cordless drills, power difference between cheap and half decent?

[Leon]

Just for comparison, the Makita 12 volt Impact driver delivers some where around 1,000 inch pounds of torque.

[John Doe]

I think that's a minute burst measurement (good for driving screws), not pure rotational torque.

[Peter Huebner]

No, they're not all like that. Builder who worked for me last year has a Metabo which was normally not an impact driver, but he could throw a little switch on it and it would start hammering to improve the momentum once it couldn't get a screw past a certain point.

He was very pleased with that machine. So's a friend of mine who is also a builder and owns a Metabo.

However, another guy (plumber) who worked for my BIL had bad bad luck with his Metabo batteries dying very quickly.

-P.

[Peter Huebner]

Sadly the NiMH also have a curve of diminishing returns. I have a 12V Panasonic that came with 2@4Ah NiMH batteries. Had it for maybe 4 years now. 1 battery no longer takes more than 5 mins worth of charge, the other still works but self- discharges within about a week. Beautiful machine otherwise; I like the very sleek older 9.6 I have even better. I had the battery pack for that one rebuilt with NiMH.

Drawback with li-ion is the limited lifespan. After nnn days they die, never mind how you've used them. There are/were also constraints on current possibly cooking them - I believe this is being improved rapidly. Considering what I said above: so what ;-)

I am looking forward to this technology getting cheaper and more robust. We now have walkie talkies with Li-ion batteries and I like them MUCH better than the ones I had before with NiMH. Lighter, more compact, and they're always in the charger - 24/7, when not in use.

-P.

[Leon]

Several months ago I drove several 3/8" x 3" lag screws in to 2x4's with the impact driver and rather quickly. My corded drill did not have the guts.

[CW]

Funny how they give that figure in inch pounds. Bigger number. Sounds better than 47 (rounded up in true salesman style) foot pounds. Relatively few people know what that means any way, just bigger is better. Reminds me of the Radio Shack twit that told me one phone was better than the other because it had more gigahertz.

[John Doe]

As far as I know, NiCad and NiMH both last about 1000 charges, eventually they all die.

I started buying AA NiMH batteries many years ago, about one year after they came onto the market. I still have them all, about 18 (plus about 8 AAAs). They are many different capacities since the capacity keeps improving about 200 milliamp hours every six months. The only concern I'm familiar with is that multiple cell NiMH devices can conceivably be damaged if they appear to be discharged completely but some are still slightly charged. I guess that's a good reason to fully charge them before installation. I haven't noticed any degradation here.

Replaced the embedded AA NiCad with NiMH in my electric toothbrush... much better :)

That would be very bad news for millions of laptop computer users.

As far as I know, their lifespan is very roughly 2000 recharges.

I think lithium-ion batteries being safer is a major design problem also, like with the recent laptop recall.

Model airplane enthusiasts like them (see rec.models.rc.air), but that's probably high-risk for fire/explosion.

They are being used in some new cordless drills.

[John Doe]

For what it's worth. All of my reading on the subject is absolutely positively in agreement with your opinion. Apparently there is a great positive difference between an impact driver and an ordinary drill, for driving screws. Anybody who has any doubt about that should just do a little shopping for impact drivers and read the reviews.

Have fun.

[Leon]

Yeah, really it is close to 85 foot pounds which sounds even better to me. As for the phone, we have a 3 phone set that is sold as a 5.8 gigahertz IIRC. 5.8 gigahertz in one direction, that is, 2.8 in the other. Seems kinda silly to make a phone that will transmit or receive farther than it will receive or transmit. ;~) Might as well call it a 2.8 gigahertz phone.

[CW]

Must be to early, Leon. I can't tell if you're serious or not. Hope not.

[Nirodac]

John Doe wrote in news:49yKg.5118$ [e-mail]:

If you techies want to know how Lithium cells are controlled, check out this site.

packs (Li-Ion) now have microchips in them for control of over current/voltage, in both the charge and discharge mode.

Makes it hard to get your battery packs rebuilt, because each manuafacturer has it's own charcteristics for the cells, plus they can turn off (via the microchip, timed number of charge/discharge cycles) the control circuits when they think you've had enough use out of your battery pack.

[Leon]

Serious. According to the AT&T phone features the higher Gig rating of 5.8 having a higher frequency than 2.8 travels better through and around obstacles therefore in turn tends to travel farther by comparison. They only have the higher frequency on the out going or in coming, I do not recall which is which. Apparently at times you are when farther from the base either you will not be able to hear the caller or he will not be able to hear you.

Basically AT&T claims longer range through obstacles with the 5.8 over the

2.8. Either way this set of phones have always worked like they are hard wired regardless of where I have used them. Our earlier 900 megahertz AT&T phones with the longer antennas did not work as well, all things being equal.

[support]

Actually the higher gigahertz phones are of newer, most often better, design. The waiter could have stated it more eloquently if that is what was said.

Steve

[support]

All current batteries that I am aware of are considered "consumables" as it were and are expected to wear out, (though may well be covered by warranty in many cases.)

Notice the little battery recycling kiosk thingie in many of the power tool stores?

Steve

[Patriarch]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

At least in Kalifornia, that's due to the hazardous waste efforts of the Republic, trying to keep our landfills cleaner...

Patriarch, never quite certain of the real motives, though.