Tired of Battery Powered Drills

[Jeff A. Smith]

There are some posts on SMC about corded drills, but the question of finding a compact CORDED drill hasn't come up in a while that I can see.

I'm tired of the infrequent use pattern (mine) that yields a need for a drill/driver that is invariably in need of a charge. I have a great battery drill (Festool), but I'd like to find something in a drill/driver (reversible, with a clutch) that was corded and yet compact. The standard Ridgid/Ryobi 3/8" drill/drivers are bigger than what I have in mind. Something like the close quarters drills sold by Milwaukee and Dewalt would be good, but those aren't reversible and don't have a clutch.

Anybody seen anything compact, corded, reversible, and with a clutch?

Thanks!

[Keith Weber]

I'm interested in the responses to this one, too. I spend way to much time dead in the water waiting for batteries to charge. I definitely need a corded drill for backup duty, though I'd probably be looking at something in the 1/2" size.

[Craig Hoehn]

I don't think you're going to find a nicer compact drill than your Festool, sounds like you just need another battery to keep in the charger.

[Frederick Skelly]

Good topic Jeff! I'm also interested in tthe responses you get here.

I haven't heard of a small corded drill that's gonna meet all your specs - especially since you're used to festool quality and features. But I have the same problems you described and finally went back to corded tools. Above my bench sits a small corded drill in a wall holder I made. It's just a regular old black and decker 1/4" drill and it doesn't have a clutch. But it works well enough.

Good luck!
Fred

[roger wiegand]

Haven't seen such a beast. Perhaps you just need to invest in another battery? I bought both the Bosch LiIon 18v driver and drill, each came with two batteries. I've never been stuck without a battery even when using both tools fairly hard. I got two different sizes of battery; the small ones make for a lighter, more compact package and still drive fasteners for a very long time.

[John K Jordan]

Jeff, I bought this one about 4 years ago and I'm happy with it. It is mid-handled (nice) and lighter than any of my battery-operated 18v drills and drivers. It does not have a clutch but so far it has not tried to twist my hand off like my big corded Makita (which I ALWAYS use with the 90-deg handle!) This one is very inexpensive.

JKJ

[glenn bradley]

For me it is not about the extra battery, it is about the speed of the drill. I use corded drill for higher speed requirements and would love to find a small VS form factor that spun at 3000 RPM or so.

[peter gagliardi]

Battery technology and capacity have advanced a lot since the 80's when i started using.
Todays tools are so good, and most come with 2 batteries, that you really can't use up the current charge before the second is ready.
Discipline to recharge is obviously the key.
The market has moved very heavily into cordless tools with the strength of corded, for obvious reasons in construction. Purchases of corded have fallen away. Manufacturers have followed the money.
I doubt you will find what your after.
BTW the 2 newest Festools i have are absolutely incredible- the PDC 18v, and the tiny TSC 10v- head and shoulders above the 15v one i got just 2-3 years ago.

[Matt Day]

I've never had that problem with my battery powered drills, and I'm an "infrequent user" as well. I have a Makita set (drill, impact, flashlight) and a battery for each. If one happens to loose power, I put it on the charger and grab the flashlight battery.

I'm still interested to see what's out there though.

[Greg R Bradley]

I don't know which Festool drill that you have but if it is a LiIon drill, unused batteries will hold a charge forever. Festool LiIon batteries are pretty much the least expensive of all. I just bought 2 4.2ah for my T-15 at $30 each. Full list price on the 5.2ah is $63, which is half the price of Makita, Dewalt, Bosch, Milwaukee.

If you have one with the electronic clutch, which is all but the CXS and the new small T-handle version of that, you aren't going to find any drill that matches the drill AND driver function. Even the $600 Fein with the electronic clutch isn't near as good for precision use. The Bosch PS10 comes close to the driver function but not a drill as its hex only.

I don't think there is any corded drill with good driver function. There are some corded screwdrivers for production drywall installation but again those aren't drills.

I have a number of corded drills but I see their use as different from the cordless. For example, I recently came back from a trade show with two for personal use that are similar to ones I have in business use:
331512
0-4000rpm Magnum for drilling small holes in steel and pocket holes.
0-600rpm Magnum D-Handle for big holes

Both of these do functions that make any cordless look sad by comparison.

[Sean Tracey]

Air drills are super compact and ergonomic. They also spin fast enough for drilling small pilot holes.

They come in a variety of sizes and formats.

[Martin Wasner]

My biggest complaint with corded drills has always been the lack of a brake. When you release the trigger, they keep spinning. Nice when running a big hole saw though.

[Mark Blatter]

My biggest complaint with corded drills has always been the lack of a brake. When you release the trigger, they keep spinning. Nice when running a big hole saw though.

Plus the fact that the torque can break your wrist.....perhaps other side of the same coin. I just know that when I use a corded drill, I always brace my wrist with the other hand so I don't end up in a cast.

I am with others in that I seldom use a corded drill any more. I have 3 - 4 of them sitting around gathering dust. I just bought a brushless Milwaukee 18v and it is great. I use the driver all day and never run out of power, and that is with the normal battery. I bought the extended battery just in case and have not needed it ever. I don't do a large amount of drilling, mostly driving screws etc. so perhaps if I was drilling large holes all day long it would be different.

[Rick Potter]

Harbor Freight angle drill (95877). Variable speed, reversible, almost right angle, with tucked in chuck. No clutch, no Festool, but works fine for the occasional times I need it....and cheap.

[phil harold]

If you have a good reserve of air these are great and last forever
http://www.smokesign.com/airdrills.html

Air drills are super compact and ergonomic. They also spin fast enough for drilling small pilot holes.

[Jim Dwight]

The don't meet your specs but I have two DeWalt 3/8 chuck corded drill. One has a keyless chuck and is handy but the chuck isn't great. The keyed chuck one is for more serious drilling. Both spin too fast to power big auger bits - I do that with the Ryobi 18V cordless on low speed. But for a corded backup drill, they work fine. I have 3 batteries for my Ryobi tools but one is at our condo and I occasionally let both lithium ion batteries get depleted on me. A corded drill will let me keep working for an hour while a battery charges.

If your cordless are Ni Cd, I suggest you invest in lithium ion batteries if you can for your existing tools. Makes a huge difference. I was surprised. One big benefit is they deplete while sitting there in your shop much slower. If I was smarter and used only one battery at a time with the other in the charger I'd never be out of a battery. But sometimes I want to use multiple cordless tools.....and I get tired of moving the battery.

[Dave Lehnert]

I have looked for hours on end for a corded , variable speed, reversible with clutch drill.
The only one I could find is the Ryobi. Works for what I need.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-5-5-Amp-3-8-in-Variable-Speed-Reversible-Compact-Clutch-Driver-D48CK/205216292

[Dan Rude]

I picked up the dewalt T-Handle for my HD pocket Kreg Jig. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014GKA86?tag=price106280d-20&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER It meets the need. Milwaukee close quarter drill had a clutch version when Souix made them. Souix no longer makes corded tools. Dan

[Lenore Epstein]

When my 18V NiCad DeWalt batteries went all doggy on me I started shopping for Li/Ion batteries. Fortunately I was brought up short by sticker shock, which gave me enough time to suspect that the NiCad batteries had developed a "memory" from regularly being recharged without first being fully or almost-fully discharged.

I had nothing to lose, so I reconditioned them the same way I do any other under-performing rechargeable battery. The treatment: simply run each battery down until it's completely 100% dead and then fully recharge it. I did the same with my 12V NiCad Makita batteries even though I hadn't noticed a problem, and was surprised at how much better they performed.

You only want to do this when you notice a problem because batteries are only good for certain number of cycles, but it might help enough to stave off the need for a new drill or fancy Li-Ion batteries for a while. Of course, Li-ion batteries don't develop memory problems and are supposed to deliver more power and hold a charge better than NiCads, but they're damned expensive, so unless you typically run the battery-powered drill all day you might not really need them. Not that I mean to stand between any woodworker and the acquisition of new toys or anything. ;)

Another thing I learned: older batteries weren't supposed to be left in a charger, but my newer 18V batteries can be left in the charger indefinitely. So check your batteries' specs to see if you're safe leaving one in the charger at all times.

HTH

[Paul Lawrence]

... suspect that the NiCad batteries had developed a "memory" from regularly being recharged without first being fully or almost-fully discharged. HTH

You are correct in detecting that your NiCad battery has a charging problem, but there is no real thing that is "memory" in a NiCad battery. What is happening is an effect of the many cells that make up the battery. Each cell has enough differences that they each don't charge / discharge in the same way. Eventually you end up with at least one cell that has discharged more than the others and therefore will not charge up in the same amount of time as the others.

The most problematic solution is to "run each battery down until it's completely 100% dead". When you do that you are discharging all the cells within the battery at the same time. Therefore, the weak cell (or cells) discharge to a low value before the good cells do. At that point, with the good cells still discharging, the weak cells will actually reverse and become part of the discharge load. This very well could ruin the weak cells (and most of the time it will.) Now you have a really bad battery.

The most advantageous solution to the "memory" problem is to recharge the battery long enough to bring the weak cells up to full charge. That's what caused the NiCad problem to start with; short charging cycles.

An automatic charger , with its early shutoff, may not be capable of this kind of recharge, but long term charging is the solution. "100%" discharging is only asking for more trouble, eventually.

[Lenore Epstein]

You are correct in detecting that your NiCad battery has a charging problem, but there is no real thing that is "memory" in a NiCad battery. What is happening is an effect of the many cells that make up the battery. Each cell has enough differences that they each don't charge / discharge in the same way. Eventually you end up with at least one cell that has discharged more than the others and therefore will not charge up in the same amount of time as the others.

The most problematic solution is to "run each battery down until it's completely 100% dead"....
That's what I get for offering simplistic advice about things I'm not an expert in. Heck, I forgot that we're talking about battery packs, not individual batteries.

So is what you're suggesting the equivalent of rebuilding the battery pack? That was going to be my next step if reconditioning the thing didn't work, but I never got to the point of finding out how hard that would be. Could you point me toward a source of info so I can do it right the next time they start to go bad?

Anyway, I just wanted to offer the OP an alternative to spending lots of dollars for new tools or even just new batteries, and it sounds like your solution is superior in the long run. Fortunately for me, despite the possibility that I may have shortened their lives, my battery packs are all performing great eight months later, saving me hundreds of dollars in tools or replacement batteries.

[Hilton Ralphs]

For me it is not about the extra battery, it is about the speed of the drill. I use corded drill for higher speed requirements and would love to find a small VS form factor that spun at 3000 RPM or so.

Glenn, I bought a Bosch corded 3/8 drill that has no clutch or hammer action but it does spin at 4000 rpm. I wanted this specifically for drilling pocket holes (to get a cleaner cut) and because it lacks all the other features normally found on a drill driver, it's very light but does the job very well. It only weighs 1.2 kgs so not too heavy for extended periods of use.

Bosch GBM 6RE

331546

[Al Launier]

Hilton did you actually mean to say 3,000 rpm instead of 30,000? Could you state which model you bought?

Although cordless drills usually come with a spare battery so one can be charged while using the other, the speed for small diameter drills is inadequate for the best sfpm for different materials. Also torque is limiting on larger size drills. I like corded drills that provide variable speed & have long cords, preferably 8', or even longer.

[John K Jordan]

What is happening is an effect of the many cells that make up the battery. Each cell has enough differences that they each don't charge / discharge in the same way.


A more serious issue is that nicad cells can grow "whiskers" and short internally. Look up "nicad whiskers" on google. This will kill the cell and thus the pack.

We have had reasonable but not perfect success in restoring these cells by zapping them with a jolt of current. My buddy Joe used a bank of capacitors. Another friend used a touch from a welder. This guy designed a circuit (and explains a bit about the chemistry problem):
http://www.sentex.ca/~mec1995/gadgets/rejuv.html

I've had more success zapping individual cells than the whole battery pack. This is a problem with rechargeable tool batteries since disassembling the pack is sometimes difficult.

If the pack is weak instead of dead, I've had success with repeated charge and deep discharge cycles. Some chargers will let you trigger a deep discharge. Once I needed to do a LOT of cutting with a battery powered circular saw, notching posts up on a ladder for beams. I started recording the number of cuts I could make with each charge on a stack of batteries. The number of cuts on some very weak cells went from less than 10 to nearly 30 after several charge/deep discharge cycles.

JKJ

[Hilton Ralphs]

Hilton did you actually mean to say 3,000 rpm instead of 30,000? Could you state which model you bought?


Al, I updated my post with the correct specs, model and picture. This is a 220v model but I'm sure there's one for 110v.

[Al Launier]

Thanks Hilton, appreciate the response. I'm going to look into one of these.

[Greg R Bradley]

Glenn, I bought a Bosch corded 3/8 drill that has no clutch or hammer action but it does spin at 4000 rpm. I wanted this specifically for drilling pocket holes (to get a cleaner cut) and because it lacks all the other features normally found on a drill driver, it's very light but does the job very well. It only weighs 1.2 kgs so not too heavy for extended periods of use.

Bosch GBM 6RE

331546


That drill on US 120v 60Hz power is 0-2600rpm.

On US power, the Milwaukee 0240-20 at about $70 will run a bit faster and hold that speed under a bit of load. It does weigh a bit more. The 0100-20 in my pic above is the only one that actually runs 0-4000 in the US. It is lighter than the 0240 and is their high quality Magnum line but it is double that price.

[Hilton Ralphs]

That drill on US 120v 60Hz power is 0-2600rpm.

Yes indeed. Very odd to say the least. I've just checked and the model is 1006VS. Here's a link to the European (http://goo.gl/v7hX7z) equivalent that I bought. I can only think it may have something to do with the Hertz but I'm not sure. Mine spins much faster than my cordless 18v drills.