Makita XOB01Z 18V LXT® Lithium-Ion Cordless 5" Random Orbit Sander, Tool Only

if you are a professional woodworker and you worked with the best sanding machines in the world like Mirka and Festool you know what is great 2.5 stroke sanding finish then this Makita is pretty much very close with the result. this is 5 inch sanding pad sander not 6.Particulary this Makita is very simple and excelent sander with perfect balance and slow motion vibration There are just 3 speed option but all of them work really good. vacuum exit hose could be better designed for vacuum extractors. that is the only problemhighly sugest this sander

Great sander. Gets the job done on a 3Ah battery, you can almost fully charge another 3Ah battery as fast as this will use one up at full speed. Doesn’t shake your hand and arm bones to death, even without any gloves on - it’s actually not unpleasant to use. Just guide it around your surface - the sandpaper doesn’t get hot if you don’t press on it and just let it do the work. I got perfect sanding results with almost no experience using an electric sander, just stepping up through 4 or 5 grades of paper (I used Serious Grit brand, it’s nice but probably any 8-hole paper is fine).It’s not too heavy, and high speed is plenty of power for the pine and mesquite that I’ve done so far.The little bag is a joke. I left it off and can see dust blowing out at speed from the tube, so it must have a fan in there pulling the dust through the 8 holes and out the exhaust. I ordered a universal vacuum fitting set that hopefully fits this to the basic shop vac I have, but it’s surprisingly good by itself (though makes a mess of course).Once the battery gets down to 1 bar, it will start to lose some top speed. I found it to be somewhat less effective when this happens, so I go ahead with battery swap to keep it running near full speed.2Ah will get some sanding done, but it runs down faster than you want it to. 3 is good, lasts longer than I expected at full speed.

Makita make great products and this is one of them. I use for automotive paint preparation, and I found the performance excellent. It is easy to handle but for some the weight might be an issue if prolonged use is required.

I used this to sand around twenty 10' redwood 2x6s that had been out in the weather for a several years and had been covered with honeydew from an aphid infestation in my oak trees plus the dust and dirt that got caked on. It took a lot of sanding from 36 grit down to 80 grit to get these boards back to usable shape for a deck I was building. Many hours of sanding and the wood looks great and stained up nicely. Not having to deal with a cord was very convenient as I was working out in the yard away from the house. I have two 5.0 amp-hour batteries that I was able to swap as needed. The battery being used easily provided plenty of run time to allow the other battery to fully charge. I have used the sander on many other woodworking projects and it has always performed well.

There's rarely anything complicated or difficult to manufacture about a cordless sander. They're regularly one of the cheapest power tools you need to buy for your arsenal and this one is too. I am a Contractor/Laborer and I have to do a good amount of sanding from Bondo to prepping for wood stains to rounding off corners etc. so I need a somewhat light sander with decent battery life and thankfully, this Makita does the job easily. I recently had to sand the logoing off a bunch of pressure treated lumber for a pergola to display at a home show and this made short work of it all. Granted, that's not necessarily a proper pressure test to put it through it's paces but the point is that it did the job without issue and it has been ever since I bought it a few months ago. No complaints, feels good in the hand, battery lasts a good long while, it's good.

This Makita performs about as well as my corded Ridgid random orbit sander, but the freedom of cordless makes it a win for on-site work like fine tuning a scribe piece.I have medium-sized hands, so the size of the grip and positioning of the buttons is less than ideal for me, but better than the Ridgid which was impossible to turn on/off without using a 2nd hand. If you have large hands you'll probably be fine.The Ridgid has a wider and continuous range of speed adjustment, which is great. This Makita only has discrete low/medium/high settings, which so far has been adequate for my uses. On high with 80 grit it takes off a lot of material fast, even on hard maple.I am using it with 5.0ah batteries, which makes it kinda heavy. It's ok when using on a flat benchtop, but sanding any vertical surface gets tiring fast. This is an issue with all cordless tools however. That said, for large sanding projects in the shop, I'm going to stick with corded. Battery performance was adequate not great, but my batteries are old so don't read too much into that.Dust collection without an attached vacuum is just ok (better than my Ridgid, but that is not saying much the Ridgid is terrible). With a vacuum, dust collection is pretty good. HOWEVER the dust port is 7/8" O.D. which did not fit any adapters I had for my 1.25" hose so I had to make one custom and use tape which is a HASSLE. I will look for a legit plastic adapter the next time I go to Woodcraft or Rockler. Makita, if you see this, ship it with an adapter for common U.S. market hose sizes!Operating noise levels are very good, no high frequencies.Overall I'm happy with the purchase, but keep in mind I only own Makita cordless, so it's not like I had a choice when choosing this tool.