Member
I'm an electrical contractor who uses cordless 99% of the time. Stay out of the borgs and find you a Hilti dealer. You will never look back. Yes, they are more expensive, and for a good reason. Even though you don't think you need a hammer drill, get one anyway. I run both 14 and 18 volt; you can get a combo kit in 14 of a drill and an impact driver. Once I switched over to an impact several years ago, I will never again try to drive anything with a drill. Hilti, Hilti, Hilti.
Member
Catching up on the thread here finally, so this post is out of order...
I may have a bad Bosch Li drill or something. Its an 18 volt too, but the batteries last less than the the Dewalt's, Milwaukee's, and Makita that I mentioned before. The first two of those are old fashioned batteries, the Makita is Li.
To add to my "review" previously, the Li 18 volt drills I tried both had less power and held a charge less than the Dewalt and Milwaukee. The Bosch looses power sitting. A week doing nothing and the batteries need recharged. The Makita was better, but I expect more expensive battery tech to be better, and when I test head to head in my real world style, and the Li batteries don't do better than the 18 volt Dewalt XRP (which to be fair are high capacity batteries), I have to stick with the proven technology.
To clarify the Milwaukee failure, it had brush and switch issues.
Contributor
The Panasonic drills are excellent. Their battery tech has been a market leader for years (look when they came out with LiOn versus other companies). I agree that an impact gun is preferred for driving nails.
Member
I strongly agree with Greg above- Panasonic has far and away the very best battery technology and life out there. I still have 4-5 Panasonic 15.6 volt drill/drivers that I bought at least 15-18 years ago, and have only had to replace about half of the original batteries. I have owned/ do own dewalt, makita, festool, porter cable, bosch, and milwaulkee, nothing even comes close. Besides, the drill has performed flawlessly as well- zero repair history . I can't say that about any other except the festools, but they are almost new- but the Panasonic beats the crap out of the festool in the power and runtime category.
Peter
Member
I have the Makita and while it worked well when the batteries are new, they are now on their way out and can't be rebuilt. Do a bit of research around here on that, but I would not recommend the Makita...
[OP]
Contributor
TonyOriginally Posted by Terry Barnhill
That was one of my companies to look at, Hilti. We use their large boring machines at work, and are they monsters. I know their corded hammer drills are nice. I've installed a few Hiltl's into concrete through the years, and they are definitely sweet. We don't have any cordless Hilti's at work, so I'll have to find a dealer.
"The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)
[OP]
Contributor
Greg
I haven't heard anything bad about the Panasonic's except for the price, and that's not a criteria for my decision. I want to check them out as well as the Hilti's.
"The first thing you need to know, will likely be the last thing you learn." (Unknown)
Contributor
I bought a Makita lithium-ion combo kit back about 2006. This was when the Makita lithium-ion stuff had first come out and I got a real good deal on the kit. I have abused the heck out of these tools and they just work. I did have one battery die around 2009 and had to buy a new one. I've not found anyone who can rebuild the batteries yet.
Member
I've got the new Milwaukee Fuel M18 Brushless drill and and impact driver. Can't say I'm overly impressed with them. Nothing particularly wrong with them (besides the lack of a bit holder) but they just don't feel as nice as my old Dewalt.
As for batteries, all of them are going to be negatively effected by the cold, regardless of manufacturer. In fact the life issues are most likely going to be the same regardless of manufacturer as well. They're all using basically the same technology
Member
Agreed. Here are some general rules I see amongst the shop guys where I work:
All NiCad batteries last about 500 charging cycles. They get less life when they are heated up and frozen. Don't run them until they are hot to the touch either. NiCads continually are running there juice out. So if you leave the shop for a couple of days, expect the battery to have about 20% less power than when you left. Anybody that says their batteries last more than 10 years has a bad memory.
All Lithium Ion batteries seem to have more cycles than NiCad (maybe something like 600-700 cycles) Freezing and high temperatures seems to affect the number of cycles and can "kill" the battery if severe enough. They are about 50% lighter than NiCads.
Regardless of type, batteries are rated by volts and amp-hours. The more amp-hours, the more work and less frequent charging. A Panasonic drill will drill about the same number of holes as a harbor freight if the amp-hour rating is similar and the HF doesn't fall apart. Brushless motors are about 20% more efficient and drive about 20% more screws than a comparable brushed model.
Panasonic, Milwaukee, DeWalt, and Bosch have very good drills and price points are similar. Craftsman, Ryobi are more cheaply made, but will last if taken care of. Most of the other brands fall in-between.
Our guys favor small 12V impact drivers in positions where they screw a lot (Bosch and Milwaukee), 18 or 20V drill for metal drilling (mostly DeWalt), and corded models that have a variable speed for large holes (Rigid has an excellent one). Our guys on the jobsite favor the DeWalt 20V Max drill and the Makita 18V series because they can perform a number of jobs decently and have 3.0 amp-hour batteries.
Member
You want to look at this one: http://www.us.hilti.com/holus/page/m...nodeId=-216021
You'll probably need to find a Hilti store, I think the ones they sell at Home Depot are all made in China now. There's a compact 18v version as well but the chuck is a bit smaller.
Moderator
I like my Festool drills. I have two of them and don't find them awkward at all. Did they not fit your hands well?
Member
I think when someone thinks of a Festool drill as being awkward, they tried a C series drill and it seemed strange. I tried one and couldn't get comfortable with it although some people think they are wonderful. I think it is something that you love IF you take the time to get used to it. Different might be better but it might just be different.
I have a CXS and it is my absolute favorite for small work. It is slim enough that it doesn't need a offset chuck like the bigger drills and the rt angle works well. I was given a T-15 set with the offset chucks and rt angle and I pretty much never use my Makita LXT drills now. The T-15 is all the power you can use without the ability to attach a side handle so I don't understand why anyone would want the T-18.
The Festool drill that does not make sense to me is the Ti-15 impact/drill. I will keep my Makita 3 speed brushless impact, thank you. It seems like they outsmarted themselves on that one trying to make one tool that does everything. I think it will be about as successful as the Makita Hybrid 4 mode driver.
Member
+1 if you are in the small drill market. One of these pretty much built my kitchen. Only time I really used my Milwaukee was when I wanted one for drilling and one for driving while cranking out boxes. I use it for lots of projects around the house too. But its not a big drill, and the included chuck only goes to somewhere between 5/16 and 3/8. You can buy a bigger chuck, which I did, but that's another $40 or so.
Member
I have been reading with interest the posts. I want to supplement my 20 plus year old makita 9v (It just will not die) with a cordless impact driver. I read about the warning for Lithium Ion batteries and just don't think they would fit my work style and schedule. There are time when the drill would not be used for long periods of time. What I read about storing the drill seems problematic. So I went looking for a NiCad battery drill. There are none on the shelves at the big box stores, all Litium batteries. The NiCad drills I found were much more expensive than the Lithium drill. I strange thing is though the NiCad replacement batteries are much cheaper than the Lithium batteries and the NiCads can be rebuilt whereas the Lithium batteries cannot be.
So what is the deal with the NiCad drills being so much more expenive than the Lithium drills? And if I opt. for a Lithium drill will I be sorry next year when I have to buy new batteries for it. I am getting my Lithium battery information from one of the battery rebuilding sites.
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