B&Q PPPro cordless 4-pack - any good?

Grrrrr... that's the set I wanted. But I bought the older one with a sabre saw and the crap charger. The drill is "quite good" and the hammer action works for brick which is about all I asked of it. It's a good drill with a mechanical two-speed gearbox as well as proportional control. I had a problem with the first one I bought, after a week of use the proportional control failed. I got a replacement on the spot without any quibbling and they changed the entire set, not just the drill.

I bought the jigsaw separately recently and value the additional batteries and the fast charger. The old batteries will only work with the new charger if they are "jiggered" a little. The new charger expects a thermal cut-out to be connected between the positive pole and the third pole on the battery. In the older batteries this was missing.

The circular trim saw is really good IMO. I used the saw/drill and a router to do a lot of work over the last year and cut all the timber for a built-in book case using the saw as well as seemingly endless panels of plywood for flooring. It worked well and a charge lasts long enough to be useful.

At that price I may well irritate my wife a buy a pack to take to my place in Italy.

---8

---8 I can vouch for the 18V drill ... my father bought the drill .. then a

I'm a bit disappointed with the speed control: as one squeezes the trigger further it increases smoothly then suddenly jumps to maximum. No problem for drilling but pants for driving. The jigsaw has the same behaviour but it's not a problem. I guess the motor speed control is just not capable of going up to maximum so they bypass it with a switch for full power.

It's something I can live with since my Site (Ryobi rebadge for B&Q) does the business for driving very nicely, but I wouldn't want it to be my only drill/driver.

-- John Stumbles

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This IMHO is the bid difference between 'cheap' and good quality drills. When drilling, the speed control isn't that important. When screwdriving, it is, and that's where a decent one stands out. But since IMM only preaches and never does, he wouldn't find this out.

This can also be a function of poor quality batteries which can't deliver as much current as decent ones. I noticed a big improvement over new when re-celling my B&Q 18 volt one with Sanyo cells.

I can vouch for superb driving capability - that is about 90% of what it is used for - been putting in 4" x 10's ... 3 boxes of 200 used so far. batteries last an age compared to 12V dewalt

Don't get me wrong Dave, I like slagging off IMM as much as the next man ;-) but, er, he hasn't actually posted to this thread, has he?

-- John Stumbles

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-+ Cannibalize Legalists

Fair enough, just noting what mine does. Incidentally mine is model CLM18CHD, comes with a side handle, has a 3-LED battery state indicator on the foot - maybe yours is a different model? Or maybe they've just changed components (or even suppliers) and package it as the same unit.

-- John Stumbles

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-+ Things don't like being anthropomorphised.

But just driving large screws isn't necessarily the only test. Starting small ones direct into contiboard often sorts them out. ;-)

He doesn't post on any threads as far as I'm concerned. He was added to my twit filter some time ago.

PoP

No, but if he had that's what he'd have said. ;-)

His two bees in bonnet are expensive heating systems fitted by cheap tools. ;-)

That was the fault that afflicted mine. I took it back and got it changed for one that works properly.

No, I've got the same drill. Take it back and get it changed. Yours is faulty.