Milwaukee M18 vs Dewalt 20V

[Tom469]

I got my first Milwaukee M18 ( drill & Hackzall ) kit three years ago. My Makita 12v drill, stick type battery, was forced to retirement after 15+ years, due to lack of batteries. I got it used, fixed the charger. I was looking for the Makita battery, found the Milwaukee kit on after Christmas sale....

Milwaukee, Makita, Dewalt, you can't go wrong with any of them. Make note of what the contractors, and construction guys use.

At work (27+years ) we had a dozen guys using the cordless tools 24/7. One of the first ones was Porter Cable 12v drill "Magnaquench". It was quiet, Ran for years, the chuck finally gave up. It did seem like the Craftsman batteries (nicad) didn't hold up long.

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by Tom469

Milwaukee, Makita, Dewalt, you can't go wrong with any of them. Make note of what the contractors, and construction guys use.

Another thing to look at is what brand hire companies have. The majority of tool hire companies in Australia have Makita( trade/professional line) and Bosch Blue( again the trade/professional) for both their corded and cordless hire tools.

We use Milwaukee M12( good for smaller hands and travelling with) and M18 with both Brushed and Brushless.

If the tools aren't going to be used a huge amount it could be worth looking at some of the other Tektronix "brands" such as Ryobi and AEG. In the 12V tools anyway AEG brushed is very similar to Milwaukee brushed while being significantly cheaper and more compact.
The batteries of AEG, Ryobi and Milwaukee all contain the same type of 18650 cells.

[Bob Steele]

Our team uses the Dewalt 20 series.
We have had no issue with them.... we also use the Dewalt 12 volt lithium series and in 2015 we had to assemble on the field and the Dewalt 12 volt screwdrivers worked really well to speed that up.

We used to use the old Nicad Dewalt 18 volt tools and before that the 14.4 volt Dewalts.
Whatever you do, you need to choose something and then stick with it. Having a number of different systems around only makes it confusing.

Something else that Dewalt has is an adapter to use their 20 volt batteries on the older 18 volt drills.

I have used the M12 Milwaukee system in my prop making workshop at home. For many things it works really well... extended run times or heavy work with thick aluminum is a little problematic but for foam, styrene and resin the tools work quite well ( In my other home shop, I use the Dewalt 20 volt system)

I like the versatility of the tools available for the Dewalt 20 volt system
We have angle drills, a 4" angle grinder, a VERY nice jig saw and a variety of lights and things that are very useful in the pit or on the field. They even make a USB charger unit that you use one of the 20 volt batteries for.

We have never had an issue with any Dewalts... and we, like many other teams before VEX and AM, used Dewalt transmissions for a variety of applications on our robots for competition.

I would suggest 2 drills, an angle drill, a jig saw as a start....
I also have a very nice circular saw, and "multi-tool" but that isn't really necessary for robotics work.