Cordless Drills

[heehaw]

i've replaced two ni-cad ridgid batteries: luckily theres a repair place in Little Rock: i walked in, gave them the warranty info an battery, the first time they handed me a new battery, the second time they were out of stock, so they shipped me a new battery 3 days later, an they paid the shipping. "so far" i have nothing but good to say about ridgid an their warranty.
heehaw

 

[RichZ]

OK, here's what I did, and I figure you guys will tell me I'm nuts. I happened to be in Walmart yesterday, and I noticed a display of Black and Decker 18 volt drills for $25 each. They only come with one battery, so I bought two, hoping to always have one ready in reserve, and maybe with 2 drills, they won't wear out as fast.

I don't have great expectations, these drills are made CHEAP. They don't even have a standard charger, you plug a little transformer into a jack in the drill to charge the batteries, though they are standard B&D 18 volt batteries, they do come off and would fit on a charger, but the drill with the standard charger was $64 (of course it also came with 2 batteries), but both drills seem the same. Since all of my other cordless drills never lasted more than 2 years and I paid between $150 - over $200 for each, if I get a year out of these 2, I guess I'll be satisfied. Now the question is if they're powerful enough to do the jobs I need. I'll probably get to fixing that roof over the weekend. I'll post how these cheapo drills work.

I'm usually willing to pay for decent tools, but I have never been able to find a decent cordless drill, so I'm giving using disposable cheapos drills a try.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

What was the tourqe on them compared to your other drills? I have found the Craftsman cordless drills my grandfather has always were weaker then our DeWalts. I looked on the tag on them and they were considerably weaker according to the torque numbers listed on both drills tag. It is a good way to judge how strong a drill is when comparing multiple brands/models of the same voltage.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

It is a real problem and I keep my receipts..

Had a receipt for a electronic dog collar that went bad withing the a 1 year warranty...

Took it back and the receipt was not legible to the naked eye...

I was told they couldn't honor the warranty...

That's when I said they will have a chance to tell the Small Claims court why in about 4 weeks...

I was not in the mood to play games... the warranty said to return to place of purchase with receipt within one year for replacement... I can't help it if the store uses paper that self destructs and then uses that as the reason to deny coverage... maybe it should be treated as an unlawful business practice contrary to public policy...

Anyway, I walked out with the new collar and made the manager copy and sign a duplicate receipt.

The ink faded on one of my TSC receipts and when I had to return something from it they couldn't read it good enough. So they pulled up my name on the computer and found the receipt and printed me a new one. Since all my purchases are tax exempt they keep them on file but I don't know if other stores like Home Depot would be able to pull up the receipt number and print it again if you can read that number still (or if they even have a number).

 

[Steve C]

OK, here's what I did, and I figure you guys will tell me I'm nuts. I happened to be in Walmart yesterday, and I noticed a display of Black and Decker 18 volt drills for $25 each. They only come with one battery, so I bought two, hoping to always have one ready in reserve, and maybe with 2 drills, they won't wear out as fast.

I don't have great expectations, these drills are made CHEAP. They don't even have a standard charger, you plug a little transformer into a jack in the drill to charge the batteries, though they are standard B&D 18 volt batteries, they do come off and would fit on a charger, but the drill with the standard charger was $64 (of course it also came with 2 batteries), but both drills seem the same. Since all of my other cordless drills never lasted more than 2 years and I paid between $150 - over $200 for each, if I get a year out of these 2, I guess I'll be satisfied. Now the question is if they're powerful enough to do the jobs I need. I'll probably get to fixing that roof over the weekend. I'll post how these cheapo drills work.

I'm usually willing to pay for decent tools, but I have never been able to find a decent cordless drill, so I'm giving using disposable cheapos drills a try.

We have a Black & Decker outlet store in the outlet mall at Birch run Michigan. You can buy the fast full sized battery chargers for the 18 volt tools very inexpensibly at that store. They even make one that holds 4 batteries, I have seen them for around $15. You can often buy complete tools there for less than the price of a battery. I needed a 14.4 volt battery for a DeWalt drill. The Black & Decker "post style" batteries are interchangible with the DeWalt. A new Black and Decker 14.4 volt post style battery by itself was $28. However the salesman pointed out that if I didn't mind getting a cordless hedge trimmer and battery charger with it, he could sell me one for $22.

I was in the store about a week ago and saw a similar deal on the 18 volt slide style batteries. A man came in to buy a spare battery for his drill. The salesman again pointed out to the man that If you bought the battery by itself it was $25, but if you didn't mind getting a cordless vacuum and charger with the battery it it was $16

If you have any of these Black & Declker outlet stores in your area you might want to pop in for a visit. They have a lot of other tools that use the 18 volt slide style batteries at very reasonable prices. I think the cordless jig saw was only about $30.

 

[RichZ]

Robert, I have no idea what the torque was on my old drills, so knowing what it is on this drill won't help. But thanks for the idea.

Steve, thanks, I'll see if there's a B&D center near me. I normally wouldn't buy a B&D power tool, but since I've had no luck with so called better brands, I figured I'd give it a try.

My wife had bought me a B&D Firestorm 18 volt drill years ago, after the chuck broke for the second time on my DeWalt drill. I was surprised to find that the battery on the DeWalt and B&D were interchangeable. Then I examined both drills. They were identical. I don't think the drills that I just bought are identical to DeWalt though. If they are, DeWalt has REALLY fallen on quality. Hoiwever, that B&D Firestorm drill lasted longer than any other cordless drill that I've ever had, including a Bosh cordless drill.

 

[Steve C]

Robert, I have no idea what the torque was on my old drills, so knowing what it is on this drill won't help. But thanks for the idea.

Steve, thanks, I'll see if there's a B&D center near me. I normally wouldn't buy a B&D power tool, but since I've had no luck with so called better brands, I figured I'd give it a try.

My wife had bought me a B&D Firestorm 18 volt drill years ago, after the chuck broke for the second time on my DeWalt drill. I was surprised to find that the battery on the DeWalt and B&D were interchangeable. Then I examined both drills. They were identical. I don't think the drills that I just bought are identical to DeWalt though. If they are, DeWalt has REALLY fallen on quality. Hoiwever, that B&D Firestorm drill lasted longer than any other cordless drill that I've ever had, including a Bosh cordless drill.

I have no experience with the Black & Decker 18 volt slide type batteries. I assume that they went to the new form factor (slide rather than post) in an effort to distance themselves from the DeWalt tools.

I have read that the Craftsman tools use a premium cell in the battery pack similar to the Panosonic, but I don't know for sure. I have never owned a Panosonic but my Craftsman stuff seems to work pretty good for its price point.

I still love all my Lithium Ion Equipment.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Robert, I have no idea what the torque was on my old drills, so knowing what it is on this drill won't help. But thanks for the idea.

Steve, thanks, I'll see if there's a B&D center near me. I normally wouldn't buy a B&D power tool, but since I've had no luck with so called better brands, I figured I'd give it a try.

My wife had bought me a B&D Firestorm 18 volt drill years ago, after the chuck broke for the second time on my DeWalt drill. I was surprised to find that the battery on the DeWalt and B&D were interchangeable. Then I examined both drills. They were identical. I don't think the drills that I just bought are identical to DeWalt though. If they are, DeWalt has REALLY fallen on quality. Hoiwever, that B&D Firestorm drill lasted longer than any other cordless drill that I've ever had, including a Bosh cordless drill.

Do you still have your other drills? If so the numbers should be on the ID tag on the drill by the serial number.

 

[actionaj]

I have best luck with Milwaukee 14.4V and 18V. Life would be so much easier if they would just standardize all cordless batteries.

P.S. and also standardize cell phone chargers to.

 

[2manyrocks]

Seems like years ago Consumer Reports tested rechargeable batteries. I think they cut open a D cell and determined that the actual battery part was the same size used in the AA cell's they were testing at the time. I wouldn't be too surprised if the actual batteries inside the casing were the same for a lot of brand names, but the casing are made differently for the various brands.