I know these were mentioned a while back about being the driver of choice for quite a few on here so have decided to get myself one. Best price I can see is £46 delivered from a company on the net. Does that sound reasonable or are there better products / offers out there?
Cheers
Steven.
I don't think there are any alternatives in something this size. It's an extremely useful bit of kit. Copes with pretty well all normal screwdriving tasks. Of course a normal drill driver is more versatile - but if you already have one of those you'll not be disappointed with the little Makita.
As regards price I dunno - I got mine off Ebay for a lot less. But that was about a year ago. They might have overestimated demand and had excess stock to sell off. It's not the sort of thing that would appeal to an impulse buyer.
I bought mine for a bit less than you are quoting - but can't find exact amount. But at the very same site it is now £89.95 (and claiming list price of £171.55!)
Excellent bit of kit. I think I paid about £36 for mine & others here found them a little cheaper.
Having got the hang of my Makita TD020DSE, I really like it.
Now what I want is a very similar device ? ideally the same battery and charger, very similar look, but simply a drill. Just something that is as light and convenient as the driver but specifically meant for pilot holes and similar. Nice fast spin speed. It would be fine if it only took hex drills.
I?ve got my good old Bosch cordless drill ? but that is much heavier, less able to get into awkward spaces, and not exactly the fastest spinning drill I have ever used. But having a pilot drill machine would reduce bit switching considerably.
Do you think Makita might pull one of those out of their hat sometime?
Seems to be about par for the course price wise at the moment. IIRC I paid about £36 + delivery on ebay. Best deals seem to be coming out at about £40 + delivery.
Thanks guys for the input.
Steven.
Why not just use a second one?
Good question.
Because, IMHO, it is not very good at drilling. You really don't want it to go into impact mode with a drill bit. And the rotation speed, while acceptable for some drilling, isn't quite as high as I would like for pilot size bits.
Why?
Few cordless drills are. But anyway IMHO hex drills are a waste of time - too expensive and not accurate enough.
Impact mode could shatter a drilling bit rather effrectively.
I agree that most hex drills are pretty bad. But if Mak did one perhaps they would supply a nice little kit of good ones?
HSS drills don't shatter. Doubt anything does into wood. And remember this sort of impact driver isn't in and out like a hammer drill but rotary 'kicking'. Of course what it would do is stop the drill rotating if it met too much resistance and go into impact mode.
Problem is you need some form of taper for a tight fit.
Went and bought one after the recommendations here. I've only been playing about with it so far but not sure its sounding to healthy. It sounds like my old cordless drill when it has reached the torque setting of putting a screw in. Although the Makita sounds like this from about half way of putting the screw in, it still continues to drive the screw in with that ratchet sound but very slowly. The batteries are fully charged. Is this normal?
Cheers
Steven.
Your description of the sound seems about right.
What size screw into what substrate? If large screw into hard substrate, try a smaller (finer) screw into a softer surface. Does that work better?
For most of my use into wood and wood-based substances, it works excellently. Soemtimes not so happy with big screws that are very tight into plastic wall plugs.
Your description does sound like what happens as the battery fades. Have you actually discharged and fully recharged one?
(Mind, as I have previously posted, the first screw I used it for was a
6x ultra turbo into a tough old fence post. Took a while but it was driven right in including being countersunk - with no hole.)
Yes. They work by 'kicking' the screw round. So will sound different to an ordinary rotary type.
Just ignore the noise and marvel about how such a small device can handle large screws with so little effort from the user.
The two things I dislike is the lack of lock for the handle position and the switch location. The latter will depend to some extent on your individual hand, I suppose.
Depends on how big the screw is. With those small screws used for kitchen door hinges it puts them in so fast you can hardly see them go. Bigger screws go in more slowly but still go in.
Didn't think you had to do that with Li Ion batts?
Agreed - I don't think you have to do the discharge/recharge with Li Ion. Just thought that if OP said he had done so, that would remove it as a 'maybe try that even if it doesn't make sense' type of option.
Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm sure its working properly as I just used it properly to put some 4x50mm Turbogold screws into some battens. The screws would go in about 10mm then start to make that ratchet sound as if the driver was struggling, but put them in no problem.
Thinner screws go into soft wood in much the same way. the screws go in maybe half way and then the sound of the ratchet starts!!
Since the driver is new I haven't been able to discharge the battery but made sure it was fully charged.
Steven.
Yup, that is the way of the impact driver, when the going get s tough, it gets clicking!
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