Cordless Drills

[BigDee]

I have a Dewalt and a Hitachi. The Dewalt cost almost 3x what I paid for the Hitachi and I have yet to notice a difference in performance between the 2.

[Boadie30]

I just went through this looking for the best replacement for my Dewalt Cordless Tool Kit... I did not have any complaints about the old one which was 12 years old I believe. I used for home/work. I wanted to make sure I was buying the best for the money as possible. With viewing all the kits and knowing the opinion of my peers and a many searches on the web. I stuck with Dewalt.. Expensive though.

[BushMasterBoy]

I have had a bunch of cordless, only stuff still running is Makita. Makita 9.6 volt, I don't know about the 18 volt.

[def90]

I have always had good luck with all 3, Makita, Milwaukee and Dewalt. Be sure to get the contractors version, not the model at home depot. The difference is that the contractor models will have all steel chucks while the consumer models at Home Depot and elsewhere have plastic chucks.

[TheWeeze]

I used to sell the hell out of Bosch cordless tools. They're slightly higher cost, but you can drop them hundreds of times, or once from 40', and they'll still keep running. One of the demonstrations they'd do at trade shows would be to let people climb a ladder up to 10', drop the tool, and if it breaks and they can't get it running again, they win a free kit. They'd get between 150-500 drops between breaks. So they'd only give away 1-2 kits the whole show. Great tools, but you can't go wrong with the Makita kits. We used to repair a TON of DeWalt, so FYI, they're not always the most reliable. Stick to the Lithium Ion Batteries, because they're lighter and run better, very even power draw and last through hundreds and hundreds of charges. The old NiCd batteries are heavier and don't draw the same way.

[Goodburbon]

I'm currently running the Makita. Used it for fence last week, 3.5" lag screws for the main boards, 2" wood screws for the planks. The battery only lasted 20-30 minutes under that continuous hard use, but they were charged in 15, so I just kept rolling. Good torque, good speed. I like it, and Costco has the kit.

Last one was a Hitachi NiCd. Didn't take long for the batteries to stop holding a charge, but it served it's purpose for a while. Batteries had to cool before being charged, extending charge time a bit


The problem I have now is finding #2 phillips bits that actually work. I've bought the store brand at the counter sold loose, Ryobi, Hitachi, Milwakee.
The Hitachi were absolute worthless junk, snapped the tip off every bit on the first screw.
The Milwakee weren't far behind, lasting about 4-5 screws (25-30 if I baby the shit out of it) Bottom line, at the first slip, they're done.
The bits that came with the screws weren't much better, but fell somewhere between Milwakee and store brand.
The store brand were a little better at 30-40 screws
Can't remember any other brand because it's been too long.

[TheWeeze]

problem I have now is finding #2 phillips bits that actually work. I've bought the store brand at the counter sold loose, Ryobi, Hitachi, Milwakee.
The Hitachi were absolute worthless junk, snapped the tip off every bit on the first screw.
The Milwakee weren't far behind, lasting about 4-5 screws (25-30 if I baby the shit out of it) Bottom line, at the first slip, they're done.
The bits that came with the screws weren't much better, but fell somewhere between Milwakee and store brand.
The store brand were a little better at 30-40 screws
Can't remember any other brand because it's been too long.

I'd highly recommend finding these kind of bits, they have a square drive as well as the Philips drive, grab on better and last longer, less stripping.

http://www.fastenal.com/web/products...Id=&rfqLineId=


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[hghclsswhitetrsh]

+1 for makita.

[funkymonkey1111]

i have a bosch that i really like. but, that rigid battery warranty is enticing.

[Ah Pook]

Thanks for all the feedback!

I still have the original phillips bits that came with the drill. Never had a problem with them. Most of the time I use galvanized hex head screws. Between building a metal garage and re-roofing the house, I have a lot of those left.

I'm liking the Makita drill driver/impact wrench combo. Maybe pick up a third battery for the set.