Why don't corded drills have led lights?

[gmt]

Quick question. Last year I bought a Dewalt corded drill, I'm thinking about getting a cordless drill to replace my old one. While looking at cordless drills and seeing that most have LED lights (my old one doesn't have one) I wondered why corded drills don't have them. Anyone know the reason.

 

[Davefr]

Quick question. Last year I bought a Dewalt corded drill, I'm thinking about getting a cordless drill to replace my old one. While looking at cordless drills and seeing that most have LED lights (my old one doesn't have one) I wondered why corded drills don't have them. Anyone know the reason.

I'll venture a guess:

1. They'd have to put in a regulator to convert 120 VAC to DC to drive the LED circuitry.

2. Most of the development is in cordless. I think the manufacturers are ignoring development in the corded drill segment. Some of the corded designs haven't changed in years.

 

[kamesama980]

Easier to run LEDs on the DC voltage present with the batteries and controllers maybe wheras corded drills just run 120v AC.

They probably also figure if you can plug in a drill, you can plug in a light.

 

[JJThrasher]

People are more likely to use cordless in the dark awkward places.

 

[Loscaldazar]

People are more likely to use cordless in the dark awkward places.

This.

Cordless are generally much smaller and lighter.

 

[bonneyman]

ditto to what has been said.
LED's run on 1 to 1.5volts DC. When you run LED stuff off your car, the device has to reduce the car voltage of 11-13 volts down to 1/1.5. Takes a hefty resistor, which gets REAL hot unless wired a particular way.
To go from 120 volts A/C to 1.5 volts DC would take a huge resistor, volt drop loop, and a rectifier. Too expensive and takes up too much room.

 

[gmt]

Thanks for the responses, your answers make sense once you think about it.

 

[Vegaman_Dan]

Space required for a stepdown transformer, even a small signal transformer suitable for running an LED is space prohibitive. Not that it can't be done in the handle, but the return on investment for a company to do it just isn't worth it except to some high end brands.

 

[rharman]

Here is the solution I use.... LED's on a baseball cap.

 

[R.Anderson]

There not going to use a resistor to lower the voltage there are much better ways of going about it , and the components are dirt cheap these days for making LED drivers. So I don't think the cost of electronics is going to stop em from putting LED light on a corded drill.

My corded Dewalt portable bandsaw has an led light so the tech to do it is out there. How small the LED driver board and what components its made of, I don't know, I may just be curious enough now to find out.

My guess is simple demand, the majority of drill sales are in cordless drills, the more features a cordless drill has the more appealing it is to the general public to buy.

 

[garboui]

The electronics cost argument is kinda moot for led's. A regulator is not really needed. Since the voltage is always the same coming in only a current limiting resistor is needed. To make dc add a diode or 4 for full wave rectification. No smoothing caps are needed since we deal with 60hz cycles in fluorescent bulbs anyways. Now we are up to maybe, maybe 10cents in parts, add another couple for a luxurious capacitor.

Edit: thinking now the bigger(initially) would be the redesign to add the extra set of contacts in the switch.