New cordless drills

[iwire]

And if I am on a hot roof 10 floors up, I want to be the one to decide if I should just burn the drill up and finish the job

I sure agree there.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

No knock on a nice tool, but this drill doesn't cut it for most electricians.

I can certainly understand balking at the cost, but for what basis do you have for saying it won't "cut it"? Did you assume that the drill has less torque than the others? Did you assume that it was larger than the others? Did you assume that it was less versatile than others? You would be wrong on all counts, and I have examined them all--that was my job.

By the way, back when I reviewed the C12, I built a dynamometer to compare the power of about a half dozen drills on the market. When I set it to maximum load, the DeWalt XRP14 & 18 and Rigid ??? drills started smoking within less than 30 seconds (maybe even 15 seconds). All of the drills had comparable power regardless of battery voltage, but a few of them accomplished this by putting more voltage to the motor than what the motor was really designed to handle--hence the smoke. The Makita drill didn't smoke, but I also didn't try to deliberately destroy it by letting it run forever. (If you can't afford the Festool, then your best bet is with the Makita.)

The reason why I bothered to bring the topic up was because several people in this thread were commenting about how their drills were self-destructing. Under commercial use, if your drill isn't lasting more than 3 years, is it really a great savings to buy cheap and have to re-buy another one a year or two later? Yes, if you have employees where the norm is to lose a drill long before it wears out, then of course you should not buy the best drill. Unlike DeWalt and Rigid, which are geared toward the DIY market and lapses into the professional market, Festool is geared toward the professional market and lapses into the DIY market.

I used to be a magazine editor performing product reviews for tools, and at that time, I was highly critical of Festool for their high price, but I was also highly critical of DeWalt for how they hide their poor designs and materials on the inside of the tool where most users would never see. My reviews were different because I focused on the engineering behind the tool, and not on how pretty the color was. When I review a tool, I do it from the inside-out.

My dealings with Festool actually began about 5 years ago when I insulted them by being highly critical of their pricing and other aspects (after the time I was an editor). I was one of their worst critics because I had a strong reputation and was not afraid to tell-it-like-it-was. However, after I started taking a closer look at their products, I have done a complete 180. Granted, I don't have to pony up the big bucks to get their tools, but I do put my engineering reputation behind what I write.

(And if I am on a hot roof 10 floors up, I want to be the one to decide if I should just burn the drill up and finish the job or go get a different one). JMSHIO

Really? So it is worth it to you to destroy a $200 drill, plus the labor costs of going out to buy a replacement? I doubt that, especially if the drill were to get toasted before you could even finish the task at hand. You could probably afford to keep this stance if you had a dozen $20 Wall-Mart drills in your truck, but since most cordless drills are in the $200 range, I don't think it would be the best stance to take. Wooden step ladders are cheaper than fiberglass, so do you have a fleet of wooden ladders in your arsenal?

 

[iwire]

So it is worth it to you to destroy a $200 drill, plus the labor costs of going out to buy a replacement?

No ........ if in fact that once in a while time I need to push destroyed t immediately but it does not.

I actually get quite good life out of all my cordless tools, a big factor in that is how I use them ............ but when I decide I need to push the tool I don't have any desire for it to bail out on me. To me that is not a tool worthy of having.

Likely the biggest reason for all these peoples drill failures is straight out overload.

 

[nakulak]

I have a bunch of 100 buck drills. they get dropped off lifts, run over, snapped in half, lost and smoked. why do I want to pay 350 bucks for drills when smoking them is only one of the reasons they get broken ? To add injury to insult, we've tried the 2 and 300 dollar drills and this is what works for me (if it doesn't work for you, that's fine and dandy)

 

[LarryFine]

And if I am on a hot roof 10 floors up, I want to be the one to decide if I should just burn the drill up and finish the job or go get a different one.

I sure agree there.

I'll agree to a point, but I'd never climb 10 floors with a cordless tool without the entire case with charger and spare battery.

 

[nakulak]

I'll agree to a point, but I'd never climb 10 floors with a cordless tool without the entire case with charger and spare battery.

you kinda got me; of course, that was a hypothetical. I'd likely have 2 batteries. The point, though, was that I'm not sure I'd want a drill that decided on its own that it was going to stop working (that might be one drill that got chucked off the roof before it started smoking)

 

[iwire]

I'll agree to a point, but I'd never climb 10 floors with a cordless tool without the entire case with charger and spare battery.

Well yeah but from the sound of it the other batt would not help because the drill shut down

On most drills, if you left them sitting out in the hot sun, their internal temperature would easily shoot up above 120 degrees before use, and when you used the drill, you would damage the motor and battery. The Festool drill monitors temperature and would not allow you to damage the drill even if you tried.

But regardless, the tool works for me, I don't work for the tool.:smile:

 

[Rick Christopherson]

No ........ if in fact that once in a while time I need to push destroyed t immediately but it does not.

I actually get quite good life out of all my cordless tools, a big factor in that is how I use them ............ but when I decide I need to push the tool I don't have any desire for it to bail out on me. To me that is not a tool worthy of having.

Likely the biggest reason for all these peoples drill failures is straight out overload.

Well of course! I wasn't saying the drill is mamby-pamby, only that it protects itself from permanent damage. You can push the drill to its limits, but the difference is this drill knows what its limits are and prevents you from causing permanent damage.

With a fresh battery, the DeWalt, Makita, and Festool will all provide the power to drive a massively large screw (for example), but the Makita and Festool will do it without destroying the motor in the process, and only the Festool will monitor the health of the motor to stop you from doing it repeatedly beyond what the drill can handle.

My 120 volt Milwaulkee Hole Shooter has enough torque to rip your arms out of their sockets, but if you keep doing it (like my neighbor did when he borrowed mine) you will eventually destroy the electronics and render the drill useless. An idiot can break any tool, but the Festool is the closest to being idiot proof as any.

Oh by the way, regarding a recent posting, the Festools are designed and tested to be dropped off a ladder and they have a really cool video showing it in slow motion too. These are not DIY drills, so if your best choice is a DIY Home Depot drill that you throw away after you drop it or overload it, then buy it. These drills are warrantied for 3 years, and unlike other drills, being a professional does not void your warranty. Festool will still sell to a DIY'er, but that is not their target market. Their target market it the International professional worker.

I want to reiterate that I used to be a vocal critic of Festool. It was only after I began taking a closer look at them that I changed my position. When it comes to something like drill/drivers, I am ungodly rigid and opinionated because I cannot afford to have one fail when I need it. I cannot afford the down-time to replace a drill.

Well yeah but from the sound of it the other batt would not help because the drill shut down

By the way, when I said that the drills shut down to protect themselves, I think some of you were thinking that this is a permanent shut-down. It is not. When you release and re-engage the trigger, you reset the electronics. This isn't like a non-intelligent bi-metal thermal reset where you are stuck waiting several minutes for a reset. It is computer controlled, and if you don't repeat the same overload, the drill will resume normal operation. It may shut down if you are trying to drive a massively long lag screw, but you can instantly switch over to redrilling the pilot hole that caused the overload. There is no delay for a reset.

 

[JFletcher]

When I first started out, all I had was the Firestorm 18V combo kit that I bought for home projects. I figured it wouldn't last long drilling tons of large holes in framing, and that I'd replace it in a few months.

Two years later, I still have it. It still works great, despite being dropped from ladders more times than I can count, and being run all day long under heavy loads on a dozen batteries. At one point the batteries were selling for just $15ea on clearance, so I bought 6 more of them - the price of one DeWalt, Bosch or Milwaukee battery.

Yeah, it's underpowered and overweight, but it's also usually one-of-a-kind on the site. Theft isn't an issue (it's not worth stealing!), and neither is mistaking my drill for someone elses. For really heavy loads I use a corded drill.

I have most of the other 18V Firestorm accessories - the hedge trimmer is very nice. Sure beats rolling out 250' of cord every week or having to fiddle with a gas one every year.

It'sHot: have you considered rebuilding your old battery packs? I am going to when mine start wearing out - they have 12 1500mah sub-c Nicads per pack. I can get 4000mah+ NiMH for them now.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

Well yeah but from the sound of it the other batt would not help because the drill shut down

Oh, as a follow-up, no, this is not correct. If the drill shut down to protect the low battery, you can continue to use the existing battery for normal operations of both drilling and screwing. It shuts down because you tried to take more power out of the battery than what it can safely deliver, but that does not mean it can't be run at all.

You can't pull 10 amps out of a low battery without damaging it, but you can still pull 5 amps out of it (just for example). The drill will intantly reset and let you pull the 5 amps out that the battery can safely deliver. It simply prevents you from permanently destroying the low battery by trying to get more power out of it than can safely be pulled.

If you install a fresh battery, you will again be able to pull the maximum power out of that battery. This isn't like a circuit breaker in a load center that is just estimating what the temperature is in some distant wire. The drill actually has temperature sensors at the point of use and monitors those sensors.

 

[Ohmy]

Did you assume that the drill has less torque than the others? ?

Yes. I really do assume that....is that not true? This drill does not look like it can but a 1" auger bit through 4 studs or a 1" step bit through old steel. It looks like the kinda tool a cabinet guy would use (they are a very carefuly sort).

Maybe I am wrong...I've never actually used one.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

Yes. I really do assume that....is that not true? This drill does not look like it can but a 1" auger bit through 4 studs or a 1" step bit through old steel. It looks like the kinda tool a cabinet guy would use (they are a very carefuly sort).

Maybe I am wrong...I've never actually used one.

No, that is not true. You are accustomed to seeing inefficient brushed-DC motors in cordless tools, and I assume that this is the first time you have even heard of a battery operated tool that uses a 3-phase motor. If you pull the motor out of your favorite drill, you can bet that the winding wire will be a lot smaller than 0.030" (20 ga), and that is single-phase. This is a 3-phase motor, so the current per phase for comparable power will be sqrt-3 times smaller. As I said earlier, this is a custom built motor just for this drill, and is not an off-the-shelf motor.

Not only will this drill drive your 1-inch auger, but it will do it at any speed. Because this is a true 3-phase servo motor, when you barely pull the trigger and the motor encounters increasing resistance/torque as the drill bit goes farther into the wood, the electronics will actually increase the power to the motor to maintain constant speed under increasing torque. I'll send you $100 if you can get your DIY drill to do the same. (Read the Technical Review I posted in my original post for a better explanation of this.) In simple terms, the drill contains a minurature VFD drive with constant torque output.

Here is a picture I took of the T15 drill. You'll notice that the motor is nothing like you will find in any other drill. I am pretty sure that the 3 horsepower motor in my tablesaw uses the same size winding wire as this little motor. The remote commutator sensors tell the electronics what rotational position the rotor is in, but also provide the feedback necessary to classify this as a true servo motor.

 

[ultramegabob]

Now I am on my second 19.2v Craftsman drill, it has a 1/2 chuck and hammerdrill function, I have been using it for 2 years and It cost me around 99 dollars, I believe it is made by Ryobi. It gets the job done, and nobody seems to want to walk off with it, and if it does get stolen or I drop it off a scaffold and it breaks, it wont break the bank to replace it....

I just wanted to correct my post, I must have paid around only $69.00 for my drill, I bought it when they were on sale around Christmas time a couple years ago.

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...SP01&sid=ISx20070515x00001c#descriptionAnchor

 

[LarryFine]

"Very impressive, Mr. Kotter!"

 

[76nemo]

Nemo, you are not only killing your batteries but probably also damaging your motors. The more you use a battery the more heat it produces. The longer you need to charge the battery the hotter it gets. Heat is the killer of batteries. Run your batteries until they no longer do the work you want them to do and then recharge. Your batteries and tools will last much longer.

Guess someone has been pretty lucky then Even when I tape them, they aren't even really warm to the touch after sitting for awhile. I have done this for quite some time with 18V Milwaukee's and around the house 18V B&D's.

Like I said, maybe I'm just lucky, all my drills still kick almost as much as they did when they came out of the box, but I have noticed variation in run times over the last year, and that's expected.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

"Very impressive, Mr. Kotter!"

Yeah, well up your nose with a rubber hose! :grin:

 

[PetrosA]

Rick, it may well have been your article that made me take a long, hard look at Festool a few years back and I used their design as sort of a baseline for judging other drills (I ended up with a Fein). I would have gotten the Festool but for one shortcoming - they have no model with a hammer function. This is something I don't really understand, but I'm sure it keeps electricians and other professionals away. I watched the video of that tiny little drill running all kinds of stuff into hardwoods, and I could see it was powerful enough, but without the hammer setting... Enschultigen

It's been interesting reading the different approaches to tools in this thread. It seems there are two main camps - The Beaters and The Treaters. I know I fall into the treater category, a new tool is a treat for me and I treat it with care. I'm extremely reluctant to loan my tools to anyone. I want to know that when I need it, it'll perform well. My Fein is actually dangerous to loan out since guys who have never used it end up learning in a painful way just how much power it has.

As far as the temperature shut off functions go there's one problem I see with them. My charger shuts down when the ambient temperature reaches 104?F and has no built in fan. I don't think I have to say that such a low temp. can be an issue in the summertime.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

I agree that there are not only two camps, but they are both right too. For example, when I buy AA batteries for my kids toys, I buy the 1$ flea market variety because I know that more often than not, the toy will be left on unused and need new batteries before it gets used again. On the other hand, my digital camera is part of my work tools, so it is critical that the batteries are good when I need them, so I pay the huge cost for lithium batteries (not the same as LiIon).

So when you know a tool will be lost or totally destroyed from frequent drops from a 3 story building, then it makes more sense to buy-cheap, buy-often, since you will need to be buying often regardless of quality. Outside of that realm is the buy-best, buy-once.

As far as the temperature shut off functions go there's one problem I see with them. My charger shuts down when the ambient temperature reaches 104?F and has no built in fan. I don't think I have to say that such a low temp. can be an issue in the summertime.

By any chance is this a LiIon battery? I can't remember the details at the moment, but I believe high temperature during the charging cycle is what causes the runaway effect with the lithium, and as we have all heard, is why these batteries ignite. New battery chemistries are helping to reduce this, but it is still critical to closely control the temperature when charging.

I am not completely sold on LiIon battery technology in power tools. It's main benefit is weight, but still has a lot of drawbacks. For high-drain tools such as drills, NiCd is going to provide the highest level of amperage to the motor over all other technologies. That's the reason why the early (albeit premature) LiIon tools were operating at 36 volts, so they could maintain a reasonable power level within the limited amperage available. The chemistry has gotten better, and that is why the voltages are starting to come back down to more normal levels.

Regardless of the battery type, heat during either the charge or discharge cycle will kill the battery. That's not something unique to one brand of tool or the very few brands of batteries (there is only a small handful of battery manufacturers in the world, so regardless of the brand of the tool, the batteries all come from the same companies.). Fein, Festool and Metabo closely monitor temperature. The companies that don't monitor temperature as closely do not have the end-user's best interest in mind.

 

[resistance]

I have a few: Makita 18v (Newest model), Milwaukee 12v (Newest Model), Hitachi 12v (Old model), And Ryobi 18v (old Model). I've had to return: Milwalkee, and Ridgid 18v drills (Junk--just my opinion). Out of all of these the cheapest one (Ryobi) has out-lasted all of them. Newest model=Lithium Battery

 

[LarryFine]

I've had great performance and zero issues with my DeWalt 36v equipment, even with the sudden power cutoff.

Yeah, well up your nose with a rubber hose! :grin:

"In yer ear with Rosie Greer!" (Whatever that means.)