New Toy

[Mortimer Schnerd, RN]

While I was constructing a folding outfeed table about a week ago, I found my

14V Dewalt drill was running out of oomph way too early. I switched batteries only to find the other one was crapped out. I was able to complete the job with my Makita 9.6V drill while I waited for the Dewalt batteries to recharge.

I started thinking about it and looked into the price of new batteries... about $60 each at the borg. Damn. For that kind of money, it'd be worth my while to take this opportunity to upgrade. After a little research on the net, I ordered a Milwaukee 1/2" 18V hammer drill (0624-24). It showed up today.

Yowsuh! This is very nice. I can plug the battery in frontwards or backwards depending on how much clearance I need. It packs 495 in-lb of torque so I expect I'll break my wrist before I run out of torque. It came with a nice case, rapid charger and two batteries which I promptly plugged in and topped off.

When I die, I'm loading up a trailer and taking all this stuff with me. And I don't want to hear any suggestions on where to stick the trailer hitch....

[Nova]

I was in the DeWalt repair shop last week to pick up a belt for my DW733 planer. The counter person was on the phone when I arrived talking to someone with a similar problem. From what she said I guess it's a common problem. One battery will go bad and it then damages the charger. The bad charger then damages the remaining good battery.

-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

[JGS]

[Mortimer Schnerd, RN]

That's an interesting thought. My charger will charge the batteries; they just don't seem to last very long now. Is there any way to test the charger/batteries before I arbitrarily assign them to the trash bin?

At this point I'm torn as to whether I should hang onto the Dewalt drill or not; it still looks brand new and has served well in the past. The fact that I had hung onto my old Makita 9.6V drill saved me on the last project when my Dewalt ran out of energy... good thing I kept that one (I've used it as a driver exclusively since I upgraded to the Dewalt).

Is three drills more than I can justify? Or should I put the Dewalt on Ebay?

[Nova]

According to the DeWalt counter person having batteries that don't last very long is the end result. I don't know how you could test the batteries without risk to a known working charger. the suggestion given to the person on the phone was to buy two new batteries and a charger for "X" number of dollars or buy a whole new drill with batteries and a charger for about $20 more than the batteries/charge alone.

-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)

[rj]

back to Dewalt, replaced the charger & tested the batteries, same problem a month later, paid the extra for the heavy-duty charger, 2 months later, problem is back, got really mad & took the whole mess back to the Dewalt/B-D shop with the intention of stuffing the drill up someone's nostril. The lady at the counter saw me come in, didn't blink, exchanged the 2 batteries and charger. Haven't had a problem since - - maybe they've improved the charger ????

[Tom Dooley]

Isn't DeWalt jst a Black & Decker in a yellow package?

Re: New Toy Group: rec.woodworking Date: Mon, Jul 26, 2004, 10:01pm From: [e-mail] (Nova) "Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote: While I was constructing a folding outfeed table about a week ago, I found my 14V Dewalt drill was running out of oomph way too early. I switched batteries only to find the other one was crapped out. I was able to complete the job with my Makita 9.6V drill while I waited for the Dewalt batteries to recharge. I was in the DeWalt repair shop last week to pick up a belt for my DW733 planer. The counter person was on the phone when I arrived talking to someone with a similar problem. From what she said I guess it's a common problem. One battery will go bad and it then damages the charger. The bad charger then damages the remaining good battery.

[J T]

Fri, Nov 2, 2007, 2:07am (EST+5) [e-mail] (Mekon) doth sayeth: My old router was giving me a little grief,

1. When it is inverted dust does not fall into the motor.
2. A switch rather than a trigger.
3. The chuck extends past the router table bed so bits can be changed from the top. (Luxury!)
4. Even though it does look a bit like the robot in Lost in Space

1. I've got an inexpensive Craftsman in my router table, and no dust gets in it, period - it all gets blown out; I imagine all routers are the same.

1. I'd rather have a trigger for using it outside a table. In my table, I lock the trigger on, and turn it on and off by a circuit breaker mounted on the side of the table.
2. I made my router table so I can yank the "plate" and router out in about 1 second, then changing a bit is no prob, and takes about 2 seconds to put back.
3. I think all routers look like the Lost in Space robot.

JOAT Viet Nam. Divorce. Cancer. Been there, done that, got over it. Now where the Hell are my T-shirts?

- JOAT

[Leon]

Typically all routers do blow down, or up in a table, however when not running anything can drop down into the fan. The Triton uses a fan that more closely resembles a closed end squirrel cage fan that blows towards the sides of the router and cannot fill up with debris when it is not running.

[mac davis]

It's probably a good feature, Leon, but I'm with JOAT here...

I've had my big, ugly crapsman router in my table for maybe 10 years and it just keeps on chuggin'... Can't seem to kill it or the other Sears router, so I can replace them..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing