Cordless drills

[miketomcat]

I've had a Makita drill for 20years used daily at work granted it's had numerous batterys but still works the way it sould. I've just replaced it with another Makita and am impressed so far. I would like to say nearly every boat yard on the southcoast uses Makita drills. Nuff said.

Mike

[studmuffin]

I've had a Makita drill for 20years used daily at work granted it's had numerous batterys but still works the way it sould. I've just replaced it with another Makita and am impressed so far. I would like to say nearly every boat yard on the southcoast uses Makita drills. Nuff said.

Mike

I have had a matched pair of Makita MXT for work for about 5 years, 1 normal, 1 hammer. Came with a spare battery. They are stonkingly good for us.

Barry

[BogMonster]

I have one of these

http://www.screwfix.com/p/hitachi-dv18dcl2-18v-1-5ah-li-ion-cordless-combi-drill/64945

which replaced an older 18V Hitachi with Nicad batteries, when the batteries on the old one started to get tired.

I've just built an extension on my house with the new one and I'm about to get another one to have a matched one for my building colleague for the next building project, so all the batteries are the same.

I suppose it depends what you are doing, but I never spend too much on them, all power tools go the same way when they hit a concrete floor or fall off a 5 metre high roof but the new Hitachi seems robust enough. Virtually every battery drill I've ever owned has outlasted its batteries, and they always price the replacement batteries to make you buy a new drill. Anything like the Makita linked above, which only comes with one battery, is a waste of time for serious use IMHO - you need two batteries. This is especially true of the Li-Ion ones where they just shut down and you can't squeeze that extra ten turns out of it. If you've got to go off and charge it for half an hour before you can finish a job taking thirty seconds, it's just very annoying.

I don't doubt it isn't as good as a £400 Makita but you'll cry a lot less when you're sweeping up the bits

If you need a hammer drill, buy a big mains powered budget priced SDS one. I got one in a sale for about £40 which is ten times better than any non SDS hammer drill I've ever used and will rattle down a 20mm hole for concrete rawlbolts in about ten seconds flat. Non SDS drills are toys for drilling hard concrete, especially battery powered ones.