawe in Germany still have not replied to my emails

Why use a spray drill? being very high speed, the drill does all the work and the spray keeps the skin cool and the dust down. If you use tungstan burrs there is very little effort required by the podiatrist. The hand piece is tiny and very light weight.

Our principal podiatrist had to have shoulder surgery a couple of years ago for work related injury so we are now very careful about selecting equipment.

I worked for about 30 years for a very large multinational company based in Chicago and spent some time working on Australian vendor selection and acreditation.

I ignored the all rules when we selected our drill supplier and regreted it.

Always use a local supplier, preferably one within a few minutes drive. ( so you can visit them with a large stick if needed)
Check how long have they been trading. a very high percentage of businesses close in the first two years of operation.
Do they have factory trained repair staff.
Do they have spare parts holding for your product.
How long does it take to get parts from the factory. Have them verify their claims.
Do they have ISO 9000 quality acreditation.
These are some of the things that you should look at before you place an order to spend your hard earned money. Drills are not cheap
Good Luck.
Regards
Trevor.

We have Berchtold S35 drills.

No problems with any of the four so far.
(touch wood)

I have tried both the berchtold (offered by briggate) and promed drill (offered by DBS medical). I have the promed at my own practice and use the berchtold at another practice. Personally I think the promed is the better of the two given the dust extraction is exceptional. Power wise the berchtold holds a slight edge over the promed however this is minimal. I sometimes even drill without a mask using the promed given the dust extraction is that good. The drill is the second most used item in my room behind a clipper so hopefully this helps.