In The Market: Cordless Drill

[Vinko]

My advice to anyone looking is to buy the best deal you can get. Rigid does offer a good warranty that's tough to beat, but it grates to pay extra for a Ryobi drill.

I bought a router yesterday. Ended up with the Porter-Cable -- but you're right the Ridgid lifetime warranty gives you pause. They do seem like solid tools. But part of me wonders if I should buy Chinese if for a bit more I can buy American or German or Swiss or Japanese. And do I really want downtime if I have to send a tool in to be warrantied?

 

[a3tripod]

Another reason why i chose my 18v Milwaukee drill/hammer drill was that it's chuck can accept 5/8" bits and gear. Most of the 3/8" chuck 18V drills can't do that. I've used my Milwauke to still 5gal buckets of paint, mastic, drywall mud, etc... doing the same thing with my corded dewalt resulted in a burned up motor. Needless to say, I don't buy Dewalt anymore. the only dewalt too that I've been totally satisfied with, is my 12" compound sliding miter saw. Luckily I got the older design when it was more solid...the new saw feels chintzy in almost every regard.

 

[billymade]

I did a little research awhile back; check out all the brands owned by this umbrella company! They make many of the Craftsman power tools as well...

Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd. Brands:
Milwaukee
AEG
Ryobi
Stiletto
Homelite
Hoover
Dirt Devil
VAX

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24247&showall=1
http://www.ttigroup.com/en/our_brands

 

[B.K.M]

Rather than a MIG welder, a car starter is even more similar. 12V car starter motors draw hundreds of amps. It is true that transformers for 120V at these current levels are rather large -- certainly not just a wall wart. However, the battery in the cordless tool can act as a capacitor. For example, if my car battery's charge is so low that it cannot crank the starter, I may be able to plug in a charger that supplies only a few amps, and because of the capacitance of the battery I will be able to crank the starter even though the few amps alone would be insufficient. Of course this doesn't apply to long duty cycle tool use, but it does help in short duty cycle applications like drilling a few holes or fasteners.

So you're right, a 90A power supply would be too big, but a 10 or 20A supply would be very practical and although it could not supply the motor with peak current, it could work in combination with the battery.

Besides that, there is also the possibility of developing AC motor tools that use batteries (and inverters). This type of hybrid is a popular design concept on much larger scales but has yet to be developed on this scale to my knowledge.

 

[B.K.M]

That's right. It's mostly TTI or BDK out there. BDK is Black and Decker, De Walt, Porter Cable and Delta. Besides them there are a few Japanese/Chinese like Hitachi, Kawasaki, Panasonic, Makita and the Europeans: Bosch, Hilti, Festool and people have mentioned Metabo which is in US and Europe. There is also a lot of licensing and parts sourcing from common manufacturers. The batteries come from far fewer manufacturers than there are brand names. Jacobs makes many of the chucks in China, but others come from factories with undistinguished names. A few come from Rohm (German). The last time I surveyed the entire wall of drills (cordless and corded) at Home Depot, I saw only two chuck manufacturers respresented.

 

[bugdust]

I bought the DeWalt 18v impact drill about 3-1/2 years ago. I bought the 4 pc kit and and one extra charger and 3 extra batteries. I use the snot out of them...at least one tool gets used almost daily. The drill is the best I've ever used (had a few before), the little circular saw will rip 3/4" plywood with no problem and I haven't used my corded Skil saw (or my corded Milwaukee sawzall) since I bought these tools. I've built gables on my house, roofed it, built a metal garage, cut up cars...all kinds of stuff. No complaints. Three of the five batteries are still great. The drill has been dropped off ladders onto concrete, dirt, etc. I flew out of town on business quickly once and came back to find the circular saw in the lawnmower trailer with water in it wher my son had left it out. It still works fine to this day. I have a pic of that somewhere. They get weld spatter and grinder dust, shop dust...you name it, on them constantly. I have the "rotozip" tool and don't like it.

 

[back2class]

Dewalt...JUNK. I was a contractor for 10 years. Went through several 14.4 dewalts before I gave up on them. Not a bad tool, but definately the lowest quality of the "good" cordless tools. I like my 18v Ryobi more in every respect now that I no longer do trades everyday. Also had an 18v milualkee and it was very good...worlds bettern that the dewalts. Other friends in the trades have mostly switched over to the Ridgid line at this time if that tells you anything. We all agree the yellow and black is overpriced homeowner **** compaired to the better ones. Bang for the buck...the ryobi~!

 

[Sundowner]

Dewalt...JUNK. I was a contractor for 10 years. Went through several 14.4 dewalts before I gave up on them. Not a bad tool, but definately the lowest quality of the "good" cordless tools. I like my 18v Ryobi more in every respect now that I no longer do trades everyday. Also had an 18v milualkee and it was very good...worlds bettern that the dewalts. Other friends in the trades have mostly switched over to the Ridgid line at this time if that tells you anything. We all agree the yellow and black is overpriced homeowner **** compaired to the better ones. Bang for the buck...the ryobi~!

IF you go Rigid MAKE SURE YOU FILL OUT THE WARRANTY CARD.
If you don't then you don't get the lifetime warrranty, you get three years (which is still pretty good). but the murder part is the batteries. Rigid Li-Ion batteries cost more than any other brand, including dewalt.

And for the record, I love my ancient DeWalt 14.4 hammer drill. I beat the life out of that thing and it refuses to die. I don't know if I would buy a new one, tho. they ARE overpriced and I don't know anyone who needs all the rediculous bells and whistles they pimp their drills with these days. I personally think they'd sell more drills if they just kept the money from the worthless features and spent it on better quality.

 

[Havoc Audio - Evan]

Milwaukee all the way.... My V18 which may now be in the 200$ price range ( the prices go up and down all the time) is probably the strongest, and best drill ive ever had. Dewalts 18's and 14.4's are pretty good depending on how hard you use them. Craftsman cordless drills are actually fairly decent if u dont plan on abusing them on a daily basis and for their cost they outperform the black & decker (now toy tools), kawasaki and the other cheap brands by a long shot.

While fabricating a wall (car audio) we had a bit of a show down between my dewalt ni cad 18v and my friends 14.4v milwaukee ni cad. Not only did his have more torque, my dewalt ran out of juice before his milwaukee did. Every since that day all my drill purchases for heavy duty use have been milwaukee.

The cluch on the Dewalts also seem prone to break under abuse. While working for a school district we used alot of milwaukee, dewalt and bosch. The tools were used and abused daily, and the dewalts always seemed to fail the fastest mainly due to broken clutches.

There are several other choices on the market that are good though. Bosch has always made a stand up product, panasonic as well. Makita has never let me down either but usually you can find a better deal on milwaukee. As far as porter cable drills its really a hit or miss. Another friend of mine has an 18v ni cad porter cable that works great and has held up well for what he paid for it(got it on sale for 100$ at lowes). However the new lithium ions have battery issues from what I can see. If you are in the market for a router then porter cable would be my only choice, i'm brutal on my 893 PK and its never had a hicup.

My top choices would be as follows:
1. Milwaukee
2. Makita
3. Bosch
4. Dewalt
5. Hitachi (good bang for the buck)
6. Craftsman (good bang for the buck)

There are some expensive drills on the market that deserve mention as well but arent in ur budget. Those would be hilti, alot of the panasonic line and Festool ( wonderful but with a much less wonderful price tag).

Whatever you do, never buy black & decker or kawasaki. They are more likey to start a fire or cause u harm than help you.

 

[bry@n]

I have a lot of drill for a lot of reasons.
I have a Milwaukee 14v, Dewalt 18V hammerdrill , Hilti 12v and a Ridgid 12v.

Ridgid drill I'm not a fan of. The chuck has terrible wobbles and the warranty process stinks. Sure, lifetime warranty but if it takes forever to get back to me, what's the point.

Hilti, great drill. Feels great in the hand and is very powerful. This is my goto drill. It's up there with Panasonic (another great drill and Metabo)

Dewalt, I've had this forever and it runs like a champ. This is at least 10 years old. It doesn't have the t handle, so it's not great for every day use.

The Milwaukee is the back up, need for a second drill. This was the every day till I got the Hilti. Light, great power and no complaints. Has an issue and Milwaukee took care of it right away.

You may think I am crazy, but these were all bought, while on a job and something happened that caused the need to get another drill right away.

 

[buening]

You guys with the 10+ yr old Dewalts, you have the ones that were made great and gave Dewalt their popularity. Now they are made very cheap and don't last as long. As with everything else, quality has dropped quite a bit over the years

 

[flexysteve]

I have the Dewalt 18V and have had no problems with it. I also second the comments to get an impact driver with whatever setup you choose. My Dewalt impact driver is easily the best tool I have ever bought. Easily. It will put 4 inch deck screws into anything without stripping the head. Its loud and you can tell it really means business when it gets going. I only ever use the drill for drilling now and get much more use out of the impact driver.

 

[bry@n]

The impact driver is awesome. I used it while framing the basement and it worked like a champ.

A little blurb on how to get a deal on one of these.
Around the holidays HD and Lowes sells the combo (hammer drill and impact) for $249. Now the drill alone without batteries is worth $85. the batteries alone with the chargewr are worth $100. That is getting the impact for $60. You could also just go on ebay and pick up the impact for around $90 for the tool only.

 

[jeepkj02]

I'm shopping around for a cordless lithium-ion drill in the area of $200-250 and lower. I'd like to buy a drill that is made in the US. Craftsman (18v and 20v) is made in China, Bosch is made in Japan/Malaysia, DeWalt is made in Mexico. Milwaukee and Makitas are no longer made in the US. From what I can tell on Snapon's website, they don't offer a lithium-ion drill. What are my choices??

My current drill is a 18V Coleman Powermate drill with one battery. Nearing the end of its life. Need one soon.

 

[Garage_Mahal]

A friend of a friend works for Black&Decker/DeWalt engineering. From conversations with him, there are definitely two grades of DeWalt cordless tools. Contractor grade are the ones to have, and then there is everything else. If you can buy it in a kit at big box store, it most likely is not contractor grade. If it is 14.4v it is not contractor grade. Contractor grade is only available in 12v and 18v. I can see if I can contact him to get the inside scoop on which models are considered heavy duty if there is interest. I picked up a 12v contractor impact driver on his recommendation and I am delighted with its compactness, power and durability. The thing is tiny.