09-09-2015, 01:12 PM
Must admit that I'm tempted...
I have 3 Bosch cordless drills - 2 are 12V and one is 14V. I was happy with one 12V drill for many years, but the ni-cads eventually died. I was lucky in that it was a bundle that included 2 of them (plus a good torch and an air compressor) for a good price, and I got good life from those batteries. Just a "domestic" green Bosch.
When the batteries died, it was the usual nonsense of having to buy a new drill because it was cheaper than the batteries. The best buy was a "professional" blue 12V drill with 3 batteries for just over the price of 1 replacement battery. Go figure! At a similar time, I also brought a 14.4V version of the same drill because it was similarly cheap. Perhaps Bosch were dumping ni-cad stocks are Li-ion were coming in at the time (2008 IIRC)? But I bought the same 12V drill (with 2 batteries) for work just a year or two. Admittedly, that came from Farnell, and it's possible they'd had stocks sitting around for many years.
Anyway, I'm not sure these batteries are quite as good. The capacity is slightly greater, but the self-discharge is much worse. And the 12V batteries are showing signs of flagging already - I'm sure I got more cycles from the originals.
The reviews of the DeWalt are mostly good. Lots of folk saying that the 1.3Ah batteries are not as bad as you'd think. My Bosch ones are only 1.5Ah. The 13mm chuck is tempting. I don't know if my blue Bosch drills have a metal gearbox (you'd hope so), but the DeWalt does. The fact it does hammer-action is interesting, but not so useful for me. My old mains hammer drill often struggles with our hard red bricks and I have to use an SDS drill for anything larger than 6mm or so... At the other end of the scale, what would this be like for drilling 1mm holes in aluminium? I get on well with the 12V Bosch drills for this sort of thing. And the Bosch drills are nice and compact, which is good for drilling into joists and the like. Hard to judge for this compares without seeing it in the flesh.
I have a lot of Bosch power tools, but wouldn't mind diversifying a bit - since my Bosch table saw failed, I'm a bit less confident in them these days. But the only DeWalt tool I own is an electric screwdriver that is absolutely and utterly hopeless.
I couldn't immediately find it on the DeWalt website - does that mean this is an old model?
The next big thing is DC brushless motors. If the need to change isn't urgent, it might be worth waiting for a year or two...
I have 3 Bosch cordless drills - 2 are 12V and one is 14V. I was happy with one 12V drill for many years, but the ni-cads eventually died. I was lucky in that it was a bundle that included 2 of them (plus a good torch and an air compressor) for a good price, and I got good life from those batteries. Just a "domestic" green Bosch.
When the batteries died, it was the usual nonsense of having to buy a new drill because it was cheaper than the batteries. The best buy was a "professional" blue 12V drill with 3 batteries for just over the price of 1 replacement battery. Go figure! At a similar time, I also brought a 14.4V version of the same drill because it was similarly cheap. Perhaps Bosch were dumping ni-cad stocks are Li-ion were coming in at the time (2008 IIRC)? But I bought the same 12V drill (with 2 batteries) for work just a year or two. Admittedly, that came from Farnell, and it's possible they'd had stocks sitting around for many years.
Anyway, I'm not sure these batteries are quite as good. The capacity is slightly greater, but the self-discharge is much worse. And the 12V batteries are showing signs of flagging already - I'm sure I got more cycles from the originals.
The reviews of the DeWalt are mostly good. Lots of folk saying that the 1.3Ah batteries are not as bad as you'd think. My Bosch ones are only 1.5Ah. The 13mm chuck is tempting. I don't know if my blue Bosch drills have a metal gearbox (you'd hope so), but the DeWalt does. The fact it does hammer-action is interesting, but not so useful for me. My old mains hammer drill often struggles with our hard red bricks and I have to use an SDS drill for anything larger than 6mm or so... At the other end of the scale, what would this be like for drilling 1mm holes in aluminium? I get on well with the 12V Bosch drills for this sort of thing. And the Bosch drills are nice and compact, which is good for drilling into joists and the like. Hard to judge for this compares without seeing it in the flesh.
I have a lot of Bosch power tools, but wouldn't mind diversifying a bit - since my Bosch table saw failed, I'm a bit less confident in them these days. But the only DeWalt tool I own is an electric screwdriver that is absolutely and utterly hopeless.
I couldn't immediately find it on the DeWalt website - does that mean this is an old model?
The next big thing is DC brushless motors. If the need to change isn't urgent, it might be worth waiting for a year or two...
