Corded vs Cordless Power Tools

[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.