educate me on drills.....

Soldato
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5 Feb 2009
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N. Ireland
as per the title really. usage would be diy jobs, replacing decking boards, fence panels that sort of thing (though there are lot of fence panels needing replacing along with several posts)

is it better to go with this 'twin pack' drill & impact driver combo
https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-d...combi-drill-and-impact-driver-twin-pack/210hf

or just spend most of the budget on what i presume would be a better drill?

ideally i'd want to keep the budget south of 200 quid as much as possible.

on a side note......i could have sworn there was a stickied thread about diy tools or am i imagining things?!
 
The drills are ok but the batteries won't last long, you need to go for the 5.0AH 18v ones as they will last longer on the job. I have used these and the Makita kits at work and once you start to use them for anything that requires a little bit more torque the die pretty quickly. On your budget just go for a drill and spare battery if you can
 
thread title was maybe a bit misleading in that i'm not a total 'know-nothing' when it comes to drills so am aware of the differences in 'normal' drills and sds drills but cheers all the same for the linky.

The drills are ok but the batteries won't last long, you need to go for the 5.0AH 18v ones as they will last longer on the job. I have used these and the Makita kits at work and once you start to use them for anything that requires a little bit more torque the die pretty quickly. On your budget just go for a drill and spare battery if you can
when you say you've used these and makitas at work, do you mean in an on-the-tools trade environment? if so and given that my usage certainly wouldn't ever get to the sort of level i imagine tradies get to would the 5.0AH battery still be a requirement? how quickly is pretty quickly, would you say, in relation to the batteries dying (roughly) and by die do you mean go flat or properly die die! apologies for all the q's and thanks to you also for the input.
 
The drills are ok but the batteries won't last long, you need to go for the 5.0AH 18v ones as they will last longer on the job.

I disagree, drills and impact drivers feel much better balanced with smaller batteries. I only use my 5ah batteries on larger tools.
 
I disagree, drills and impact drivers feel much better balanced with smaller batteries. I only use my 5ah batteries on larger tools.
Agreed.

The general advice around that price range is decide the eco-system you want to buy into. Does DeWalt do everything you could want? I went Milwaukee but could have just as reasonably gone DeWalt but it wasn't on offer at the time.

It was such a massive change from the thing I had kept alive for 8/9 years. Wish I swapped the kit before I refitted the kitchen as opposed to after :D.
 
I bought my bro a milwaukee drill and impact driver set with 2x 2Ah batteries in 2015. They have lasted really well renovating his whole house, even when banging in loads of screws for decking. If they do go flat, it doesn't take long to charge them.
 
You won't be disappointed with your choice however last year I bought the ALDI Ferrex drill and impact driver and put my main tools in storage.
So far they are doing great and I do odd jobs on 4 houses.
 
The general advice around that price range is decide the eco-system you want to buy into. Does DeWalt do everything you could want?
good point and something i hadn't considered. would i be right to say that the batteries are interchangeable with any tool in the 'xr' range by dewalt. I've also just noticed the ryobi one+ range - would i also be right in saying the batteries are all interchangeable among those tools within the one+ range too?
and if i'm not mistaken the one+ tools themselves appear to be generally cheaper then likes of dewalt but the batteries are quite a bit more expensive......quite a smart move by both brands. ryobi were to my mind a fishing reel manufacturer :p

i guess, again, at this price range all the main brand names are much of a muchness or is there one stand out name at this price for diy level tools?
however last year I bought the ALDI Ferrex drill
no Aldi in NI unfortunately.
good spot cheers.
 
The £200 Screwfix Dewalt is a cracking deal.

The Ryobi stuff I have heard good things about. Their eco-system is mainly targeted towards home user so includes things like lawn mowers, hedge trimmers etc. at a lot more accessible pricing.

The Dewalt battery lawnmower is about 400 quid IIRC. And I doubt anyone in the world has one :D

I went for the Milwaukee kit (https://www.screwfix.com/p/milwauke...ah-li-ion-redlithium-cordless-twin-pack/969gf) but I think it was £230 at the time. I would have gone for the Dewalt if it was priced at £200.

It is a bit like collecting pogs though. I very quickly ended up buying the Milwaukee random orbital sander... then the multitool... :D
 
Get a 4 or 5 ah battery. Them 2ah are rubbish. With a impact driver they use a lot more power so you won't get long if your doing decking

I disagree, 2ah is more than fine for DIY and gives a far better balanced tool.

I disagree, drills and impact drivers feel much better balanced with smaller batteries. I only use my 5ah batteries on larger tools.

This


Sold out now... I imagine it will be back though.
 
I went for the Milwaukee kit
and i thought they were a beer company!!
Add both of these to the basket and you get 3 x 2ah batteries and a higher torque impact driver at 190nm over 170nm.
the free battery is out of stock for delivery unfortunately
24 in stock from 3 stores within 8 miles from me click and collect so depends where you live.
yea sadly being in NI, especially since Brexit, if anywhere is gonna be out of stock it'll be here!
 
Agree with the above about the batteries. There really is no need to be carrying the extra weight of a 4 or 5ah on your tools unless you are in the trade and rely on the tools for all day site work or long jobs. If you can get a deal where they come with the larger ones then cool, but honestly the stuff I have done over the last 5 years+ with my Dewalt Combi drill and impact driver (18v lithium XR brushless range) has never let me down just using 2 x 2ah ones. This hasn't just been putting up the odd shelf. I won't bore you with the detail but they've been seriously worked out and just keep going. They charge pretty quick anyway even if they do run out. None of this half a day to charge like the ancient nicad ones. It's under 1 hour usually.

When starting out with your purchase for a decent modern day drill, most will just buy a good bang per buck offer at the time. This is fine. It's what I did, and it happened to be Dewalt, but could just have easily been:

Makita - at the time, this was viewed upon as the main competitor to Dewalt. Huge range of tools. I think it's still that way.
Milwaukee - some really good tools but when I looked, tended to be more expensive.
Bosch - Used to have a green (more basic) and blue (marketed as a pro range) but not as big a range of cordless when I looked
Hitachi, Hilti, Metabo - don't know much about them
Ryobi - At the time I looked, was more an up and coming brand in the UK and just becoming more popular and pushed hard at B&Q. Large range. Cheap.

These days it's all about the cordless lithium cell stuff as it's light and still powerful and very free movement with no wires. I'm sure you know this already.
There's no reason why you can't just buy the cheapest drill/impact kit and just then get other tools as required, like cheaper wired stuff. But what tends to happen is this...

You buy a modern day drill/impact set....realize it's a life changer having good cordless tools....get carried away now that you already have brand X batteries and therefore justify the expenditure of buying "bare" tools (ones slightly cheaper body only without batteries) because you need an electric planer in your life. Or an angle grinder. Or an electric strimmer. Or a jig saw. Or a router. etc.

So maybe have a look at what other tools you might buy in the future and consider that when picking what you buy into.

As for the drill. Yes get a combi drill and an impact driver set. I won't go into detail why you should get an impact driver. There are a hundred reasons why you should have both. :)

When I looked years ago, there was kind of 12v cordless stuff (cheaper and light), 18v (kind of become the standard) and then more heavy duty 24v+ stuff. If you can afford the brushless stuff that's cool, as they tend to be massively efficient and last longer on batteries. Also the tool / motor itself should last for a very long time. Some ranges have nice to haves like battery level indicators when you press the back of the battery itself. I personally wouldn't spend extra for a variable speed impact driver. When you are using an impact driver, it's 99% of the time because you want the power of it. Having said that, I use mine A LOT out of pure laziness because it's so light and compact.

Also when you are umming and arring over £20 here, or even £50 there.... this is likely to be something that you use for possibly 5-10 years...
 
very detailed post and makes a lot of sense.....and i fully get the 'but what tends to happen' bit :)

Umming and arring over a few tenners between the usual suspects then you see Festool prices :eek:

Maybe there's something I'm missing.
jesus, why the **** are those so pricey?!

edit: and what a crappy name too......Festool, sounds like a disease!
 
I disagree, 2ah is more than fine for DIY and gives a far better balanced tool.


Clearly you have never done more than put a screw in the wall. I've got both a 2 and two 5ah and I use them for work. The 2 won't last long at all and when it start to lose a bit of power you can get any power to get a big screw in. Especially on a impact driver.
 
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