On the Worx website
"Most people think the higher the voltage, the more powerful the machine is. This is only partially true. If you do the math of combining voltage with Ah, you may be surprised. Believe it or not, a 12 V drill with 2Ah battery has the same power as a 24 V drill with 1Ah battery."
Is that true?
It depends what you mean by power. In terms of the capacity of the batteries to hold stored electric power, yes, they are similar.
But most people would consider "the same power" to mean the tools having equal ability to perform similar tasks. And that depends on many things, only one of which is the stored electric power. The maximum torque might well be higher on people's list of priorities.
What they say might be true as related to the power of the battery - but not the machine!
What they say might even be true for a specific pair of drills.
We have on our cars motors ranging from, say, small fans through to the starter motor. And, when the engine is not running, all are driven by
12V from a single battery. Clearly power delivered by each of these motors varies massively and is not related to the voltage.And it is quite possible for two batteries of a given nominal voltage and ampere-hour capacity to have very different abilities to deliver. Especially if they are different technologies (e.g. Nicad and LiIon).
I read it as Worx want to flog 12V stuff and so they are claiming it is as good as 24V stuff. It might even be true for Worx' 24V products... :-)
Only if the batteries last the same time. Ah measures energy, not power.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:
Only superficially. I'd rather have a good 24V machine than a good 12V machine. Crap ones, they're well... crap anyway, so the comparisons are meaningless.
Does it matter?
When you are buying siad equipment what would you consider?
Yes. There is no real advantage in having 24V rather than 12V as far as the tools ability to do work is concerned. It is a common misconception that if its a higher voltage it will work better. However those same people will be quite happy to swap a 18V drill for a
10.8V drill using Lithium batteries.
I wouldn't buy Worx anyway, I'm a Makita bloke. Just interested, sounded like bollox to me.
Not really. It's a matter of torque. A 24v drill with decent gearing has far more than a 12v even with decent gearing.
More electrical pressure you could consider it as.
I have a Nutool 24v cordless and a Dewalt 12v cordless ... They both have impressive and equal torque, and the batteries last about the same. I love them both. Dave
There are some other gems of bull dodo on that page:
"Just think about your car's gas tank: the bigger it is, the less you have to stop at gas stations."
No. The first bit is ok, however the use of the word "power" in the last sentence is definitely wrong.
The product of voltage and cell capacity gives a figure for overall energy stored. So you could say that all other factors being equal the
12V tool could achieve the same amount of work as the 24V tool. However power relates to the rate of doing the work. So with otherwise equal tools the 24V will be able to deliver that work in less time. There are two implications of this, one being that you ought to be able to do some tasks faster (say drill a certain size hole, or drive a given screw. The other being that there are some tasks that you will only be able to perform with the higher voltage tool since you require faster delivery of energy - i.e. drive a large diameter drill bit or hole saw.Reality however is somewhat more grey. Often higher capacity cells are also better quality cells and will be able to deliver higher peak currents. Better quality drills will also usually have better cells. They may be better matched as well, which will allow the tool to extract more of the total energy content in a usable form.
So as Dave's reply to EricP nicely demonstrates, The cheap 24V tool with crap batteries, poorly toleranced gearbox, cheap motor, and rough speed controller (no offence Dave!) may be equalled in performance by a high quality tool of half the voltage. What is more the 12V tool will probably be smaller and lighter into the bargain.
The size/type of the battery has nothing to do with the power of the tool
- assuming it is capable of delivering enough current for that maximum power. The power of the tool is entirely down to the motor.
That's not to say there isn't an ideal voltage for cordless tools - rather the same as with tungsten lamps. But I don't know what that is.
However, the quality of the cells *does* make a big difference - good ones can supply a lot more current. So a cheap 24v battery could well not be as good in practice as a decent 12 volt one.
I've got an 18 volt B&Q drill. One of the batteries for that I've re-celled with Sanyo. And it performs far better than new with that battery. Basically, more torque.
A 12v motor can give the same power as 24v motor. The battery size (energy stored) makes it go longer.
Two drills one 12v one 24v, giving the same power. Both have a 2Ahr battery
The 24v motor drill will last longer.
To users, the convention fior users is that the higher the voltage the more powerful the drill. Makers market it that way for their understanding. In general a 24v in the current market will ne more powerful.
A red letter day! Above, DD speaks nothing but the undeniable truth! :o)
If everything is "otherwise equal" they will perform identically.
The 12V motor needs to deliver the same amps x turns as the 24V motor to give the same "power". It has twice the AHr capacity so it is quite able to do so for the same time.
The 24V one could deliver more amps x turns as the 12V but then it wouldn't last as long.
At practical levels there is unlikely to be much difference between two drills aimed at the same sector.
Just look at the new Lithium stuff its 10.8V but performs as well as the 18V if not better.
The size advantage should be in the 24V tools favor. The copper can be thinner so the motor smaller than the 12V one. But you will never know as the professional 24V tools are all aimed at bigger jobs. And the cheap 24V tools are aimed at the budget market and built down to a price.
Almost. He missed out the important part that a 24 volt from one maker may not be as good a drill as a 12v from a better one.
12v x 2A for one hour = 24W/hr 24V x 1A for one hour = 24W/hr
so yes it is true. However, there are many more variables such as the motor design and battery type and quality which are more important.
Their central point, that battery voltage alone is not a reliable indicator of the tools power, torque, longevity or work cycle, is correct.
Not at all. They have the same _capacity_, but the _power_ depends on the motor the designers chose to fit. A big motor on a tiny battery can have a huge power, but you'll be running to the charger every few minutes. This is fine for an impact driver used for dismantling, a damn nuisance with a power screwdriver assembling decking.
On the whole though, I'd consider their claim to be reasonable in terms of capacity (number of small screws driven between charges), but simply irrelevant about power. You have to know what the motor is.
Weight is as good a measure as anything you can read on the outside of the box.
Irrelevant. You could fit the 24V drill with a 2Ah battery. This has no effect on the current drawn, just how long the battery lasts. The fact that a drill has a 1Ah battery does *not* mean it draws 1A!
Or the 12V one with a 20Ah one. However the comparison quoted was between 12V/2Ah and 24V/1Ah. In terms of stored energy these are both broadly the same.
The advert is using the word "powerful" somewhat ambiguously but the statement about the battery equivalence is reasonable.
Of course not, what I was showing was that the amount of stored energy in a 12V 2A/h battery is roughly the same as that stored in a 24V
1A/h battery.Whether you would get the same amount of work from both depends upon other factors such as the motor and how well the battery copes with the load.
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