12 V battery drill

[Clarence Kay]

Is this powerful enough to drill into plastic corrugated sheet roofing and timber?

Any advice would be appreciated

[Harry Bloomfield]

Any half decent battery drill should be able to cope with this sort of use, so yes.

[Combine Harvesters are EVil]

Harry Bloomfield retched 12 V battery drill onto my recliner:

Don't listen to Harry. He doesn't really know anything about diy he's just a troll.

[John]

But a 12v drill will struggle, if you intend to drill with bigger bits, or if you want to drill thicker wood - especially hardwoods.. Why not spend a bit more at B&Q and get an 18v drill, for circa 30pounds.

[PoP]

I have to admit surprise at the following - it hasn't worked out quite as bad as I thought it might!

Several months ago I bought a 24v drill with 2 batteries and various built-in options. I bought it at Makro for £42.99, but the same spec is available at Screwfix today for £49.99 - item #19323. If memory serves I believe it's from the NuTool stable - but it might be Ferm (I'm not going out to my garage to confirm right now - but trust me that it's one of those two makes).

When I bought this drill I believed it was not going to be much use for very much, but would be handy for those odd jobs where I couldn't be bothered to get the power drill out of the car - and would do until I could afford something better. Now with some 6 months experience I feel I was wrong - and I would buy another one of these drills tomorrow if I had to, in preference to spending lots more for a decent brand name.

I've been gobsmacked at how useful this drill has been. I use it to drill pretty much all of my carpentry screw holes (but not larger spade bit holes), smallish masonry holes, and screwdriving.

I'm convinced that this thing must have those batteries that keep the bunny running after everything else has stopped. I change and recharge batteries quite rarely considering the amount of work the drill gets put through. Just this week I was putting up some shelves for a chap, and whilst I drilled the masonry using my SDS drill, this 24v drill had no problem punching in all of the 3in screws holding the shelving to the wall (about 24 in all if memory serves me right). It's still got power in it now, and the last battery change I did was weeks ago.

In short I didn't expect it to hold charge like it has done. I consider it to have been a very good purchase - and with a 3 year manufacturers warranty I'm delighted.

So as we often see on this forum, you get what you pays for. But there are some useful bargains out there too.

PoP

Sending email to my published email address isn't guaranteed to reach me.

[John Stumbles]

Don't be mislead into thinking that more volts equals more power: a 12V deWalt will knock spots off an 18V no-name brand.

The limitation you'll probably find with cheaper drills is when you come to use them for screwdriving, and for decent sized screws at that (e.g. for putting down flooring). Then you'll want plenty of torque and a low gear ratio but still a high speed for drilling, so you'll want a 2-speed machine. Another limitation is the hammer action on cheap 'combi' drills

- it's not worth the candle. Also with all cheap drills the charger will take too long to recharge the battery when you're in a hurry, and cook it if (when!) you forget it and leave it on too long.

I suggest you buy a cheapo no-frills for what you want it for now, and spend £60+ on a good one when you know what you want and see a good offer.

[Dave Plowman]

IMHO, it mainly depends on the quality of battery used. I bought a new pack for my B&Q 18 volt when the old one died, then re-celled the old one with Sanyos. The Sanyo pack gives *considerably* more torque than the standard one.

[Timothy Murphy]

What exactly do you mean by "re-cell"? How do you do it?

[Dave Plowman]

You have to open up the battery pack - they're usually glued together. Then solder in new cells using solder tagged versions - which you'll have to get from somewhere like Maplin or RS Components etc as they aren't available from the likes of a shed being a 'non standard' size called 'Sub-C'. It's only worth doing if you want the better performance and life of

*quality* cells, as a replacement battery complete from B&Q will almost certainly cost less.

[The Natural Philosopher]

indeed. A 12v car starter motor and a 12v lead acid battery can kick out better than a couple of brake horsepower...for a few minutes...:-()

>

[The Natural Philosopher]

Se

for top quality rechargeables.

You CAN solder direct to the nickel plated cans - use BIG soldering iron and plumbers flux, and clean afterwards..

[Gel]

Look here too: