Entry level power tools

Will they be Part P compliant ;-)

Dave

Reply to
Dave
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you could do that with anything, even a kitchen knife.

Mains has the advantages over battery: much cheaper much more power much more speed much longer tool life expectancy

But the downside is that for scrweing, they work, in fact they work better, but are crude to handle, with poor speed control, no instant stop and no torque control.

If I were buying just one tool, it would definitely be a mains drill with speed control.

And dont buy B&D drill bits.

Its scarey to say this, but IMM got it about right, for the 3rd time in his life.

NT

Reply to
bigcat

bruce snipped-for-privacy@my-deja.com wrote: > Thanks, John. I'm starting to think of the possible jobs I may need a

You could run a spur in with a 12v cordless without trouble and it certainly shouldn't wreck the drill. I ran a 36 port home network in with just such a beast [although I admit that I should have bought a corded drill :-)]. I put holes though joists, breeze blocks and even stuck a 12mm x 2' masonry bit in it to get down behind the skirting board (it did struggle sometimes then though and wouldn't touch brick). These tools are tougher than you think.

There is a world of difference between what you will be doing with your drill and what a professional will do with a drill. A professional will be using (and possibly abusing) their drill every day. You will maybe use it a few times a year for quite light work.

Graham

Reply to
doozer

There is Performace Power (grey) and Performance Power Pro (blue). Two very different ranges.

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Reply to
Doctor Evil

Depends a bit on what you mean by breezeblock - that covers everything from the soft insulating blocks and cinder blocks which you can drill easily without hammer action (in fact you can drill with a srewdriver!), to hard hollow concrete blocks where you will need hammer action. None of them are that hard to drill - in the sense that a conventional hammer drill (mains or battery) will hack it without needing a SDS drill.

If you want to chase out a channel in a wall and sink a backbox however you need a SDS with chisel mode.

A mid range 12V drill would handle it with no difficulty. A top end one would do it 100 times on a single charge.

If you have doubts, then considder a mid range cordless drill backed up by a shed special hammer for the odd occations you want more prolonged drilling or hammer.

Reply to
John Rumm

yup

Not always, a good 18V cordless will develop the same sort of power as a small mains drill. Power however in many cases is a bit like oxygen, you only need "enough" for the task.

True of the smaller cordless drills, but decent cordless drills will often run around 1500 rpm. A Mains SDS will normally do upto 1100, a conventional gearbox mains drill will max out at 2500 - 3000. For most materials 1500 is more than adequate. The exception is when hammer drilling in which case the extra speed of the mains drill gets more blows per min, which makes better use fo the (feeble) hammer action.

Not convinced... the batteries will need replacing from time to time, but the drill should last equally well.

You seem to demolish the "work better" claim by explaining all the reasons they are not so good for screwing.

Depends on what you are doing I suppose. If I were putting up shelves then yes, if I were refitting a kitchen then I would rather have the cordless.

agreed!

(or any 120 drill bits for only 10 quid offers you see)

Reply to
John Rumm

It is plain you can't count. I get everything right all of the time.

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Reply to
Doctor Evil

Pound for pound the mains drill wins hands down yes the biggest cordlesses can outperform the smallest mains Usenet, the home of pedantry.

I think you need enough for every task youll ever do with it. Codlesses are often inadequate, especially the cheaper ones.

so pound for pound much more speed.

precisely, the batteries go. I've used too much rechargeable based kit in the past to want to go back to it when not necessary.

instant

no, pointing out they do have downsides, and that all in all the cheap mains drill is a much better tool than a cheap codless.

I always thought of B&D kit as adequate, if not great, but buying a megapack of their drill bits really lifted that illusion from my eyes. A =A31 set of bits from teh cheapshop left them for dust. A bit that cant even make a hole in soft pine is a joke.

Codlessness is something you pay extra for and compromise for: only go codless if you specifically need codlessness.

NT

Reply to
bigcat

I couldn't agree more. In fact mains drill/driver is what most people need as they rarely use the drills. Only pro, or very serious DIYers need cordless.

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Reply to
Doctor Evil

So DIYers will never need to drive (and remove) screws in number then?

Reply to
John Rumm

Sorry had not realised you were going at this just from the bang for buck angle. I was only saying that on a (reasonable) coredless lack of power is not usually an issue.

Agreed. I was not advocating he purchase the cheapest though.

In reality the sensible thing to do is buy both: a mid range cordless, and a cheap mains drill.

But then so what? What does it do for you in most cases? Make screwdriving harder, and increase the chances of burning out a drill bit in steel. It makes naff all difference with wood. Hard masonry is the only place it helps on a conventional hammer drill. But the OP was not talking about drilling masonry big time. If he was I would suggest skipping the conventional mains drill and go SDS instead.

I can understand the feeling, there are times I have felt the same... however I have found it depends greatly on the quality of the rechargable kit.

A couple of examples:

Someone bought me a rechargable jigsaw from B&Q once. It is so lame that I can't ever visualise a time where I would use it out of choice. Even a

10 quid shed special mains jigsaw would trounce it in every respect.

Someone also bought me a green Bosch mains drill - for a time it was my only drill other than a 9V combi, they both got used in equal measure since there were plenty of jobs the cordless was not up to, although for screwdriving it was vastly superior. However I now almost never reach for the Bosch in preference to my 18V Makita combi - there is nothing that it does better.

(If the cordless will not hack hard masonry then its time for the SDS anyway, since that is something the Bosch is useless at).

If you are limiting yourself to cheap then I quite agree. You can't do rechargable cells of any useful quality "cheap".

Perhaps when they said "wood drill bits" that is what they ment they were actually made from!

Reply to
John Rumm

Read again what I wrote.

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Reply to
Doctor Evil

Cheap variable speed drills don't have the necessary torque or fine control required for driving screws at low speed -- their output power is very low at such speeds. However, the variable speed is useful for starting a hole off slowly to ensure the bit doesn't move before it starts biting into the surface. For this purpose, I found the power controller in an older B&D drill much better than the one in a newer Bosch -- the B&D can be started from almost zero, whereas the Bosch has a nasty hysteresis which means the motor won't start until you get the trigger to about 1/4 travel and you can then back off to lower speed (a characteristic of a very cheap light dimmer circuit).

You can get variable speed drills which deliver much nearer full output power at low speeds and are good for screw driving, but you're looking at a much higher price -- the power controller will include servo feedback, thermal monitoring and power input control right up to and including top speed operation, and is a lot more sophistcated than the crude light dimmer type found in cheap drills.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Most of these cheap mains drills have a trigger stop to prevent too much speed. I find that using this and pulsing the trigger with your finger does the job. I little practice and most can get it.

If you are in an office which is being refurbished and there are about 10 guys with drill/drivers, you hear the constant pulsing of the triggers, zip, zip, zip. It is a technique they nearly all use even with over expensive pro battery tools. Most doesn't use the torque control leaving it on full using their fingers to pulse. They know how much to pulse to get the screw in; all by experience of using the tools on a day to day basis. Most DIYers put the bit in the screw and pull the trigger full, and then can't understand why the bit spun out of the screw and chewed it up.

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Reply to
Doctor Evil

If what you had wrote had made any sense in the first place then I would not be posting for clarification. Since it did not hence the question. Suggesting I "read again what I wrote" is "bits a waste of" Yoda.

A cheap mains drill (even with variable speed) is not a good tool for screwdriving, ergo if that is something you want to do (and I am confident that for many DIYers it is) your recommendation to buy a mains drill in exclusion of any other, seems short sighted.

Reply to
John Rumm

I use the torque control when doing large numbers of easy screws, such as screwing down a floor, or screwing plasterboard. Otherwise, it is easier to just pulse, as you say.

I find the mains drill is good for driving overlarge screws into undersized pilot holes, but has some serious disadvantages. The main one is that with neither a rotor brake nor torque control, and with a large amount of spinning mass, when the screw bottoms out, the drill really wants to continue spinning, particularly if the drill was used overfast. This often overtorques the screw, burying it into the wood/plasterboard, or chews up the screw head.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

I'm scared.

NT

Reply to
bigcat

Nothing to do with your question about power tools, but you'll find that if you make a little jig to help, you can get all the handles in the same position very easily.

This needs to be nothing more than a square of scrap wood with two (marked with a pen) straight sides that you align with two sides of your doors, and a hole in it.

Reply to
Nick Atty

Hmm, not sure I ever spin the drill so fast that it continues spinning the screw into the subject !

I use 2 drills, cheapo hammer (with quick release chuck) for drilling, but I always use my SDS drill for driving screws with an sds to hex bit adaptor. It's a bit heavy, but the trigger control is much more sensitive, letting you back off as the head nears full tightness. I've rarely overtightened or chewed the head on anything, even on drywall.

Cheers,

Paul.

Reply to
zymurgy

It probably depends on the drill. My mains one has so much rotor mass that it will continue to turn after bottom out even at very low speeds. It has very slow spin down too, so letting go of the trigger may still make 8 or 9 complete turns of the rotor even under the load of a wood screw at moderate speed.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

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