Corded vs Cordless Power Tools

[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.

[ASD20]

If you do get any corded tools, or anything that requires power that isn't against a wall, and you have the ceiling height for it, I highly recommend hanging a few extension cord reels. Like this (http://m.homedepot.com/p/30-ft-16-3-...-800/204379332). It is so much nicer to just have power above your head when you need it than to have to run an extension cord across your shop and have people constantly tripping on it. This is right up there with our CNC router for my favorite thing in our shop.

[GeeTwo]

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.

DeWalt has both an 18V and a 20V line of tools, which are not compatible with each other. My supposition is that 20V was created to be "different" than 18V more than "higher voltage". However they came up with the number, 3946 is happy with the results.

[BrendanB]

While the "20 volts" part might not be correct, I've been a fan of using these small Dewalt drills for personal and robotics projects.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-20...71C2/204279858

While its not used as much, a right angle drill can be really useful especially during those "crisis" moments of a last second fix or redesign late in the year when most of the robot is assembled to get into some tight spots.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-20...740B/203316372

[timytamy]

To echo what others have said, pick a brand (Ryobi/Bosch/DeWalt/Hilti/etc) and invest in their ~18V ecosystem, ie every cordless tool you buy should take the same batteries. Start with a drill and build your stock up from there.

In the event you have a tool that you'd rarely use, (eg we rarely use a circular saw) then it's OK to get a corded version. However, all other things (price/power/durability/etc) being equal, if you can get the same tool that takes the same 18V batteries as the rest of your tools, then purchase the cordless variety.

The thing you want to avoid is having multiple incompatible tools/batteries, it may seem trivial now but down the line it makes management and replacement sooo much easier.

[cbale2000]

We use battery powered Dewalt drills, but since we only have like 3 batteries and 1 charger (that works, anyways) I make sure we always bring the old corded drill we have with us to events. It's saved us on a few occasions were the other drills were either dead or not strong enough for something.

We also use a corded Dremel tool, but that's mostly just because the battery powered versions don't seem to work as good.

In theory, battery powered is the way to go, but you have to make an investment in a decent number of spare batteries and chargers to make it practical.

[InFlight]

We use cordless drills (Dewalt) only, which is usually limited to some on robot modification. Otherwise we use full size machine tools.

We also have a battery powered band saw that we bring along for our competition pits.

[marshall]

We switched from Ryobi to Makita LXT for cordless this past year. It has been a great upgrade and I'm happy we made the switch. The extended life batteries can last an entire competition without a recharge it seems so one less charger running in the pit.