How do I compare 120VAC batteries to 20VDC batteries in terms of hours of use for hand tools?
I need to buy a new drill and I can go 120VAC or battery (DeWalt).
The Jackery batteries are 293Wh for about $280 on Amazon Power:
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The Dewalt batteries are 5.0Ah for about $70 Power:
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How do I figure out how to compare the two batteries? One is in watt hours. The other in amp hours. And what about overall battery life over the years?
Which power system is better ? is the one that suits your specific needs ... personally I wouldn't buy the inverter/battery power pack for hand tools - the corded tools + power pack would be a major PITA around the home/shop/job site ! Big Time. The power pack might be useful for certain camping/cottage/beach or whatever activities but that's all. John T.
I agree. Even the "name" of the first one points to the those things, "Outdoors Camping Travel Hunting Blackout ("
If you're going to carry around one of those things, and still have to plug the drill into it, it seems that it would be, if you're anywhere near an outlet, just as easy to use an extension cord or two. I have one for outside that is 100' long.
I wanted a battery operated drill too, and I bought one, and it's convenient, for sure, but if you plug into the wall, you'll never run out of electricity until the year 2275, when we'll all run out completely and no one will have any.
Did I calculate it right then that it takes three of the 20VDC 5Ah $70 DeWalt batteries to equal one $280 293Wh portable Jackerie battery?
That makes them almost about the same in terms of cost for performance. I guess that makes sense as they're both lithium ion technology batteries.
I only need power tools a few times a year, most of the time inside a house but sometimes outside where there isn't convenient 120VAC power.
At 7 pounds, the $300 Jackerie seems like it might be a good idea because it does more than just run power tools. I could see a contractor not using the Jackerie because they need handheld portable convenience that I don't.
But for the few times each year that I'm nowhere near a 120VAC outlet, the investment in the Jackerie is something that I'm considering, versus buying a DeWalt tool and three batteries to accomplish the same or similar tasks.
People don't use 100W light bults anymore, but 88WH wouldn't power a
100W light bulb for even one hour. Still it might be enough, BUT...
See how much the tool(s) you want ot use uses, in watts. and estimate how long you'd want to use it in, say, a day, on the theory you could recharge this power supply overnight, in 8 or 12 hours.
30 years ago, they were selling a converter, that would turn 12 volts from the car into 110VAC, and it was only $10 and I thought, What a deal. So I got it and later that year I had to drill a hole in a chain link fence post cap a mile from my house and several hundred feet from someone else's house, someone I didn't know anyhow. So I drove over, tickled to use my new converter which I'd bought without any project in mind, connected the converter and the drill, and started to drill, and it did almost nothing or maybe nothing. Only then did I look at what the drill used. It was a lot more than I'd figured, and the power supply wasn't nearly big enough.
And that was to run at all, not to run 5, 10, or 20 minutes that some projects take. Your ps above has an output of 120 watts, probably a lot more than my converter, but I have a terrible memory for numbers so I'm not at all sure, and if so it will run my drill when my converter wouldn't, but for how long. If it the drill takes 180watts, that would only be 30 minutes, and that assumes one can drain the batteries all the way. Is that allowed, does it still have 110v at the end?
At any rate, I found that the pole cap came right off so I took it home and drilled my hole there.
BTW, a question we should always ask but don't always. What are you trying to do with this setup. Where is the project? What is the project?
Camping? Radio (radios use very little. At least I assume they do because they have radios with decent volume that will play for hours on a little 9v battery.) AC uses the most, but people don't take them tent or cabin camping. After that, heaters use the most; motors are in between; and radios and phones and now probalby lights (because they are LED) use the least. IIRC.
The point is it's about the same capacity as a single DeWalt 20VDC battery. Except that it doesn't require a charger (which the DeWalt battery needs). Plus it runs all your power tools without having to buy special portables.
I looked up "how many watts does a drill use" and found this to tell me.
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"The average corded drill uses between 500 to 1500 watts"
To compare, I looked up "how many watts does a cordless drill use".
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"A cordless drill can use anywhere from 300 to 1200 watts"
The corded drill is almost always going to be the better tool in almost every way than the cordless because of the compromises a cordless needs.
The main difference is one needs you to deal with the cord but the other needs you to deal with a corded battery charger (so both require cords).
The main advantage of the cordless is small size & greater portability. But that's the whole point of a small inverter of the same capacity.
I ran this calculator for a 1000 watt drill and an 88 Watt hour inverter.
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Unfortunately 88 watt hours will only run a 1KW tool for 5.28 minutes. Even though drilling is about 10 or 20 seconds, that might not be enough.
But lots of portable 8 pound 120VAC power stations are around 300 Watts.
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I buy a 300 Watt Hour station, the 1KW time jumps to 18 minutes of use.
But once the battery gets heavier than about 10 pounds, it becomes too big.
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I almost never need a power tool outside the home, but sometimes I do. For that, I could buy a set of DeWalt battery operated power tools. Plus a set of batteries. Plus a charger. All of which are expensive.
Or I could buy only the 120VAC battery - which is also expensive. It's a tradeoff. One is more versatile. The other is more portable.
But each also has shortcomings. Like size. And capacity. That's the conundrum.
For camping, I'd probably buy the wheeled 120VAC batteries such as the GoalZero Yeti 1500X (which I've been pining for waiting for a sale).
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But that one (which they tested charging & running DeWalt tools) is 45 pounds which is more than double what I'd want to lug around at home.
The whole point of this newsgroup is to ask questions of people who have already done what you are considering doing yourself at home as a DIY.
If you asked me, for example, how to refill propane cylinders and which are the best propane tanks & hoses for that task, I could tell you as a friend.
I'm not trying to sell you anything - and I have done it so I would likely know more than you do about it (assuming you were asking it, of course).
You could trust me more than a web site trying to sell you something. And certainly you could trust me more than you could trust a salesman.
Go ahead. Ask me a question of how to fill a propane tank to use at home.
Or ask something else that I've done. And I could offer advice.
Without being tempered by the fact I'd be trying to sell you something. Which almost everywhere else you could ask - would be trying to do.
I'm asking here for advice specifically from people who have done it, which is one of the purposes of this home DIY group in the first place.
People who haven't done it will likely know less than even I do about it. But those who have done it, will certainly know a lot more than I do.
Anyway, I've since found out the watt hour ratings are a bit optimistic, where most of the reviews say you only get about 85% of what is claimed.
For example, when I was looking up the Goal Zero Yeti 1500X, this review says "we recorded a decent 83 percent efficiency, or 1,267 watt-hours, out of the Yeti 1500X under a 200-watt constant load" but then it gets worse with load as "Efficiency drops under a heavier 800-watt load, to 1,093 watt-hours, or 72 percent".
They say that's "about average for efficiency", so a conservative estimate for capacity seems to be around 75% to 80% should be used for comparisons.
I'd get just the drill. Climbing on a roof dragging a cord doesn't appeal to me. Also, there is a small issue of safety. Anything over 50 VAC is considered lethal voltage if memory serves.
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