I'm thinking of buying a Makita 18V Li-Ion Drill off eBay:
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seems much cheaper than buying from a shop. However, it only comes with one battery - since I have never used one of these can someone give me an idea how how much work the battery can get through? Obviously it will be dependant on what I'm drilling through so I'm just looking for anecdote here really!
How long to the batteries (3Ah) take to charge typically?
I would look for proper tool test reviews to get an idea of this.
I always make sure that I have >=2 batteries for any cordless tool. Using a 14.4v Makita for mixed work of drilling and small screw into wood, the 1hr charger keeps up with two batteries, meaning one in use and one charging. It wouldn't if I were drilling 25mm holes into thick wood with a spade bit.
The 18v will do rather better than that. Unless work is intensive, one battery will last for most of a day of mixed drilling and screwdriving.
Personally, I wouldn't go for a one battery tool because I find that waiting for a recharge is irritating. However, if you are thinking of use for a mix of drilling and screwdriving, buying a separate screwdriver may be a solution that will cover some jobs.
30mins according to the spec. Other Makita products conform to the specs, so no reason to believe that this one won't
Better, would be not to buy from Ebay.
If you have a problem, it may be more challenging to resolve.
Indeed - many of the power tools on eBay are grey imports (i.e. not intended for the UK market), and as such carry little in the way of manufacturer's warranty.
Couple of points: Moving to Li-ion technology menas that some things that were true no longer are.
With Nickel based SUB -C ells, the practical limit on current for a sensible duration of power and cell lifetime was around 25A, if you wanted more power, you used more cells. Charge regimes down to about 20 minutes were possible.
Thats not the case with li-ion cells. Generally they can be made on completely different ampere hour ratings easily: so its as easy to put a
50A 9v pack together as a 15A 18v pack. Voltage become no more than a marketing ploy.
Li-Ion are far far better at charge retention...its measured in years rather than days..but the charge regime is normally about an hour for longevity. You also need to be extremely careful not to totally flatten the cells. This tends to mean that teh equipment will suddenly stop and say 'recharge me' rather than the power falling away. I don't doubt that Makita have got the charge down to 30 minutes BTW, but I am slightly dubious as to what this will do to the cell lifetime.
Typically when framing out a deck with two of us using a 14.4v driver (2 batts) & a 12v impact driver (3 batts) and one charger, we don't run out of battery at all - thats putting in 6 x 90 mm coach screws without a pilot hole.
An 18v Li-Ion 3 a/hr is going to last for ages mind, so for DIY use its probably going to be more than enough.
I'd say thats about right, my 12v & 14.4v are about 25 mins. Also depends on the capacity of the batteries, Makita tend to include 1..2 a/hr with some of their 'offers'.
B&Q have the 18v combi for £99 at the moment, with two batteries albeit with normal batteries, not Li=Ion. Again more than enough for DIY use I would say - might be a cheaper alternative.
The way Metabo got the charge time down to 15 mins for my Li-ion 14V drill was to have a hefty great fan in the charger, and blow cold air thought the battery case while charging. It's the best battery tool I've ever owned. Of course, I don't know about cell longevity yet, it's only 2 years old.
You will get a fair amount of use out of one charge, but obviously then have to wait if you do run out. Not sure how tolerant Li-Ion batts are of being charged warm though - so you may need to allow some cooling off time before charging if you want to get maximum battery life.
I did think about this but the one I'm looking to buy is a 35 year UK anniversary limited edition and the seller /says/ I can use any Makita service centre and claim on warranty if there are any problems. Whether he is right or not I can't be 100% sure!
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