Cordless drills

I'm interested in buying a cordless drill/driver. My recent purchase of a 12 volt Makita has left a very bad taste in my mouth, the drill was very cheaply made (not the pro line) and it wouldn't keep a drill bit or driver tight, no matter what I did. I've returned in under their 30 day customer satisfaction policy and now I'm shopping again.

I think the Bosch 14.4 Brute-Tough will fit my needs. Any ideas??

Reply to
Alan
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Most like Makita or at lkeast the professional line-did not know they had such. Stay away from DeWalt- too many troubles in our experience. We like Milwaukee, AEG, Hitachi and Bosch. Charlie Self wrote a good article on cordless drills I believe. He has more experience with all sorts of tools than most of us since he is a writer-and a good one I might add.

Reply to
Lawrence A. Ramsey

ive had several bosch and the trigger always seems to burn out too quickly. same with porter cable. my makita has been a POS since the day i bought it. 3 dewalts all junk within a couple months. however ive been very pleased with panasonic. i just bought a second panasonic as the first one lasted over a year and a half with no problems. [ it still works but the brake finaly gave out. ] i use these things hard everyday and so far ive not found any that will beat the panasonic. YMMV skeez

Reply to
skeezics

I have a Milwaukee 14.4 volt cordless and it's wonderful. I just used the heck out of it drilling dog holes in my workbench top (3 layers of 3/4" MDF and a top skin of 1/4" masonite). I drilled a total of 58 dog holes. I was able to get about half done before changing batteries, and the 1-hour charger was true to its name. I also used it to drill 1.5" holes with a forstner bit, etc. etc.

It often suprised me how much torque it produces (460 ft/lbs.) and you have to remember to brace yourself when using forstner bits in hard maple, let me tell you.

So, Milwaukee get's my vote in the cordless drill department.

Mike

Reply to
Mike in Mystic

You sure it is not in-oz? 460 ft-lbs is what a modest V8 small block puts out....

I have the Milwaukee 14.4 "tor-loc" cordless which replaced the venerable Makita 9.6 (great drill!) The 14.4 is a real workhorse, excellent product and great chuck.

-Bruce

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Reply to
Bruce Rowen

Reply to
Matt Zach

hehe, you're right. It's 460 in./lbs. As it stands it feels like it could break my wrist sometimes. 460 ft./lbs would be a bit overkill hehe

Reply to
Mike in Mystic

Glad you like the writing, but the recent review was on corded drills. Might be time for another on cordless...hear that Rob? Currently, my array consists of one DeWalt 12v, one Makita 14.4 NiMH, one Ryobi 14.4 and that's it! Amazing. I've had no problems with any of them. The Makita tends to get the least use because of the self-draining characteristic of the NiMH batteries...lose maybe

1-5% of their charge per day. In other words, if it sits for 2 weeks, you need to recharge before use...but there is NO memory so there's no problem at all recharging a partly discharged battery. Newer NiCads supposedly beat that problem, too.

Charlie Self "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." Thomas Jefferson

Reply to
Charlie Self

Panasonic always gets great reviews. Unfortunately for me, they are not available in Canada or that would be my choice.

Reply to
BeerBoy
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Actually, they are, I am a Panasonic Authorized Service Center in Ontario. They are however few & far between & there are not may distributors in Canada, Southern Ontario is served by Madison Industrial Equipment in Mississauga for one, there is also another branch of Madison in Vancouver.

I feel that although there cordless tools are easily among the best in the world the price of replacement batteries is out of this world.

Reply to
P©WÉ®T©©LMAN

I bought one of those Bosch units at woodworking show almost a year ago. Seems to have plenty of torque. Battery life is adequately long -- and it came with a charger and two battery packs, so there's always one pack charged up and ready to go. No complaints whatever. I'd make the same choice again in a heartbeat.

-- Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

Reply to
Doug Miller

That's strange because I emailed Panasonic a couple of months ago asking them about this and they sent me a note back stating that their tools are not available in Canada. I'll have to check out the Madison outfit in Vancouver. Thanks for the tip.

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Reply to
BeerBoy

Ditto, ditto, ditto! Darned glad I spent the money on my Milwaukee 14.4.

Reply to
mttt

Milwaukee has always, and continues, to make the toughest, most durable tools, corded or not. You will not be disappointed.

Bob

Reply to
bob
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No problem, we serviced two Panasonic cordless drills belonging to one of our local ski clubs just last week & replaced a 15.6V battery under warranty for a local builder a couple of months back so considering how small our town is there is some Panasonic being used in our area. I also put a new switch in a Panasonic cordless drill earlier this year for a cabinet shop....I have not been asking where these tools were actually purchased but I know another customer of mine from Owen sound has two 12V Panasonics for cabinet installation that were purchased by his son in Toronto earlier this year. If you speak directly to Panasonic in the states they are likely not to know the very few dealers here in Canada, I actually started with Panasonic because Jepson Tools were distributed by the same company & when accepting to do Jepson warranty Panasonic was part of the Parcel.

The address for Madison in Vancouver is:

Madison Industrial Equipment Ltd

1970 Alberta St Vancouver, BC. V5Y 3X4 Tel (604) 872-8155 Fax (604) 872-4563
Reply to
P©WÉ®T©©LMAN
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PS......I forgot to add this link....proof that the US Panasonic don't know we exist up here LOL.

Reply to
P©WÉ®T©©LMAN

I've been using a 9.6 Ryobi that I bought new about 5 years ago now. Very dependable...but it has only a single speed gear box. Drills have come a long way since then. lol

I bought a Porter-Cable 14.4v at a garage sale...for $10 if I recall. Came with 2 batteries and a charger. Great drill!...and it looked like it'd been used a LOT before I got it. I tend to use this for most of my DRILLING work...because of the high speed available. For most drilling, you want SPEED...not torque. So make sure the RPM's will be what you want for the work you want to do.

Consider getting 2 drills...a really cheap one to use as a screwdriver (that's pretty much what I use the one-gear variable speed Ryobi for)...and a good drill for actual drilling projects. Make sure the good one has at least a 2-speed gear box...plus variable speed.

Harbor Freight usually has a complete outfit for under $20(screw driver?)...and their stuff is pretty dependable. And they also sell rebuilt name brand good stuff...DeWalt, etc.

Good luck, Alan.

Have a nice week...

Trent

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity!

P.S. We often vote for more than 2 presidential candidates.

We always have more than 50 Miss America candidates.

lol

Reply to
Trent©

It no doubt would / could / probably will :-)

FWIW, I do like the Ryobi 18-Volt I've been putting through the paces for the past couple of years. It's been a darned good tool for the money.

However, my new Porter Cable 14.4 Volt (with the new 2 amp-hour batteries) driver is all in all a vastly superior tool. I picked it up at a Costco for just under $90. The 14.4 PC has more torque than the Ryobi 18 as well.

Reply to
Steve

Just replaced my 14.4 PC with a 14.4 Milwaukee because both batteries were going bad on the PC and to replace them would have cost nearly as much as a new drill. The Milwaukee is far and away a more durable tool, however -- the downside is that it is considerably heavier than the PC. My arm and elbow definitely notice the difference. That said, I'm not disappointed -- I don't expect to be shaking plastic parts out of my Milwaukee, unlike the PC.

Reply to
Mark & Juanita

Hi, I have a 14.4 Bosch, the pistol grip one, have had it several years, I love it, no problems.

I also have the top handle Bosch jig saw, love it to.

Reply to
Tony

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