There’s something really satisfying about sanding wood. You can take something old and make it look new. Recently, I built a coffee table from reclaimed wood. It needed plenty of work to bring back the original grain. For part of the job, I broke out an orbital sander. Though these look like small power tools, they feel super powerful when at full speed. But what is the real power consumption?
Below we will discuss and test disk sander wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Disk Sander?
The average disk sander uses between 200 to 700 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your disk sander. The power consumption can vary quite a lot with small 5-inch machines dropping to 300W while larger versions to 700W or more!
Generally, you will find that the power consumption of an orbital sander is directly related to its size. The larger the sanding disc the more power it uses. This is because the internal AC motor and components also increase in size. The larger the motor, the higher the wattage.
How to Find Out Your Disk Sander Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a disk sander.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the disk sander’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your disk sander to get instant information.
I used one to test my disk sander which gave a live reading of 283W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your disk sander you can use this to find the maximum watt rating. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Disk Sander Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a disk sander draws. Below is a collection of modern disk sanders with their listed power ratings.
| Disk Sander Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| PROXXON Disk Sander | 140 |
| Makita GV7000C 7” Disc Sander | 900 |
| BLACK+DECKER Orbit Sander, 5-Inch | 440 |
| DEWALT Rotary Sander | 720 |
| Makita 5″ Random Orbit Sander | 300 |
| YATTICH Disk Drywall Sander | 750 |
| Clarke CDS300B 12” | 900 |
| Draper DS305 305mm | 750 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different disk sanders. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Disk Sander Use?
You can use orbital sander wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your disk sander.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour (Wh) is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a disk sander drawing 500W would use 500Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 500W disk sander running for 1 hour uses 0.5kWh.
In reality, you might use a disk sander for 10 minutes a week. In this case, a disk sander uses about 83Wh or 0.083kWh electricity a week. That’s 0.356kWh a month and 4.316kWh a year.
That’s an electricity cost of $0.64 a year to run your disk sander for 10 minutes every week.
Using a Disk Sander Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your disk sander in an off-grid situation like a power outage, boat, car, truck or similar, the information above is important. You can accurately choose the correct sized power equipment and work out the maximum runtime.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to generate AC electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your disk sander. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To use your orbital sander, you will need around 750W power capacity. This should give you enough power to start and run your tool without overworking your equipment.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the disk sander for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use about 83Wh electricity for 10 minutes usage. This is the equivalent to 6.9Ah on a 12V battery.
Adding to this, you could run your sander by connecting an inverter to your car/vehicle battery. This allows you to draw power as long as you have the engine running to avoid depleting the battery.
How Many Watts Does a Disk Sander Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts a disk sander uses.
As you have found out, these sanding tools do not use huge amounts of power. In fact, when it comes to power tools they are on the lower end of the spectrum at well under 1000W. This makes it much easier to run them from an inverter, vehicle, or power station when away from the utility grid. In addition, it won’t suck up too much electrical energy to get the job done.
