Cordless Operated Power Tools - Your Favorite

[Peter 315]

Same here. Someone here referred to them as Walmart tools, I disagree. Mine have stood up well. What's nice is that the newer batteries are compatible with some of the older tools unlike many manufacturers.



Agreed. It's rare that I'll dig out a corded tool if I have a cordless equivalent.
15 years ago, maybe not but they've come a long way since then.




What made you think to try a HF coupon at HD? What store was it?

HD londonderry nh somebody told me about it so i tried it

 

[downsizingnow48]

Out of curiosity this morning I checked the voltage on some freshly charged Makita batteries. My old ones charged up at 19.6 to 19.8. I have two new ones, just a few months old, they charged to 19.95 and 19.97. It makes me wonder, if there is a difference among these brands of tools, how much of it is due to the motors and electronics. Rather than the voltage ratings.

For what it is worth, on jobsites and with tradesmen here in the Sacramento area, Dewalt is the hands down winner, I would say 90% of the cordless tools I see are Dewalt.

 

[4570Man]

Out of curiosity this morning I checked the voltage on some freshly charged Makita batteries. My old ones charged up at 19.6 to 19.8. I have two new ones, just a few months old, they charged to 19.95 and 19.97. It makes me wonder, if there is a difference among these brands of tools, how much of it is due to the motors and electronics. Rather than the voltage ratings.

For what it is worth, on jobsites and with tradesmen here in the Sacramento area, Dewalt is the hands down winner, I would say 90% of the cordless tools I see are Dewalt.

I expect 18 volt and 20 volt are pretty much the same. I don’t have a 20 volt to check though.

 

[Doofy]

To each his own. Everyone has their own opinion about tools and such and that is okay. If they work for you, that is all that matters.

I spent 30 years doing school maintenance and have tried just about every cordless tool on the market. They are designed to make our lives easier and they have certainly done that. Cordless tools have come a long way and continue to evolve. Life is Good!

 

[aczlan]

We have Porter Cable NiCd, Porter-Cable lithium-ion, Ryobi NiCd and Ryobi lithium-ion. I would say that they are roughly equivalent as far as quality goes. You will want to make sure that you get the larger batteries as there isn't a whole lot of runtime in the small batteries.
I really like that the Ryobi older blue tools can be used with their new Lithium-ion batteries as we had a friend who is moving and gave us a bunch of older Ryobi tools that their batteries had given out on.

Aaron Z

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Have old dewalt 14v nicad, drills, circular saw, sawzall. Only 1 good battery left.

Have newer bosch drill, impact, circ saw. Use impact the most.

 

[blackrams]

I used to have nicad cordless drills. I'd buy a new one every couple of years because the batteries would crap out.

Have had several cordless drills, impacts, saws, grinders, whatever. Honestly, they're just handy toys for me but, I really get ticked when the tool is still good but the battery goes to crap. Then I go to buy another battery and find out, those tools now use a different version or voltage and what I need will have to be special ordered or is no longer available. Got tired of going through that. Then, it struck me that really the only time I use most of these battery powered tools was when I was doing something on one of my trailers or in my RV toy hauler. In just about every case, one of my Dodge Cummins trucks is coupled to the trailer I'm using/working on. I hate wasting resources and throwing away a usable tool is doing that.

So, I took one of the old worthless batteries out of it's case and then cut the ends off of a set of jumper cables and solder the battery connection to the jumper cables. The re-worked battery case still couples to the impact the same as before so, if I do find another 18 volt battery that is worth keeping, it could still power the drill. Hooked it to a 12 volt auto battery and now it works like a charm. Having re-read this, I'm not sure I've explained it well but, my previous 18 volt impact and drill now runs off of any 12 volt auto battery. Have used it many times.

Rams

 

[Old Red]

So I have been spending a lot of time looking at various cordless power tools from dewalt and milwaukee. My 18 volt nicads are still good and I see some generic replacements for them that seem to be getting fairly good reviews.

I think (have almost pulled trigger several times this evening) I am going to purchase a couple of the milwaukee M12 tools. I have the M12 powered heated jacket, so that is a start on the platform. I think the feature of the M12 is compact and power. Certainly not the torque of the bigger ones, but sure look handy and compact. I like that. Wife might even pick one up LOL. I also saw their ratchet that uses the M12 and that sure looked handy as well. So since I have some beefier dewalt 18v power tools I might grab some smaller compact M12 lithium Milwaukee tools.....get some kits to provide some extra juice for my jacket.

Does anyone use the lighting systems from these things at all? The milwaukee lights look great to me. I am a flashlight guy, have tons of specialty insane flashlights that can set small animals on fire in the back yard if I hold the beam on them too long...but these things require separate chargers and batteries and nothing is consistent. The lighting from power tools seems like it would be nice.....same platform as your tools, batteries sitting on chargers at the ready, and power the light all you want because you have other batteries just sitting there waiting to power up your light.

 

[4570Man]

A truck battery “cordless” tool sounds awful. Cordless tools aren’t an end all to all problems, but serve a lot of uses. I have more tools than batteries so I prefer to use a separate light and not tie up another battery.

 

[DFB]

Oh man you guys have to think outside the box sure every brand offers a drill driver and impact driver, but there is just so much more.

Obviously a cordless grease gun if do a lot of routine maintenance. Power ratchet and other right angle tools like drill and impact and a decent sq anvil impact wrench. That sure beats having to be tethered to an air hose as does the finish nailer I have.

Heat gun and solder iron are my latest acquisitions the cordless heat gun thawed out a frozen hose bib for me faster than I could unwind and run an extension cord back to power to even get started with a corded unit.

Mini recip saws (hackzalls) offer one handed use and make great makeshift cutout tools for notching boards

The tripod mounted flood lights and portable led work lamps are also great. No excess heat, beats old halagons and no accidently getting burned either

Cordless fan, BT speaker, radio got everything I need.

Just make life so much easier there is no goin backwards with tech.

I have had Ni Cad 6 1/2 Makita trim saw for years and I still use it often (but almost never touch the drill anymore) it is small and light but WOW the new 7-1/4 cordless circular saw I have is simply awesome. Loads of power, really lightweight and runtime is vastly superior.

I think my best cordless purchase is the water transfer pump, Amazing performance, lightweight, no noise, no exhaust, no gas and oil