Hi, my team has used the harbor freight 3/16 rivet gun for some time now (This). It started failing recently and we are looking for a new, preferably electronic one in the realm of 100 dollars. Any ideas?
(also any ideas on how to escape the roibi ecosystem)
Unfortunately the only electronic ones I’m aware of are a poorly designed DeWalt one and a Milwaukee one that’s pretty good but $250. Or a couple of Makitas for a lot more than that… For that price range you’ll probably want to stick to manual or pneumatic
It’s out of your target price range but in my opinion this is the best $250 my team has spent in a long time.
Second the Milwaukee M12. I’m both in the Makita 18v LXT and Milwaukee M12 systems and first went looking for a Makita - for some reason, it sells for around $1,000 (yes, you read that correctly, $1,000 as in 900 Euros or 150,000 Yen - that better be one heck of a rivet tool).
There are Makita clones on eBay for something like $60 (*yes, $60) - I bought one to mess with and I’ve done maybe 100 rivets or so with that and it hasn’t exploded yet. I opened it up and the construction seemed pretty typical; some machined, some MIM parts - about what I’d expect.
I bought the Milwaukee as well and it’s a super solid tool - really my go to now.
So $100 is not really going to get you into the game but it’s not that much more for quality.
Another vote for the Milwaukee M12 Rivet Tool. If you do much riveting, you just need to find something else in the budget to not buy in order to afford this. It doesn’t usually go on sale, but Black Friday is coming up.
If you aren’t willing to move on budget, you are willing to take a manual riveter to competition, but want a power tool at the shop, you could get a pneumatic rivet gun if you have a compressor at the shop. You’d have a hose dragging around the floor, but it would cost less and work well.
It’s so hard to go back - even from air powered but especially from the Milwaukee 
What does “escape” mean? Are you looking for another brand of tools (likely cordless tools) to standardize on? Milwaukee M12 has quite a selection of lighter-duty tools that work well for many robotics needs and are compact for transport.
If this gun is taking too many pulls, it probably needs to be primed. The instructions will show how to add hydraulic fluid. We had the same issue and bought another gun before realizing this.
Also +1 for the m12 gun, way more convenient.
I mean we are stuck in the roibi battery system and we are hesitant to spend the money to get out of the ecosystem. Just wondering if anybody had any ideas?
I’m not aware of any line of cordless tools that works with another manufacturer’s batteries. Lack of interoperability is the foundation of the design.
There are adapters that might work with specific tool/battery combinations. Here is one for using Ryobi batteries on DeWalt tools. This doesn’t look like a great solution to me, but I’ve never seen anything better.
Rivet gun so nice we bought it twice
The 6 inch extension is very nice to have as well
I can confirm that the Makita riveter is OMG well built and works like a champ! I bought four carcasses and assembled them into two working riveters with a bunch of repair parts. FAR far cheaper than buying them at $1k each! The Makita has a crazy beautiful ball screw assembly in it that pulls the rivet. Of course I can’t find any pictures of the insides of the darn thing 
Here’s the Makita and the clone pulling 3/16" rivets.
I can confirm the eBay “clone” (it’s not really a clone but something that takes the LXT 18v batteries and is molded in near Makita “teal”) does not have a ball screw in it.
Clearly the Makita is built for the long haul.
What makes you say the DeWalt one is poorly designed?
Absolutely love this thing. We’ve used every rivet tool under the sun, from manual, to pneumatic, and even drill powered, but since we got our M12, we only occasionally use a manual riveter to get in particularly tight spots, we basically don’t even pack the other tools anymore.
I’m also curious we have both the DeWalt and Milwaukee one and haven’t had issues with either
You do know Ryobi is the entry level Milwaukee tools, right?
They are made by the same company just to hit different price points. Similar to how Black & Decker and DeWalt are the same.
Also we have the Milwaukee M12 rivet tool because it works best for the job we need it for. The M18 is too expensive for us but goes up to 1/4 inch. When we need to do large rivets we go pneumatic and have a Harbor freight tool for that that was like $50
We primarily use DeWalt 20V because the price point and quality is right for team use.
Is there any battery compatibility?
This is only partially true, while they are owned by the same parent company Ryobi tools are made by Ryobi and Milwaukee is made by Milwaukee. Different engineers, designs, tooling, buildings, test requirements, etc. You unfortunately cannot use batteries interchangeably.
Paging @scubadiv3r for her input on battery safety.
This also works! yeehaw