Hello - trying to decide on which cordless portable bandsaw for general shop use…. I really like the size of the dewalt compact, but am concerned that the cut opening is only 1.75 inches…. For those of you that have these is that an issue? And do you find the larger opening is preferred?
Thanks
For context, I have the dewalt "deep cut" (full size) portaband, but my two compact portable bandsaw are Milwaukee m12. My first m12 purchase was the "baby bear" m12 subcompact with a 1-5/8 capacity. This is the one I would consider closest to the Dewalt you're looking at in terms of size and capacity.
The little subcompact is indeed small, and light, but I regularly bumped up against the throat capacity. Especially since I seem to build a lot with 2" square tubing (it's great for unistrut though). Anyway, it would force me to drag out my big DEWALT which at the time was on a SWAG table, so that was kind of a pain. So when Home depot had the m12 compact (slightly larger than the subcompact with a 2-1/2 capacity) on their deal of the day, I snagged one.
That saw has become by far my most used of the 3. I don't think I've found anything yet that it won't cut that I wouldn't rather put in the horizontal bandsaw than get out the "***********". For me it's just a goldilocks size. It's scarcely larger or heavier than the subcompact but the capacity difference makes me pick it almost every time.
For a long time, the comparable dewalt was the DCS371 which was an older saw and it wasn't brushless. But now it looks like they have introduced an xr badged 3-1/4" brushless saw (dcs378). I haven't held one but I would hope it fills the goldilocks role similar to the m12 compact.
I hope this helped.
Edit to add "family photo".
