Cordless Clueless (1 Viewer)

electrajohnt

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I am a newbie
Advice please.

I am considering buying a cordless hammer/combi drill for general DIY intermittent use.
I would say my max budget is around £100 but would prefer cheaper if possible.
The choice is overwhelming can any one recommend anything please.
Just a few basic questions.
1) What is the difference between NiCD and Li-Ion batteries.
2) If I use it for a week or so then not use it for a further three weeks and come back to it to charge the batteries does this kind of use ruin the batteries. If it does then I suppose I am better off with a 240v job first as last. I am really considering the cordless so I can do the odd job on the camper which I park where there is no electric.

I like the Makita on offer in Amazon for about £108.99 but a Draper one is £66.14 are the Makita ones much better.

Thanks
JohnT
 
Sep 10, 2013
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Buy The Makita unit they have metal gears and are a great brand of power tools ask on any site, the guys nearly always use Makita.
The li Ion battery is the one to go for,it is fast to charge holds it's charge for ages and operates at virtually 100% through the charge. Screw fix usually have offers one these units and around £100 is a good price.
 

TheBig1

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for basic diy, a mid range type drill would be most cost effective. i recomend bosch and makita but then the b&q mac allister range are excellent quality for the price

NiCD is nickle cadnium and these batteries tend to suffer from memory effect so fail quicker. cheaper but less power

LiION is lithium ion and is the newer technology with good weight to power ratio and dont suffer memory effect so give a longer life. more expensive

if you will only use the drill occasionally i recomend using the battery till flat then recharge. charge unused batteries for a few hours every few weeks. dont leave it plugged in so it lasts longer

whatever you buy make sure it comes with 2 or more battery packs

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camcondor

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I can also recommend the De Walt Li-ion unit -lots of trades seem to use these, too, and they are on special offer from time to time at B and Q. I had a whole array of cheaper NICad powered tools acquired years ago and they had come to the end of the batteries useful lives - to repack them with cells sourced from China or have it done locally was either a bit dicey (the quality control being suspect) or extremely expensive, so ended up scrapping the tools and building up a new set of Li-ion tools - the De Walt has been a great asset so far, the new batteries are much lighter than the old nicads.
 
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electrajohnt

electrajohnt

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Oct 27, 2013
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I am a newbie
Not as Clueless about Cordless now.

Thanks Zains Pops and the Big1.

The Makita on Amazon has two NiCad batteries so maybe leave this alone.

Looked on Screwfix they are selling a Makita for £99.99 with one Li-Ion battery.

I will keep looking for a deal that has two Li-Ion batteries, Makita seems best, or as you say Bosch.

The Macallister gets some poor reviews on B&Q's site (mainly to do with chargers and unavailable batteries).

JohnT
 

hilldweller

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Rule of batteries:

They always go flat when you most need them.

Don't do it, especially for something Brute Force.

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Emmenay

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for basic diy, a mid range type drill would be most cost effective. i recomend bosch and makita but then the b&q mac allister range are excellent quality for the price

NiCD is nickle cadnium and these batteries tend to suffer from memory effect so fail quicker. cheaper but less power

LiION is lithium ion and is the newer technology with good weight to power ratio and dont suffer memory effect so give a longer life. more expensive

if you will only use the drill occasionally i recomend using the battery till flat then recharge. charge unused batteries for a few hours every few weeks. dont leave it plugged in so it lasts longer

whatever you buy make sure it comes with 2 or more battery packs

I wouldn't entertain the mainstream brands now since I tried the MAC range :thumb:
 
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electrajohnt

electrajohnt

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Brian Hilldweller

Brian

Thanks' for the advice.

What you mean Brute Force.

Looking at your photos, we have trodden the same path for part of your way.

Hills south of Manc.. ? Mow or Macc

JohnT
 

camcondor

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Thanks Zains Pops and the Big1.

The Makita on Amazon has two NiCad batteries so maybe leave this alone.

Looked on Screwfix they are selling a Makita for £99.99 with one Li-Ion battery.

I will keep looking for a deal that has two Li-Ion batteries, Makita seems best, or as you say Bosch.

The Macallister gets some poor reviews on B&Q's site (mainly to do with chargers and unavailable batteries).

JohnT


The De Walt comes with two batteries

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Sep 10, 2013
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You don't need two li ion batteries the 3amp Makita units I use recharge from flat in 15-20 minutes all you need is a kettle to make the tea you need to drink whilst it charges.
 
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electrajohnt

electrajohnt

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Thanks Zains Pops

Just looked at B&Q. they have a Makita with two Li-Ion batts for £99.98.

So far this is favourite.

Thank you all for the input

JohnT
 
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Just looked at B&Q. they have a Makita with two Li-Ion batts for £99.98.

So far this is favourite.

Thank you all for the input

JohnT

I bought one of these last year & have used it heavily since. It is the best battery drill I've handled by a country mile. It's also a Which? Best Buy.

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MattR

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For what it is worth, I've heard from several people that Makita have gone down hill over the last year - trying to cut too many costs to bring their prices down for DIYers - stores that I have spoken to have said that they are returning more than ever to be repaired where as DeWalt are getting much better and rarely fail although they are more expensive than many others.

Having researched a few drills, the questions to answer are:

What do you want to drill, where and how often?

Drilling brick, metal & wood occasionally will be achieved with a cordless battery but you would probably need to spend close to the top end of your budget but check the suggested max size of the holes that you can drill in each material - the drill may say something like wood max 22mm, brick max 12mm etc. The amperage of the battery will help determine how long you can work for or get two batteries. Something like this? : http://www.screwfix.com/search.do?fh_search=Cat116HitachiBundle&cm_sp=Tools-_-Drills-_-CordlessCombiDrills-_-HitachiBundle


If you need to drill bigger holes or work on masonary for long periods, you may find that a 240v corded drill would be most useful at home and something like this for the MH where the size of holes that you need to drill is not particularly large and most of the work will be dealing with screws: http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/SID-A868A8A3-F70AFA84/www_lidl_uk/hs.xsl/our-offers-2491.htm?action=showDetail&id=9305
 

MattR

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I bought one of these last year & have used it heavily since. It is the best battery drill I've handled by a country mile. It's also a Which? Best Buy.

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It does not appear to be a combi drill - does it do masonry?
 

dave newell

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GiveRyobi a look, I use a Ryobi dual speed hammer/drill, a Ryobi ange drill for tight access, a Ryobi Liion battery screwdriver and a Ryobi impact wrench at work almost every day. The drills and the impact wrench are from the "one" series so all use the same batteries. I've had the two drills for about six years now and they just keep on working, the impact wrench can shift most wheelbolts, if it can't then my air wrench will usually do so but the Ryobi does undo most of them. Proper tough tools and not overpriced.
Here's a link to the Ryobi direct page for cordless drills:
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D.
 
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hilldweller

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What you mean Brute Force.
Hills south of Manc.. ? Mow or Macc
JohnT

I read hammer/cobmi as a mini road drill. Lots of electricity needed. So bound to go flat when the last 5 mins work needed.

And it's Mac.

But I do like the back roads round Mow.
 

MattR

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Shame that the batteries are Ni-Cd. I've had 3 sets of cordless drills that have failed due to the Ni-Cd batteries dying. Charge them day 1 and put them in store. Day 3, batteries almost completely flat having done no work. Admittedly the drills were 5-8 yrs old but annoying that the body is fine but the power lacking.

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camcondor

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Shame that the batteries are Ni-Cd. I've had 3 sets of cordless drills that have failed due to the Ni-Cd batteries dying. Charge them day 1 and put them in store. Day 3, batteries almost completely flat having done no work. Admittedly the drills were 5-8 yrs old but annoying that the body is fine but the power lacking.


I had exactly the same issue - such a shame to have to bin perfectly good tools because of dead batteries which can no longer be repacked except at silly prices, making it not economically sensible! I replaced my Nicad drill with a De Walt Li-Ion which came with two batteries and both last for absolute ages before needing a recharge. Its Li-Ion all the way for me now, I am going to have to bin the Nicad tools as the batteries give up and replace them one by one :Eeek:
 

pappajohn

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until recentluy i had a £414 Dewalt battery hammer drill....brilliant piece of kit and lasted over 5 years .the drill still works but the 2.6ah nicad batteres are shot and replacements are around £70 each.

I now have a £80 Dewalt battery hammer drill from B&Q....brilliant piece of kit and still going strong after 2 years and as it was so cheap it runs on 1.3ah nicads.

Bear in mind i use this almost daily at work for drilling masonary and up to 25mm flat wood bits in floor joists, screwdriving and mixing plaster with a padde.

I use the same batteries in a Dewalt 6" circular saw to cut floorboards etc

When the batteries fail, though they are still good, i'll just go to B&Q and buy another drill kit....at £80 you cant go far wrong..
 
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pappajohn

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It does not appear to be a combi drill - does it do masonry?

if you only drill small holes...5mm, 5.5mm, 6mm and 7mm...in masonary you dont need a hammer action.

Decent hardware shops stock non-impact drill bits in these sizes and work just as well as impact bits in a regular drill.

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