ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Problems with Dewalt

I have mentioned these things before in past threads. All cordless tools are inherently light to medium duty, although they have a capacity that would suggest a heavier duty tool.

These are some of the limitations I have found with cordless tools:

• Cordless Hammer-drills being made for occassional small holes in hammer mode, say 1/4" anchors.....*
  (Larger holes, or all day use will self-destruct any cordless model, break out a build for purpose corded tool.)
• Limitations in the very nature of use of batteries - Voltage goes down, amperage goes up - destroying the batteries and over-heating the motors and brush contacts. Some of us old enough to remember the first cordless models that had battery memory got the bad habit for todays non-memory batteries of draining the battery out for a new charge. That destroys the batteries at an early age. With todays batteries, at the first sign of a drop in performance, put that baby on a charger - they'll last much longer!
• They are built with inherently light wieght designs to compansate for the wieght of the battery. Think about it... a corded, and a cordless saws-all wiegh about the same, on the cordless model 30 - 40% of the wieght is a battery. *A hammer drill has a plastic gear case containing a smaller metal slug for the hammer, a corded one would have a metal case, with a much larger metal slug as the hammer.
• On the same note as above, some tools have had a much longer time to get fully developed into stable dependable designs. Impact guns, drills (the first items to goes cordless) have developed into reliable designs. Saws-alls, circular saws, grinders requiring higher RPM, higher amperage motors have not.
• Many, ARE made for the DYI'er. And it does take a little bit of examination to recongnize the difference.... And, often you get what you pay for.
• They want you to get hooked on the "disposables" of what is a system of tool, and "Battery" IMO. All of the batteries are specific to Brand, and most are specific to voltage. Everytime you go up in voltage, that means a new charger, and your other tools can't interchange batteries. Do they last any longer? Not really, IMO.

That said, WE on this forum, have an advantage to all the other trades... We can use our corless tools to hook up some site power for all the heavier duty tools we can muster. Bandsaws, saws-alls, hole hogs, right-angles, hammer-drills, roto-hammers you name it..... Thats the first thing I do!

I have a 5 year old makita impact that I dont use for the fact that I have to set up a seperate chager - it lives in my basement waiting for a garage sale. I got hooked on 14.4 Dewalts early on ('95) with an abused drill I still have and still works, you have to tape the battery in place. But it a great spare for the guy who leaves his stuff at another job. It has been dropped from ladders, scaffolding, replaced brushes, works just fine.
And since then picked up an impact, that I use all day every day for almost 2 years (starting to show its age after sever use), a hammer drill that rarely gets used in that mode of the same age. A 4 year old saws-all that only gets used to hook up services and temp power so I can use my 12 year old Porter cable saws-all, or Milwaukee band saw. And 2 other drills that live in my basement for home use. Both of which are "lost and found items". I "lost" them in other peoples tool boxes until I "found" them weeks later (Different subject) - but in the mean time needed replacements, and bought the ones above. So all told I have 4 drills, one saws-all, and one impact, batteries for all,3 chargers, all in 14.4 dewalt in varying states of abuse, and age, but still useable.

Just got another Impact and hammer drill (At a good price), and thinking of having a garage sale for the older stuff....

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 04-29-2006).]