Corded vs Cordless Power Tools

[roboruler]

Definitely cordless, if your aiming for tools which are safe and convenient for students to use cordless drills and impact drivers are best. Cordless drills are less powerful( which is good), lighter, smaller and easier to use.

If there is something that you need a corded drill for it should probably be done in a drill press.

In regards to cordless cutting tools, there isn’t a great deal of difference between corded jigsaws, circular saws and recip saws, so corded or cordless is probably alright.

I would probably stay away from air tools, unless you already have access to compressed air. Compressed Air rivet guns can be great, if you’ve got access to air.

[RoboChair]

You want cordless for most things, maybe not high power items like saws because they eat batteries very fast and you want to stay productive.

1678 uses Ryobi everything so they share batteries, you want lots of batteries. We managed to get a bunch of Ryobi stuff on online auctions so we saved a lot of money that way.

[Bkeeneykid]

We use corded simply because that's what we have. We are still using drills original to the the team. We would love to go cordless to make many things easier, and if were able to find cheap cordless sets, we would jump on that immediately.

[frcguy]

For our shop, we purchased all cordless Milwaukee M18 tools for drills and impacts. For us, it allowed us to standardize on one battery which made things very easy. I have lots of experience with Milwaukee tools and they have shown themselves to be high quality with very few issues, and they have been great when any problem arrived.

As a side note, I was in you exact position at the beginning of this season. Here is a link to a Google Sheet with all the tools we purchased, with links, prices, etc.

https://goo.gl/qYTa66

Also, feel free to PM me, I would be more than happy to talk to you about my experience starting our shop and any questions you have.

[sanddrag]

Ryobi has been pretty good for us. It's a great value, especially when on sale, like right now. I've also been successful in warrantying a few batteries right at Home Depot. My favorite drill though is the black and white compact Makita. It has a really nice chuck on it, but we did manage to cook one a couple years ago, and had to replace it.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by frcguy

For our shop, we purchased all cordless Milwaukee M18 tools for drills and impacts. For us, it allowed us to standardize on one battery which made things very easy. I have lots of experience with Milwaukee tools and they have shown themselves to be high quality with very few issues, and they have been great when any problem arrived.

As a side note, I was in you exact position at the beginning of this season. Here is a link to a Google Sheet with all the tools we purchased, with links, prices, etc.

https://goo.gl/qYTa66

Also, feel free to PM me, I would be more than happy to talk to you about my experience starting our shop and any questions you have.

That's what we use for drills.

We also use a hilti wireless circular saw.

Everything else is wired.

[LastChance]

Originally Posted by frcguy

For our shop, we purchased all cordless Milwaukee M18 tools for drills and impacts. For us, it allowed us to standardize on one battery which made things very easy. I have lots of experience with Milwaukee tools and they have shown themselves to be high quality with very few issues, and they have been great when any problem arrived.

As a side note, I was in you exact position at the beginning of this season. Here is a link to a Google Sheet with all the tools we purchased, with links, prices, etc.

https://goo.gl/qYTa66

Also, feel free to PM me, I would be more than happy to talk to you about my experience starting our shop and any questions you have.

Thank you. We are just getting started, and would appreciate being able to reach out to teams who have already done this as we start building our team.

[GeeTwo]

I personally prefer corded tools, but for the team, we went cordless for most of our hand-held tools, because we often need to use them away from the shop (and that will get worse this year as we may lose the space where we ran most of our corded power tools.). If you do cordless, pick one brand & voltage, and buy/use it consistently. We were not satisfied with Ryobi (does not stand up to student [ab]use), but we get good performance from our DeWalt 20V tools.

If you go cordless, assign a "tool battery czar", just as you probably have a "robot battery czar". They may or may not be the same person, but the job is nearly as critical.

[RoboChair]

The one thing I dislike thoroughly about the DeWalt 20V line is that it is NOT 20 volts, its the EXACT same cells as all the other 18V lines but they advertise it at the nominal voltage and not the cell voltage that every other manufacturer uses.

So they are scamming you into thinking the battery has more voltage when it does not.

/RANT

As a side note, learn to FIX your tools. Most of them use 775's inside them anyway..... We are a resourceful bunch after all, might as well practice.

[Munchskull]

Originally Posted by RoboChair

The one thing I dislike thoroughly about the DeWalt 20V line is that it is NOT 20 volts, its the EXACT same cells as all the other 18V lines but they advertise it at the nominal voltage and not the cell voltage that every other manufacturer uses.

So they are scamming you into thinking the battery has more voltage when it does not.

/RANT

As a side note, learn to FIX your tools. Most of them use 775's inside them anyway..... We are a resourceful bunch after all, might as well practice.

Think a 775Pro would be an upgrade?

[roboruler]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

Think a 775Pro would be an upgrade?

No a 775pro would not be an upgrade the Dewalt 18volt and "20volt", the stock Dewalt motors are way more powerful. The 775pro most likely wouldn't last long on 18 or 20 volts anyway.

The peak power of the Dewalt 18volt motor is around 1200watts

The peak power of the 775pro run @18volts would be around 780watts

A Banebots 775-18 would most likely be the best replacement, teams probably have quite a few anyway.

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

Think a 775Pro would be an upgrade?

It would depend on the tool, but I recently repaired a Ryobi I bought at auction(motor was shot) the 775Pro would have had the same output RPMs(might reach a similar wattage at the increased volts). Not sure how long it would deal with the voltage, I would assume the brushes would just wear out faster and would last okay as long as you weren't stalling it.

Would have to ask RC to be sure.

Is that 1200 watts in the DeWalt from testing or a number from DeWalt? I will trust the first, the second is likely false.(nothing against the DeWalt, I just don't trust tool marketing teams)

[DaveL]

When we started we had a bunch of cheap drills. By the end of the first year the batteries were dying and the chuck was wobbling. We love the new 20v DeWalt's as they are lighter than the older DeWalt's, have good battery power, run time, easy to use keyless chucks and don't wobble.

We also have a goose neck DeWalt. Its great for tight spaces or used as a nut runner.

We do have one corded drill which we only use when drilling a large hole with a hole saw. The cordless drills have enough power for all of our other needs. Even more power than our drill press.

Along the way we have instituted a drilling training program. With the better drills it has reduced the number of times the transmission is in the wrong gear, being used in reverse or creating chip dust. The training program improves safety and reduces our drill bit costs.

Dave

[GreyingJay]

Buy a name brand tool that you will be able to buy replacement batteries for in years to come, otherwise when the battery wears down and you can't buy replacements, the tool becomes garbage -- well, at least you could take apart the drill and play with the gearbox and motor!

So Ryobi, Dewalt, Makita, Milwaukee, Ridgid, etc. (Careful about Ridgid though - they do advertise lifetime warranties and all, but they also seem to discontinue old product lines and introduce new ones fairly frequently).

The nice thing about some product lines like Ryobi and DeWalt is the selection of tools you can use with the same batteries and chargers.

[mman1506]

We have a mix of Milwaukee M18 and M12 tools. While the M18 tools are great, unless we are doing tons of drilling most of the time we prefer to use the smaller M12 tools which still have tons of power. Due to their lighter weight I've found that smaller students have an easier time drilling straight holes with M12 tools.

You can usually find sets of M12 tools on sale. I would definitely recommend getting a M12 Hacksawzall. It's one of our most used tools. We use it to cut polycarb, aluminium and wood for prototyping.