I need a Cordless drill. Any recommendations. Needs to have hammer action for the odd rawlplug and the batteries have to last.

[Edited on 23/5/2005 by dave1888]

i use a £20 18V cordless (3 in fact), the hammer function is useless except into breeze blocks or similar, but the life and battery capacity is great - non broken in 6 months of heavy daily use.

for proper wall drilling, just buy a budget sds drill £40 at homebase.

i believe b&q have recently started doing an 18v drill for a similar price.

my ones are 'pro user' branded IIRC. avoid the nutool one (imho), it couldnt drill through a 40mm piece of chip board even on full charge. and that was 24v

Bosch ones are excellent!!
Mines a 14.4v hammer and made light work of drilling though my wall with a 14mm masonary to run a leccy cable through... Came with 3 batteries and they are 1hr charge so youl never run out as they last a very long time.

80 quid from b n q.

[Edited on 23/5/05 by Danozeman]

Get as higher voltage one as you can afford. Having used several between 7.2V and 24V theres no comparison. If you can afford it get a Makita one, expensive (read very expensive), but very well made.

http://www.toolshopdirect.co.uk/ishop/982/shopscr2368.html

David

I have had a Bosch set for 6 years now - from the blue range. I believe the green ones are the cheaper ones.
If you buy a cheapy, it will have plastic gears and a 300ma charger which takes 3 weeks to charge a battery.

Either buy a DeWalt / Makita / Bosch cordless or buy a corded drill with an extension lead.

If you want it for work, De-walt 18v with 3a/hr batteries, the rest don't come close.

P.S Joel you tight arse, bet your using Ferm
drills, do you have a big blister on your right thumb knuckle by any chance?

[Edited on 23/5/05 by Wadders]

my dad has a 14.4V De walt and it has taken 6 years+ of ABUSE. Its a great thing. just bought a new charger. YES the charger gave out before the batts or drill!

Cheap DeWalt stuff from here.


http://diytools.com/default.asp

I have a 'basic' DeWalt (no hammer) - charges batteries in 20 minutes, which is usually much quicker that the time it takes to run down the other one. Plenty of power for most work.
100 times better than the B&Q cheapie I used to have - battery lasted 5 minutes, and took 3 hours to recharge!

David

As usual, you get what you pay for, and DeWalt are about the best you can get.

Can I ask a question?

I have a Bosch 14.4, which I was extremely happy with, except for the keyless chuck which seems a bit worn now.

Now I am noticing that, if i leave it for a few days, the battery seems to go flat by itself, does this mean it is packing up?

Cheers

Fred WB

I still have my old Elu 18V, it will be 9 years old now. Its had lots and lots of work and still going well - refurbd 2 houses, built extension with it (they are crap at bricklaying mind!!) plus other projects inc 2 cars (end bearings now worn after using it with wire brush - side loads are not good for any drills).

I used to work for Dewalt and designed the production line where all of the European cordless drills were made. They are very good just a little pricey but for DIY use they will last for ages. There are two different ranges. The cheaper one is good but aimed at DIY / semi pro. The XR range is the one to have. The grinders and jigswas in the same range are good as well.

If you cant afford then you have no choice but to buy budget. You get what you pay for. When i was setting the Dewalt line up we had a thermal printer to put the graphics on the battery packs. I used to get moaned at by the Production managers for creating scrap when optimising the process settings. The 18V packs cost about £18 each to buy in (retail well over this, im talking manuf cost here). I could never understand how B&Q could sell full 18V drill package for £40 - £50. Bottom line is that they use cheap johnson motors (DeWalt have bespoke high power motors) and very cheap 1.2 Ahr NiCD cells (DeWalt used panasonic 3 amphour NMH cells).
of course at £40 you can chuck them when they brake and afford to have to charge them up more often.


DeWaly spent a fortune developing the ratchet facility so that the hammer functions actually work. I also have a pneumatic sds cordless hammer drill - its fantastic and also has chisel function (good for removing tiles).

[Edited on 24/5/05 by DarrenW]

£100+ Bosch from Homebase, mother of a battery (but you only get one), 24v I think, excellent clutched gears, I love it. Don't buy cheap, as it's the sort of thing you use all the time - I went through 2 x £40 ones before that.

dewalt are incredible tools, compared to mine the motors feel much better, and the hammer mode is better on my mates 24v sds cordless one than it is on my 240v sds (homebase) drill.

but, the £20 ones i have are not 5 times crapper. it also avoids the initial outlay, plus you get that new feel 5 times more often!

i wouldnt recommend dewalt or similar brands to a DIY user unless they had money literally falling out of their arse (in which case id recommend a doctor...)

Weren't De Walt in league with Black and Decker?, we used to make boxes for B&D and De Walt and they went to the same address. I've had a B&D 12v drill for 6 years now, the orange one with a nimh battery and it's going strong. you can leave the battery flat for ages and it charges back up in 1 hour and stays charged for anything I need it for, good hammer action too.

Well it looks like the Dewalt DC988. I need it for diy and work. I am on my second Bosch 12v green thing quite good but have finally burnt the motor out, also the batteries take longer to charge than the use you get out of them

As Pete points out go for nimh, the other common battery option is nicad (nical cadnium) which are far more temperamental.

When racing model cars nicad where the most common (before they got nimh sorted). For good results nicad need fully discharging after every race, regulare cycling (fully chrage folloed by fully ditcharge) in between races and not being left charged for too long (best charged a few hours before use).