Just seen the new(?) B&Q Performance Power Pro 18V cordless set: combi drill, circular saw, jigsaw and torch with 3 batteries and what looks like a proper fast charger rather than the rubbish the previous set had. £150. Anyone tried it? Is it any good (apart from hammer action on the drill which I wouldn't expect to be worth the candle).
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 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.
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
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.
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