Battery Screwdrivers

[PoP]

I was wandering around Homebase yesterday as I'm prone to do, and found myself musing over battery screwdrivers on one of the stands. I sometimes put a screwdriver bit in my battery drill when I've got lots of screws to drive, and thought that perhaps a battery screwdriver might be a useful birthday present idea for the future.

However, I was rather surprised that these are either 2.4v or 3.6v. That seems way too low for my liking - 5 minutes use and surely they'd be dead? And with a minimum recharge time of 5 hours not very convenient! I didn't bother buying one because they seemed like a toy rather than a useful tool, and I'm not into shelling out £20 on toys.....

Just wondered whether anyone has one of these battery screwdrivers and would care to comment on their experience?

PoP

Sending email to my published email address isn't guaranteed to reach me.

[Mark]

Yes they're very useful, but only for taking the screws out of TV/HI-FI/Radios . Walls/wood anything other than a small machine screws forget it. ;-)

-- Mark

[Parish]

I've got a really old (like >10 years) PlasPlugs one. 3.6v 1200mAh battery. It is useful and decptively powerful, I usually can't tighten screws any further by hand unless the battery is low.

I find it useful for getting into awkward places where I can't get into a good position to effectively use a manual screwdriver, or close to a brick wall where you would likely take all the skin off your knuckles using a manual screwdriver.

It would be no use for building one of Tommy Walsh's decks but I reckon you could remove, or hang, all the doors in a 3 bed house on one charge.

[Lurch]

They're not meant to replace battery driver drills, more just for the odd screw here and there really. I have a cheap drill, (£10), that I use for screwdriving but it'll do more if it has to. I do have a 'gopher', , it's handy when sticking things in the back of cabinets and tight spaces etc, but still not for anything serious. ..

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Harry Bloomfield]

On 06/02/2004 PoP opined:-

If you already have a battery drill, then this is the better option. The battery screwdrivers tend to be only useful for very light use, such as removing machine screws, rather than wood screws and etc..

[Huge]

[14 lines snipped]

I have a B&D one which is quite capable of extracting 48 x 4" No.12 screws well fastened into a wall.

[Huge]

Then the modern ones are crap, 'cos this is untrue of my B&D one.

[mike ring]

Parish wrote in news:c00j69$120l49$ [e-mail]- berlin.de:

I have a really old, battered B&d 2.4 v which is my very favourite and most used tool.

It came free with a workmate from Argos, and is the best freebie I've had; I would replace it but TBH the modern equivalents seem to cost a fortune for what you get.

It doesn't replace my bigger drill/driver, it does a different job and is more in demand, from spinning out mk screws to light wood screwing and electrical work.

The beauty is it converts to afairly rugged manual by simply ignoring the buttons, so I can start to extrect a screw by hand, then spin it the rest of the way out, or vice versa; on this point you MUST make sure you avoid cheapo ones which don't have an auto spindle lock - they are useless.

PS I'd love to know how it knows when I want to turn it by hand...

mike r

[Reverend Parson Peter Parsnip]

The Lord alerted my mind to the presence of this EVIL article by Harry Bloomfield, and I thusly replied:

You seem to have gone awfully quiet over in uk.rec.caravanning, Harry. Why is that?

[Andy Hall]

I used to have a B&D 3.6v one which actually wasn't bad, although was a simple on/off with no clutch. However it was quite highly geared and so the low voltage wasn't an issue. You can't really compare with a drill driver, because for a screwdriver, it isn't a problem if it only goes at perhaps a third of the speed of the top rate of a drill/driver.

I now have a DeWalt DW920K that I bought in the U.S. in an offer in Home Deepo with two batteries - 7.2v. This is a pretty good product with sensitive speed control with most of the torque like Makita drills and an adjustable slipping clutch. It's smaller and lighter than the drill but certainly has no issue in driving pretty much any screw.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Helena Anthony]

Fuck off, Harry. We don't wan't you messing up this group too.

[Capitol]

I also use a B&D 3.6V unit combined with an 18V Sears drill driver (2 batteries). The B & D driver needs recharging regularly overnight, but is a good high torque unit for everyday use.($18 in the US!) The 18V drill drivers have massive adjustable speed and torque, ideal for the more serious work. Recharge on 18V is around 45mins (WMD?). Both were purchased as a result of using and being impressed with the products

Regards Capitol

[Ed Sirett]

I have used them in the past. They are surprisingly tough and durable but very very slow they have quite a bit of torque.

However if you spend around £80 up. I think you'll get a really nice tool I have owned and had stolen several differnt makes and there was nothing much to choose between them except for the battery life.

The Bosch 9.6v and 12v work well also the Erbauer was really smooth (2 weeks before theft).

Currently I'm using a 2nd hand ebayed Makita which I got for about £80.

The combi (hammer also) option is not reliable on these products unless you pay very big money (£200) and they tend to make for a heavy and less usable tool.

You can drill holes in masonry with a good cordless drill if you have a _sharp_ bit if that makes no progress you probably need to get the SDS drill out anyway.

At the very minimum you need a product with a 2 speed gear box, electric brake and TWO batteries. A fast charger is helpful, reverse and torque adjuster are universal. Speed control is helpful but not as much as anything else.

[Steven Briggs]

In message , PoP writes

As others have said, the B&D 3.6V (model #9019 ISTR) is actually pretty good. Not fast, but lots of torque that can drive 4" x #10 into softwood with no pilot hole. Then if it runs of grunt, the body shape makes a damn fine manual screwdriver that you can apply _loads_ of torque with.

On another note, at work we need some electric drivers for an urgently for a field repair job, so a colleague went down to Bodge-it and Queue, surveyed the 20 odd different electric screwdrivers, and picked a power pro one that was headlined as "3 hour charge". Now it appears quite nicely made, BUT here's the scam. It contains 3x

1200mAh nicds and the charger is rated at 160mA. So its not exactly going to be 3 hours for a "full" charge is it? No little asterisks, or small print, or any mention anywhere what the claimed "3 hour" charge is supposed to be.

[PoP]

looks like the business!

PoP

Sending email to my published email address isn't guaranteed to reach me.

[mike ring]

PoP wrote in news: [e-mail]:

No, thats a proper one; the beauty of the little B&D is it's versatility and handiness as I wrote earlier.

Tell SWMBO that it is essential to have *both*

mike r

[stefek.zaba]

I have a nice Panasonic driver; it has a 3.6V battery which gives a lot more than the 5 minutes' use PoP feared, a rapid charger which does seem to properly monitor the state of charge and swap to trickle (even so, I keep it on a 30-mins-a-day overrideable timer to keep the spare battery topped up without cooking). It's *much* smaller and more manouverable than a cordless drill/driver, and gets a fair bit of use with both machine screws in 'puters and woodscrews up to and including BFO 6 x 120 mm jobs. With an auto clutch and a pivoting body, so you can use it straight or bent into a not-quite-L shape, it allows manual use for starting screws or breaking them out of initially-stuck positions, and then spinning them in/out the rest of the way under wrist-preserving battery power. Damn good. But I'm not at all sure the 20quid wannabes would be anything like as useful.

HTH - Stefek

[Toby]

There is a B&D 9.6v screwdriver in Asda at the moment for £10. Looks a bit like an angle drill & seems to have some kind of swivel. I don't have any experience of it but some here may find it useful.

[Z]

In article , PoP writes

Thw 3.6V ones are a waste of time. There is a De-Walt 7.2V battery screwdriver. I have used it in a wide range of applications from PC covers to boarding up properties with 3/4 inch tabopan. The battery (a NiCad (maybe they make a NimH now)) lasted a few full shifts. It has finer control over torque than a battery drill, is lighter to carry and is small enough to fit in a pocket. Unfortunately it was small enough to fit in the pocket of the thieving scumbag who nicked it from me!