On this coming 20 March, Aldi are doing a 14.4volt cordless hammer drill for
19.99. two speed. screwdriving and hammer drilling. 16 torque postitions and 1 drill position. (dont know what 1 drill position means?). The make is called 'Work Zone'.Is this likely to be a five minute wonder or a seriously useful bit of kit? Thanks.
In the "drill" position, the torque limiter is locked out.
Chris
This sort of thing from both Lidl and Aldi tends to be pretty good value for money. Much better IMHO than shed own brand stuff at a similar price.
I don't have an Aldi nearby, and the only Work Zone cordless tool I have is a multi-tool, and it seems to have a very good battery. Very pleased with it for the occasions were I can't use the Fein.
It will almost certainly come with a 3 year warranty. I doubt if that will cover the battery though. If you are going to use it regularly and the battery fails after say 20 months, then you will have paid £1 per month for its use which is probably good value.
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Thanks to all. Having never owned a battery powered drill before, are replacement batteries a usual standard size and so easily replaceable ? Thanks
Externally, they are usually (always?) different. Inside the pack, they mostly use sub-C cells which are readily available although it can be a bit fiddly to re-cell them (and often as expensive as the original drill). There are reputable re-celling firms. If you have never had one before, you will almost certainly find an Aldi one useful and good value. Just don't expect to achieve the same masonry drilling rates that you would get from a standard mains drill.
Apart from drilling, they can save a lot of time assembling flat pack furniture or disassembling washing machine cases (for example).
The battery is probably unique to the drill and there is a good chance with Aldi/lidl that you will not be able to find an economic replacement. Sometimes Aldi/Lidl will have spare batteries on sale at the same time as the drill BUT ONLY while stocks last and possibly never to be repeated!
However, I have something similar from Aldi purchased a couple of years ago and its still going strong. It doesn't perform as well as a mains powered drill and not particularly suited for a long sustained workload but I use/abuse it on a regular basis because its more convenient than getting a mains power drill out.
I do use fairly decent drill bits with it:
For masonary, wood, ceramic, upvc and steel a set of Bosch Multi construction bits.
Also "designed for cordless" a set of Irwin (wood/masonary/ceramic)
Both links just an example of the item but not necessarily the best price
I bought the same drill two years ago - the drill is still ok but the battery is dying fast now. I've since tooled up with used Makita 14.4V drivers and that's a much, much better way to go, since there's a huge backlog of spares and used tools for spares plus many cheap (and not-so-cheap) batteries to be found for the same kind of money as the Aldi/Lidl offering. Although I say the Aldi drill itself is ok, it certainly wouldn't stand up to the kind of crap a Makita is meant to take in its stride.
Same here - Aldi 14.4V combi worked well for a couple of years but then the batteries started losing charge too quickly. The Makita, after 3 years still holds its charge and works well. It put a
10mm hole through a single-skin brick wall remarkably quickly. The Aldidl drills seem to have smaller batteries and only one, nowadays. Mine had 2 batteries of about 0.2Ah more than the newer ones.From what I've learned with these drills, I wouldn't buy another from Aldidl.
Before you can really make a meaningful comparison, you'd need to know how long the Makita battery will last. As it is a much more expensive device.
It's not really a surprise to know a Makita battery lasts longer than an Aldi one - since the battery is by far and away the most expensive part of the tool. It would be very silly if it didn't.
All true. The main point is that the cheap drills just aren't worth having in the first place. The Mak 12V drill/driver is far better now than the
14.4V cheap combi was when new. I'd like the cheapo to work properly as it's handy to leave in the shed - the Mak lives indoors - but the battery is not of much use after about a month.
I've got 'Mccallister' B&Q 14.4V drills - a right angle, and an impact driver, that came with 4 1.5A NiCd batteries and 2 chargers. Can't remember exactly how much I paid, but less than £30 for the lot. They're absolutely fine for me. Charge in about 30 mins, always enough charge for a couple of jobs. Used a lot of late during a top to bottom 4 bed house refurb. Almost 10 years old.
I also recently got an 18V non-hammer drill from Aldi. It's fine for general stuff where the impact driver is too severe. The battery was atrocious from new, but seems a lot better now, holds the charge longer.
Having said all this, compared to a friend's Bosch blue 14V hammer which I use from time to time, these things are toys. The Bosch is a lot nicer to use - balance, weight, torque, chuck, lithium batteries. But then it cost 3 times as much as my 3 combined. I was tempted to buy one myself, but couldn't quite justify it.
They normally come with a 3 year warranty, so if the batteries die after two years they may replace them.
Mike
I think you're asking a lot to have any battery tool work perfectly on demand without first charging it especially if stored in less than ideal conditions. And even more to expect the batteries to last indefinitely.
If value for money is important, stick with a mains drill. It will out perform any cordless while costing less - all you loose is the convenience.
it was stored indoors for the first couple of years and has been charged quite a lot - the first job was building a shed. The Mak, as I say, is far better now than the Aldi one was after a week of use and also drills a lot better in bricks.
This. Around the workshop too; with an adapter for use as cordless nut driver, they are invaluable for taking out all that tedious ratcheting. In truth, the amount of drilling mine do is less than half, and the amount of screwing, nut-driving, etc is far more.
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