Rigid power tools.

[To Bear Arms]

Batteries are the weakness for cordless power tools.
My DeWalt set was great on the job being used daily. But when I went to work for a company that supplied cordless tools, my set got taken home for occasional homeowner use.
The batteries slowly lose thier ability to hold a full charge. I replaced them after the use life dropped off to just a couple of minutes, but the newer ones suffer the same problem of lack of use causing a slowly diminishing use life on a full charge time on the charger.

I agree with SideShow Bob about the batteries. I have a bunch of there tools in both corded and cordless and really like all of them. I am on my second metal chopsaw, first one lasted me about 15 years of more then moderate use. When I decided it needed to be replaced I didn't even look at any other brands. I also have the 12" sliding mitersaw that sits on the fold up stand and I love that feature. I can leave the saw on it and have it all folded up in the corner of the garage and it don't take up to much room. And its very easy to pull out and get set up.

I have used Dewalt, Ryobi, and Makita and dislike them all for different reasons. I have some Milwaukee tools and do like the ones I have but I have more Rigid tools.

[vossman]

Thanks for the info gents. Thanks for the link too Irving. I think these will suit me for a while.

[Grant H.]

Given the good deal, I would get them without any hesitation for your house. One of the guys that helped us re-frame and re-roof the pool room at my brothers house has the Ridgid kit, and they worked just fine. The only complaint was the cordless circular saw that has some sort of current draw watch dog, that shuts the saw off when it thinks it's pulling too much current. Stop the saw for 3 seconds, pull the trigger again, off you go again. The drill, impact, sawzall, and nibbler worked perfectly.

I use my 18v Dewalts (drill, impact, sawzall, bandsaw, and grinder/cutoff wheel) everyday. The only downside is that after 2 years, the batteries don't last as long as I like. Not a huge deal, since you can buy knock off's of the Dewalt XRP batteries, except more AH than the XRP batteries, for $50 for 2 batteries. We have replaced all the original non-XRP batteries with these and it's not cost prohibitive, and they last quite well through a day.

[PSS]

Cold temperatures seem to affect my milwaukee batteries far more than dewalt. I prefer dewalt impact drivers and drills but milwaukee has a lot of sweet specialty tools. They seem to really cater to skilled trades. I've wired a lot of 500' poultry barns and made an interesting observation. There's a lot of screws in a metal roof that size. The dewalt guys would wear out dewalt impact drivers faster than the makita guys. I put up 2 for myself and out of 8 new impact drivers, 3 failed by the end of the second barn.