Cordless drills

[ppppenguin]

This seems to to set a new price/performance point. Pair of lithium batteries, 13mm chuck, proper geared dual speed etc. We all know that Dewalt isn't what it used to be but this looks like a lot of drill for the money. I paid the same a few years ago for my Makita and its Nicads. The Makita has been superb but the batteries are getting a little tired so wondering about something new.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-dcd776c...u=67274130&cm_mmc=Email-_-E15W32BE-_-Hero1-_-DewaltCordlessCombi

[pamphonica]

Interesting how all the drills now go for Li Ion batteries. Definitely a lot lighter.

But it's worth noting that they are still 1.3Ah batteries, just like the old NiCd or NiMh. That means the battery life is no better.

I had to get larger capacity 3Ah NiMh batteries for my Makita, just to get a sensible battery life if I was doing a major job away from home.

But looks a nice drill anyway!

[ppppenguin]

But this dril is 18V and from memory my Makita is 14.4. Hence more watt-hours. What's not known is how fast the batteries deteriorate.

[Mark Hennessy]

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...

[Joe]

I recently had to drill through a load of joists to run a cable and would have been stuffed without my cordless drill.  I had no problems at all with the battery.

   
— Joe

[Refugee]

I have got one of those cordless drills exactly the same model too.
Hex screwdriver bits also fit too.
There is plenty of torque too.

[ppppenguin]

I think they're all at it. Similar from Makita at B&Q. £98
http://www.diy.com/departments/makita-co...413_BQ.prd

[Eddystonepete]

[attachment=13043]

I baulked at the price of replacing a Makita 12v drill but Screwfix were selling a Titan 14.4v, 2 batteries for £30 on special. Not bad drill but not a Makita. After some thought, I stripped the second Titan battery and used 10 of the cells for the Makita. Best of both worlds, small neat Makita for bench jobs and the Titan when more grunt is needed.

Peter

[pwdrive]

I recently replaced my old Makita with a new lithium powered jobie, it came with three 18v 3 Ah lithium type batteries, it works well and will power hole cutters and augers no problem, the batteries charge a lot faster than the old types too, I used the hammer setting to drill all the holes for the rawlplugs in the concrete bock walls to fix the cladding battens in the new woodland cabin build, did them all with two fully charged batteries:

   

Lawrence.

[pwdrive]

Here's quick hot off the press test I just done with the lithium battery job Makita I recently bought, the piece of wood used was sawn to imperial dimensions and is a full 2" thick, it's homegrown Tanalised Sitka Spruce, as the common softwoods go it doesn't come much tougher than that to put a hole through.

I was hoping to use my 110mm hole cutter but could not find the mandrel that fits it, this cordless and battery would cut a 110mm hole through a 2" plank using that cutter no problem, anyways I found a 2.5" cutter with it's mandrel.

First I charged a fully discharged lithium battery, it was fully charged within 15 minutes, using that battery with the Makita I drilled five and half holes thereabouts with it, the hole that's not through is cut to just shy of 1" in depth, at that point the drill shut off as it's supposed to, indicating that the battery was fully discharged.....It's not the largest of cordless drills but powerful for its size, I always use Makita cordless drills, have done for years...So there yer go.

   

Lawrence.