Lidl SDS drill - first look

[stuart noble]

Weighs around 4 kgs IIRC and costs a bit over £500. I borrowed one from a sparks friend and just hated giving it back :-)

[JimK]

/It does sound disappointing.

I was expecting it to be a step up from my Makita combi drill/driver but a step down from a bigger cordless SDS or a mains SDS.

If it can't whup a Makita combi then it is not much use./q

FFS for 50 odd quid I think your expectations are totally unrealistic!

Jim K

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Do wish you'd sort out your quoting.

But assuming the last sentence is yours, I'd agree. It should be compared to other budget tools - not top of the range stuff. Suppose it says a great deal that Lidl tools are so good they often are compared to the quality makes.

[David]

Thanks for doing all that testing - very useful indeed!

In (minor) defence of the Hitachi my Makita (and the Site clone) both bottle out quite early on the "screwdriver" setting with the variable torque (set by the rotating ring).

If I want to screw anything serious in (such as when I was using hex head bolts to screw down a tin roof) I switched to the "drill" setting and let the variable speed trigger and my wrist act as torque limiters.

This dramatically increases the size of screw you can drive.

Of course, these days I use the Makita impact driver for screws into soft wood - which has a similar performance upgrade to that from hammer drill to SDS :-)

Not tried screwing anything in with an SDS drill (on SDS setting) yet, though.

You have convinced me to keep the drill (still unused) because it fits the niche above the hammer drill and below the mains SDS.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Given that the Makita body was around £60 then they aren't that far apart. Expecting a budget SDS to out perform a mid range hammer drill doesn't seem unreasonable.

SDS generally far out performs hammer drills.

[JimK]

/Of course, these days I use the Makita impact driver for screws into soft wood - which has a similar performance upgrade to that from hammer drill to SDS :-)

Not tried screwing anything in with an SDS drill (on SDS setting) yet, though./q

Impact driver works straight into hardwoods too IME.....

IIRC they hit the bit radially to knock it 'around' and the screwthread takes the screw in

ISTR that SDS hits the drill axially to chisel into the material being drilled... so I'd be interested to know what happens were a screw to be SDSed, tho I think I can guess!

Jim K

[David]

Just remembered - the manual (yes, I do RTFM) states that the SDS drill needs to be run in before it achieves full potential.

Having read through the entire manual (including all the various ways you can damage the battery and render it unsafe, including looking at it sideways in an overly aggressive manner) I found the additional slip of paper.

This says that it takes about 10 holes to run the SDS mechanism in and achieve full performance.

So I need to ask - was your formal testing recorded against the eleventh hole? ;-)

Cheers

Dave R

[JimK]

/Given that the Makita body was around £60 then they aren't that far apar t. Expecting a budget SDS to out perform a mid range hammer drill doesn't seem unreasonable. /q

Subtract the cost of the battery?

Use it every weekend for 6 months & report back!

Jim K

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You can't buy the Lidl body only. How much does a Makita battery cost - probably at least as much as the drill. So something like 2.5 times the cost of the Lidl?

Which it comfortably did.

[Johnny B Good]

====snip====

I wonder if the company is using the same advertising consultant as Russ Andrews?

[PeterC]

The screw becomes a (lumpy) nail.

[PeterC]

About 4 years ago a Makita 18V combi, 1.3Ah NiCd, put 50-off holes, 8mm dia.x50mm deep in rustic brick on about 1.5 batteries. Not sure of timing as I was up a ladder and holding the nozzle of a vac. as well. The holes were for vine eyes and I didn't want the border below dusted red!

[Adam Funk]

Do you just mean "does it feel like a really good SDS drill", or is there some definition of SDS that I haven't found? AFAICT "SDS" refers to the design of the chucks & the matching drill shanks.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The reason for the special chuck is to hold the drill bit in such a way so it can be whacked better than in an ordinary chuck. Specifically for drilling hard stone.

If you've never used an SDS it comes as quite a surprise - how an SDS drill with the same power can drill hard masonry so easily while a hammer drill can't.

[Roger Mills]

SDS drills certainly have fluted drill shanks and special chucks to hold the bits - but that's only part of the story. They have a vastly different way of applying impact compared with a hammer drill - more akin to using a pneumatic drill. That's what makes them go through hard materials easily. Hence my question about how well the Lidl jobbie compares with a 'proper' SDS drill.

[Adam Funk]

I have (what I think is) a pretty good Bosch SDS drill. All I'm wondering about is the definition of "SDS" --- I have no doubt that the quality behind the chuck varies widely.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Most decent SDS drills specify the impact force.

[Vir Campestris]

I thought it was the energy? (Joules)

Andy

[Adam Funk]

Either way, I guess if they don't tell you, that's a hint?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Lidl seem quite parsimonious with detail in their ads - often don't even give the battery capacity. But it's all usually in the instruction book.

At the end of the day - does it drill hard masonry ok? If it does, that's all I'd expect of a budget SDS drill like this.