I have no power available in my garage so looking for a half decent battery drill to replace the horrible no name one I have now. Something to
happily drill hundreds of holes for rivets plus the occasional heavy duty job. Don't want to spend the earth. I already have a ryobi mini
vacuum cleaner so have a slight bias towards them for battery compatibility.
Recommendations?
We use a lot of the Ryobi drills at work, I like them and the Lithium batteries are very good
I bought some xrp dewalt ones when they were on offer at screwfix and q. 2 drills and 3 batteries. .never flat..
I've got DeWalt cordless drills- B&Q / Screwfix usually have a kit on offer for £99 which includes two 1.3a/h batteries. I' e also got some heavier duty SDS drills and impact drivers from their Li-Ion range but these are quite a bit more expensive. For the sake of what you want, the £100 starter kit should be more than adequate!
was in screwfix today. Picked up a hitachi one, £100 fo drill plus 2 batteries. 1/2" chuck, which is handy.
I have a bosch li drill, it was £80 with 2 batteries, but only a 10mm chuck (didn't check until I had had it a while) BUT it has plenty of grunt,
batteries last well, nicely balanced etc. I really wouldn't bother with any other battery apart from Li ion these days.
I've got the ryobi stuff and find it good value for money. My drill, jigsaw, reciprocating saw are all 5 years old now and had some right abuse. The circular saw ain't up to anything heavy duty (also battery powered), but all in all, I'd recommend.
Argos were doing the DeWalt 18v Li-Ion XR Combi for £99 with two batteries.
Ive been using the same Makita battery drill for 8 years, its never let me down yet. it only has a 10mm chuck though.
I've got an 18 volt 3 Ah lion powered Makita, and its the bollocks. Roar. £150 from screwfix at the time
Bosch 18 or 24v
Just brought a dewalt xr l-ion 2 4ah battery's 3yr warranty £269 off mac tools
quote:
Originally posted by dave
Ive been using the same Makita battery drill for 8 years, its never let me down yet. it only has a 10mm chuck though.
+1 for Makita 14.4v
2 drills and 2 batteries lasted for 5 years, got 2 new batteries drills still going strong.
I've got an Hitachi DV18DVC2/JD 18V 1.2Ah Ni-Cd Cordless Combi Drill. £99.99 with two batteries.
I bough mine from B&Q when they had a 20% off day so got it for £80.
Hitachi power tools are hard to beat.
I bought a deWalt with 3 batteries quite some time ago - the drill is fine, but the batteries have packed up due to lack of use (as will happen with
all NiCad batteries). I refuse to pay the deWalt price for replacements... although this isn't really the manufacturer's fault, people
should be aware that these batteries may well pack up if they're not used and recharged regularly.
Most of the time I'll use a mains-powered drill around the house, or my air-powered one in the garage (it's very compact and powerful), so
it may be that a battery drill isn't appropriate for my needs... I have seen a battery pack mod to allow these drills to be powered directly from
an external power supply and I might do that for use at my bench, where I have a 12v 30A PSU available.
Lithium Ion Battery's are best. The higher the volts, the more power it will have. The higher the Amp Hour, the longer the battery's last. The basic range from the main brands have gone downhill in my opinion. There starting to use cheap plastic in there gearboxes, cheap motors that overheat rapidly (which melts the gearbox!). They all still produce excellent drills, but at a price. Something like a Makita LXT model (magnesium alloy? gearbox) with a couple of 18v 3amp batterys should last you a fair few years, but look after your batterys. There very expensive if you bust them!
Hi
Over the years in our business used battery drills lots of them, however when the batteries
died they cost more than a new drill, so ended up with loads of good drills & no batteries.
So I separated a battery case removed the batteries drilled a hole in the case & soldered a
heavy flex 4m long with a pair of crocodile clips, araldited the case back together, now I have
a very powerful 1/2"capacity drill I can use at home or on the road.
got a heavy 12v truck battery from a trucking firm when they change them ( not quite good
enough for heavy truck but plenty enough power for a drill), keep it topped up with a 10amp
solar charger £10 on ebay. that way have 12v supply in the garage.
Used it for years works a treat.
I bought a Makita nicad a few years ago when they were on offer with a toolkit and 2 batteries, a friend of mine bought the li-ion version at the same time at about 2.5 times the price I paid. Mine is still going strong on the same batteries which hold charge for ages and take 30 minutes to recharge, his needs new batteries which are more than my drill cost.
Another vote for the Ryobi 1+ drills as you can get other tools that take the same battery.
I also have an AEG drill which had a lifetime gauranteed free servicing and repalcaement batteries if you registered.
quote:
Originally posted by cliftyhanger
was in screwfix today. Picked up a hitachi one, £100 fo drill plus 2 batteries. 1/2" chuck, which is handy.
I have a bosch li drill, it was £80 with 2 batteries, but only a 10mm chuck (didn't check until I had had it a while) BUT it has plenty of grunt, batteries last well, nicely balanced etc. I really wouldn't bother with any other battery apart from Li ion these days.
Another vote for Ryobi. The One lithium batteries are great, last long and charge quick.
Kobe 18v is what i use at work
Jacko
I bought this Makita about 6 years ago from Screwfix.
http://www.sitebox.ltd.uk/makita-8390dwpe3-cordless-18-volt-combi-drill-13mm-keyless-chuck-oMAK_8390DWPE3
Cost me £99 at the time.
It's seen me through an entire house major refurb, fully boarding out a couple of lofts, a couple of bathrooms and numerous other jobs and some
semi-professional use when I was considering setting up as a handyman type.
Came with 3 batteries (although this review says they're only 1.3ah I'm fairly sure mine are bigger than that) which is handy too. The
hammerdrill is slightly weedy but it's pretty rare I need that so I have a corded 750w Ryobi for that.
All-metal gearbox too (according to this ad) which is re-assuring.
Really can't fault it in anyway. Would buy again if/when needed.
Cheers,
James
EDIT: My Dad bought the Ryobi 1 about 2/3 years ago. Not used it enough to comment on the reliability but it's much heavier than the Makita, it
doesn't have the instant stop and it feels chunkier and uglier. Makita of the 2- any day!
[Edited on 2/8/13 by James]