Thread: Which Cordless drill to buy??

I use a cordless drill to wind the legs up and down on my slide on camper.

I had a couple of 12V GMCs with dead chargers and batteries, so I removed the insides of the battery, connected a lead to the battery terminals and plug it into the power socket for the camper.

The GMC has nowhere near enough torque to lift the camper, but the head off an angle grinder gives me about 3:1 gearing so that it is able to do the job.

I am not recommending GMC for the job. I'm just making the point that the job of raising and lowering the legs on the camper can be done with any old 12V cordless drill if you also use the angle grinder gear reduction. If you have a 12V cordless with a dead battery and a dead angle grinder, it could cost you nothing to set up.

Thanks Vnx, This has come about for 2 reasons, I was using a Millwaulkee 18v at a job on Friday and it had so much torque I was amazed, and also my 5 year old Bosch 14.4 has finally died (Burned out speed controller, and batteries pretty much knackered, so I thought it was about time I bought something new and half decent, that would hopefully do the legs on the camper too. The Bosch has been great, I really worked it hard, and i've also been through 2 cheapies that were given to me - they really are not up to any real work.

Thanks guys for all your thoughts, I guess it's all on what I can get for my dollar now, Makita or Hitachi are the way I'm leaning...

Cheers,

Fraser

I imported all my dewalt stuff from the states got i think it was 6 or 7 dewalt tools (drill, jigsaw etc etc) for 1000 ozzie dollars I think it was and that was when the aussie dollar was not good...

all came in a big dewalt carrier bag....the tools have been faultless. the drill alone at the time was fetching a fraction over 700 bux in bunnings all the tools were 18v and the kit came with two batteries and a converter for the power

I use cordless drills on a regular basis but not every day. I have had expensive ones and cheapies.

I have had a reasonably good run with 12v Ryobi's that cost $100.

I reckon 5 of these would outlast one $500 drill. I had a festo which I thought were the bees knees of drills but it did not last as long as I expected it to.

Just make sure what ever you buy it has a two speed gearbox, two batteries and a one hour charger.

Dave.

Metabo is the best I have used and owned.
Milwaukee are good also and are not rebadged Makitas as some say. I like Makita but Milwaukee gear outperforms them by far. I also have a Milwaukee recip saw and they are faultless.
Dewalt and Makita are also good.
A lot depends on what you have to spend.

If you just want it for the camper, try the link below

Corded Drill

Mine sits in the toolbox of the Disco and never need to worry about batteries

Originally Posted by Xtreme

I have a DeWalt and am very happy with it. Excellent torque and battery life, a bit heavy but very well balanced and excellent smooth variable speed control.
Can't understand the previous comment re "plastic junk"

Hello Roger,

The company I work for buys DeWalt amongst other brands and have seen a pretty regular failure rate compared to the other brands that are on the shelf.

So far, while I was using a DeWalt.....

2 have caught fire....
Snapped 3 shafts......
lost high or low gear with regular monotony....
lost forward or reverse 4 times.....
Dead trigger 3 times now......

What causes these failures? IMHO they do not have a great enough duty cycle and things are just getting too hot. They have all the grunt in the world but not the strength to be able to use it without falling to bits. The plastic gears and shafts I don't think are up to the task.

Most of the guys I work with agree that DeWalt are certainly not worth the money you pay for them. There is a pile of dead ones that we raid for spares out the back that would make the DeWalt rep blush. Why do they keep buying them? Who knows but word is the procurement man is mates with a bloke who sells them.

I'll admit, the drills I use cop a thrashing, but, other brands seem to cope where the DeWalt doesn't.

Milwaukee are the top shelf line in my opinion. A genuine industrial tool. Expensive but worth it. Considerable savings can be had by buying from a USA dealer and having the tool(s) air-mailed in USPS flat rate boxes.