Are cordless tools just a meme to get people to buy expensive batteries or are they legitimately the future of power tools?
Are cordless tools just a meme to get people to buy expensive batteries or are they legitimately the future of power tools?
Are cordless tools just a meme to get people to buy expensive batteries or are they legitimately the future of power tools?
yes
but they're not the 'future' for power tools. they've been the 'now' for 15 years, only people that don't actually need them use cords, because it's cheaper and you can live with it if you use it once a year. for people that make a living, there are no cords and have not been for 15 years.
Cordless skill saws or table saws are junk
Yeah, I have a few battery circ saws now… absolute crap. Plus some of them have strange arbor sizes and the blade is like 5 11/64 ths or some shit and they stopped making the blades. It has a crazy thin kerf though, helps to cut thru plywood if you slather it with something battery-likkers have a lot of: KY jelly.
Any old guys here who can tell us what it was like before cordless power tools?
I'm imagining job sites were littered with tangled up extension cords all over the place.
> was life terrible in the corded days?
No. look, cord management is a skill, like anything else.
when nixon reduced the national speed limit down to 55, sure, initially accidents reduced. that's because everyone had the skill to drive at 65. Accidents soon went back up, since everyone lost that skill.
Nobody talked about cord management because everyone just did it, and, in fact we'd share resources and extension outlets.
if you accidentally left a tool somewhere, there was a chance it would still be there in the morning.
we didn't have battery anxiety... i never had to use my drill as a manual screwdriver cause it had just enough juice left in the battery to seize the chuck while i was 50 feet into a crawlspace.
today, of course, those skills are probably in short supply since newer gen people were only exposed to battery tools at home.
telephones had cords too! Gasp! we still created the Internet and went to the moon.
Battery anxiety?
They have these things called chargers, grandpa.
I can't use battery chargers... they have cords. I just can't deal with something like that inconvienience.
It must be a real mess of wires everywhere with everyone on the site plugging into chargers. what a nightmare.
I will put off a job forever if i have to go find the cordless tool, find its battery, put it in the charger, wait for it to charge, come back, and it's fast blinking red, find another battery pack... no wait that's in the pickup, it's -30 out....
>multiple 50 ft+ extension cords running all over the jobsite vs 3 feet of cord plugged into a charger
Listen gramps, I know this might be a foreign concept for you, but there is no waiting.
Plug in dead battery, grab charged battery off the charger. If you can't find your tools or batteries because you're a disorganized Black person who left them scattered all over, that's on you.
Those sound perfect. Modern extension cords are always a rat's nest no matter how careful you are with them.
>went to the moon
You had me until that last part.
most flexible pvc cords are borne from hell shit nowadays, they get rolled up and zip tied in the box and never forget that abuse at the factory. they get hard in the winter etc.
i have a box of NOS Siemens power cords made from natural rubber, the earth is colored red instead of yellow/green so they were made in the 60s, they are still flexible, coil up to a perfect circle almost alone. are not porous or stiff.
i even have a extension cord stamped 1944 and its not brittle yet, idk if they used some plasticizer that's banned now but the shit is great
i put a 60yo cord on all tools i use often and that have a shitty cord.
> lol, what is this "ground" you speak of?
I'm 50, and I have tools from my grandfather, and the cords are still fine - they were made of neoprene.
PVC is crap... but in the northern winters you can use those cords as a stick to cane the lazy millenials
>lol, what is this "ground" you speak of?
in Germany tools were always grounded, or double insulated. even 60 years ago.
the sockets however were "zeroed".
the wires had no ground wire, and inside the socket the neutral and earth was bridged.
this protects like a ground, till the combined PEN breaks somewhere, then all appliances will become live on the outside.
ok boomer
back then job sites were full of cords and white people
now its full of batteries and beaners
take your pick
The convenience just out weighs just every other consideration. On top of that cordless tools are often just as competitive as corded tools for home users.
>convenience
I want to use my drill!
*battery died*
I will use my drill in thirty minutes for ten minutes.
it's not 1993 anymore
>it's not 1993 anymore
Unless you're leaving your battery packs trickling in the charger, it's always 1993.
skill/intelligence/workmanship issue
Nah. Try using a cordless drill made in the last 15-20 years.
Brand name lithium packs will hold a charge for years, like 10%-20% discharge after 2-3 years.
They also charge in like 5 minutes, anon is a moron
As someone who uses M12 rachets daily. It takes mere months to almost completely frick the batteries, you start to get power reduction after just a week or two.
IDK if the brushed non-fuel version is harsher on batts but I've definitely been turned off of any 12V tools. Maybe 18V is better
I wish Bosch would release a 12v ratchet. Other Bosch 12v tools like the Chameleon are great for installation and cabinets.
Are you buying knockoff ebay batteries?
As somebody who uses Ridgid 12V tools, they still run well and maybe life is down slightly after ~5yrs of weekend use.
These are actual milwaukee batteries, mix of CP 1.5 and 2.0s.
Each battery gets charged atleast twice a day or more depending on workload. I know that's very heavy use but I just expected a little better.
The rachets themselves don't fair much better, been at my job for 5 months and have witnessed 3 dead rachets, the electronics always seem to give out, never had a motor go up in smoke so probably crib deaths.
I know they had problems on the Gen 1 ratchets, that’s why the Fuel head is like double the size.
A week or two on power reduction still sounds a but exaggerated. Cycling them twice a day, I would understand if you start to get some decline after 6mos since you’re at hundreds of cycles already.
Also there’s a reason those 3-cell packs don’t have the same warranty as the 5+ cell packs. Running stuff like the hackzall on 3 cells insulated in the handle isn’t the easiest on batteries.
>A week or two on power reduction still sounds a but exaggerated
It's not.
The company often outright buys entire kits anytime a rachet goes and often comes with a CP 1.5 and when those batts are new they will strip bolts and almost take the tool out of your hand if you limp wrist it. After a few weeks that stops happening.
Probably isn't helped that even the "slow" default M12 charger gives CP 1.5 and CP 2.0 a 2C and 1.5C charge rate respectively which is high.
exactly, enough to get a good review from, say, the torque test channel on a new tool, but then immediately slumps in performance.
Is it surprising they've optimized initial performance over long term performance? It's what a significant part of the company does. Average joe blames himself or his memory and goes out to buy another one.
I've seen mfg. even go so far as to substitute different lower quality parts on subsequent runs of the exact same model no. after the initial reviews are in.
Afaik all lithium batteries are like that
They work really really well when freshly manufacturered till settling in closer rated capacity and C rating.
The frick up thing is people who do tool reviews don't actually use them much or they are reviewed when brand new so everything looks really impressive on first glance.
Stuff should be reviewed after a year of real trade use but if you actually had shit to do you wouldn't have time to do it YT video much less actual testing.
DeWalt and Craftsman both make 20v tools and batteries now. Those are going to be just a bit better, as it's probably using newer technology, these came out after all the 18v tool lines.
18v and 20v are the same thing. An 18 volt battery is actually at 20 when fully charged and discharges to as low as ~17 volts. The whole 20 volt thing is a marketing meme.
> implying 18 and 20 are the same
c'mon .... I seriously doubt that the government would let them get away with something like that. I assume they are different standards, one has an extra cell or uses a different chemistry. Remember ni cad?
He's right, dewalt aren't lying, just being deceptive with marketing. Notice how its 20v MAX, 18v is closer to the actual working voltage most of the time. Several companies do this because people see bigger number, which means more better.
I could be mis-remembering, but I'm pretty sure dewalt 20v MAX and makita 18v both have the exact same number of samsung 18650 cells inside them.
> "need a new car battery"
> service center gives him a 12v battery
> "no, I want one of those 'new' 13.7v batteries"
Actually the Yuro DeWalt is marketed as 18V, I’m guessing they don’t let them get away with the marketing wank over there.
There’s a couple odd things, like they call it “20V MAX” because it’s max voltage instead of nominal voltage. Also sometimes you will see the same parent brand market stuff as “20V” and “18 Volt”, but you won’t see them market 5x 18650 pack tools as “20 Volt”.
In all fairness, I think DeWalt needed to convince dumb boomers that the new 20V Max was better than the old 18V XRP, and so the dumb boomers could tell the difference between two 18 volt packs.
Anon, you’re so far off that I don’t have the energy or time to explain it all to you.
> "20V MAX" in u.s.a. only
I guess thats what "assembled in USA from global materials" means - they ship the tool from chiwanland and put the fraudulant sticker on.
(and the sticker that says that californians will get cancer from it)
I think some of the non-Burger 12V tools might be labeled 10.8V or something as well
Back in the day, tools would state what the actual voltage was, instead of companies spending all their time scheming. You can still see vestages of reputability in 3.6v hand held cordless screw drivers advertised as 3.6v.
i build and replace engines and transmissions with 12 volt milwaukee and my hex impact driver goes for 3-4 full work days on a single 3.0 amp hour battery. and if you were doing work for money you'd have an extra battery you'd swap off the charger.
^This. The US is full of hobby and pro mechanics who work at all levels. Battery cost is trivial. Tool cost is trivial for what they do. I have decades professional experience besides what I do for fun, and own plenty of corded, cordless and pneumatic tools. I use corded tools in-shop as my drills and of course angle grinders are more powerful but those are for sustained use on larger work.
While I use corded grinders in-shop for quick cutoff work I grab a cordless with a 6" thin kerf cutting disk.
For mechanic work the corded and pneumatic tools are mostly ignored. I hunt LS drivetrains and much else from salvage yards and can cut the front end off a pickup truck including both frame rails on one recip saw battery and have power to spare. My cordless impacts make short work of bolts and screws. I just bought a 60V DeWalt recip saw for even faster harvesting. Many professional and hobby mechanics get great use out of quarter inch drive cordless tools removing interior parts.
In-shop pneumatic tools are annoying because one must drag hose to use them and unlike electric tools pneumatics lack full torque at zero RPM and are easily affected by line pressure drop.
Get an adapter while the battery charges then?
You really had to chug the dumb frick juice to turn this opinion out, eh?
If it's a circular saw he's still right even with modern lithium.
Kinda obvious that you should keep using the big power-hungry tools in corded form.
Only clueless fricktards would use 100% of just one type
I mean I'm hearing a lot of fricktards in here if that's the case.
Yeah most people here seem to think that only extreme points of view can exist
Actually drills and screw guns are the only ones that don't die super quickly, because their overall power requirements are pretty low.
Say you were talking about a jigsaw or a die grinder or a sawzall or a circular saw, this is pretty accurate.
my exact experience using ryobi tools
what do you do while it's charging? Have a beer!
when finished charging, no longer feel like working for some reason.
That's why you have a multi-charger with a number of batteries on it, so the only downtime you actually have is the 30 seconds it takes to swap out the battery.
One battery in the tool, one on the charger.
I'm almost completely cordless now. It's great to just pull out my tools and go to work, and not have to worry about running extension cords, a spider box, or a generator.
for most tools cordless is the way to go, but i wouldnt give up my corded skilsaw worm drive, hilti rotary hammer, or fein multi-tool just for the nebulous benefit of portability
For me it kinda depends on which tool in which context but not having to bother with extension cords is pretty nice
This.
And this
And this
The cordless options are better than the corded versions for many tools, and not having to deal with cords is a huge luxury. It’s 2023, pretty much any corded tool that is <10A and isn’t constant use for hours on end, you’re likely better off with the cordless version.
Shit like 10”+ saws though, you might still think about the corded version unless you really need the portability, there’s still a couple high demand tools where you will be trading power for convenience on the 18V versions.
From what I can tell, my MemeWalt miter saw has the exact same motor as it's corded counterpart, and it cuts exactly the same on battery as it does with the cord add-on installed. It runs for a long time on the batteries.
Really? That’s funny.
Cordless circ saws were one of those thing where corded was a better choice for most DIYers up until like 10 years ago. You pretty much had to stay with a compact (<7”) circ saw with NiCd packs and early small 5 cell lithium packs, but now with brushless motors and 10+ 18650s or good 21700 cell packs, the newer cordless 7-1/4” circular saws are just as good in performance as corded versions.
The 18V table saws and miter saws, I’m not sure though. You can probably get like 75% of the way there, but I don’t think you can abuse an 18V table saw the same way you could a 15A corded version. I had the option to snag an 18V 10” miter saw for the same price as the corded version, but I went with the 15A corded version so I can do stupid shit with a dull blade. The miter saw is 100% stationary so I’m good with an extension cord for now.
I should clarify that one of the reasons it makes sense that it would have the same motor is because it takes two of their 60 volt batteries.
I mean, having actually used both to frame houses I can tell you you're full of shit. That saw you picked is actually a particularly bad example as well, and is mostly used by like electricians who need to do tiny framing jobs to enable wiring.
Fricking import these worm drives to australia already. I hate the side mount shit.
There’s a Ridgid rear handle 18V now as well so maybe you goys have it under AEG.
Somebody said the rear handles aren’t worm drive though, just the different ergonomics.
my dad got me that saw for christmas and i fricking love it
I do semi-regular work around the house, and I did go out and buy a corded circular saw, a corded hand router, and a corded orbital sander because for any larger tasks it was annoying how often I needed to switch out the battery.
Yes.
Yes. It's about product line lockin.
How long can you run a circular saw or a jigsaw from a major tool maker on batteries before it dies?
Quite a bit. Run a circular saw on a regular 4.0Ah pack and you should be able to make like 100 cuts of 2x4s. You’re only running the blade for a couple seconds at a time.
>running the blade
Starting the blade is the killer.
Yeah because that's all circular saws and jigsaws are used for. Short ideal cuts that end before the battery heats up and starts using exponentially more power.
If you are going to cut sheets of material they are dog shit, and you will hate yourself for buying one. They have less torque so they can't overcome braking from a slit pinching, they are heavier, and the battery life is NOT good for anything but cutting sticks. Any circular saw with meaningful power to it is going to take 2 80-120$ batteries at the same time, and you will still be pissed at how quickly it dies.
If you're doing a ton of short cuts, like cutting studs to length, you should be using a miter/chop saw, it's faster an more accurate. My circular saw is mainly used for ripping sheet goods, notching posts, and things like that where a battery saw doesn't really last very long.
I think a skilled construction worker is quicker with a circular saw vs setting up a miter saw. Most sites I see Miter saws are reserved for Mouldings.
Maybe in a shop, but on a large job site you could end up dragging everything to your chop saw and the dragging it all back to where it's needed instead of just cutting it on the spot
>Run a circular saw on a regular 4.0Ah pack and you should be able to make like 100 cuts of 2x4s.
in your fricking dreams lmao, i dont think you've ever cut anything with your cordless saw
Was using the piece of shit Ryobi babby saw today for a few OSB cuts.
Never said you’re going to rip 100 sheets of plywood on one charge
you cant do either with a 4.0ah battery, thats bullshit and you know it
>thats bullshit and you know it
No he doesnt, he has no fricking clue about any of it.
See
I’m still amazed how much I can tear down with a brushless sawzall and 4.0Ah battery compared to the same job with DeWalt NiCd batteries.
If you want. Depends what you’re doing. I bought a corded one like a year ago because the Craftsman was like $50 and the cordless one was $150 for a bare tool. When I use the jigsaw, I’m notmally set up with sawhorses and stuff and it’s a tool I use once every 6 months, so dragging another extension cord out and working around it isn’t that bad. A good cordless one won’t be down on power over a corded version, and runtime should be fine for afternoon projects.
You know that tons or cordless drille, especially hammer drills, come with handles. And they sell cordless SDS drills and most of them have the same design. In fact, tons of the new cordless SDS’s are a better design with a bunch of bulk below the chuck so the tool is only like half as long the one in your pic.
Haven’t gone cordless sander yet, but I really want to one of these days for quick touch up stuff.
You put the equation in there, you know there’s more than just voltage, and good lithium cells put out a lot of current when necessary. Milwaukee claims their big HO packs put out more power than 15A circuits, why don’t you buy a 12.0Ah pack and start shorting it out to find out if they’re telling the truth?
when i wrote 120V * 15A i had to stop myself from mentioning that tons of 120V garage plugs are on 20A circuits
nevermind that, in terms of designing new corded tools to compete with crazy expensive HO batteries, there's always 240V 30-50A dryer outlets if you want to talk high output. in terms of cost buying a HO battery is at least on the level of buying a 10 gauge wire to run from the laundry room, if not worse
but nevermind all that dreaming, the entire point is that the shit state of corded tools is artificial: unless you have a Tesla battery rigged up, most people already have plugs that will outdo any future iteration of cordless tool batteries (dryer) and certainly any home gamer DIY mid-tier battery (any wall plug), it's just that no one wants to be on the cutting edge of corded tool design because
1) it's a cash cow selling batteries
and 2) corded tools are inherently DIY/inside-the-shop-only, not contractor tier since they're mobile
and everyone wants to be the guy selling to some contractor with too much money
>20A circuits
Kneegrow, do you know what a 120V 20A plug looks like? There’s no consoomer stuff rated for >15A. The only time I have seen a 120V 20A plug used in recent memory was for frickin hand dryers in commercial bathrooms.
So the most powerful corded tools aside from compressors and welders and shit are 15A, and the majority of tools are <10A, especially when you’re talking about handheld stuff where you want mobility. It’s not 1998 anymore. My outdated iPhone is more powerful than your Compaq PC. Batteries wouldn’t be such a cash cow if the tools were so shitty.
my brother we are saying the same thing
motors in corded tools are gimpy brushed shitters, so they don't draw anything like the 15A the wall supplies, i'm saying as a power source for potential future tool design, the wall plug is way better. but it'll never get the chance to truly compete because of the way things are. no one puts effort into making corded tools competitive because regardless of their potential (if you replace the shit tool with a good one, good proper motor, etc.) they wouldn't make as much money even if they sold as many units
Wow it's almost like few tools can actually make good use of the ~1500W you can get out of a NA wall outlet, and the few that CAN make use of it are usually already corded.
Seriously, you don't have a good point. Have you ever actually even used any halfway decent brushless tools? My Ryobi hammer drill will near break your wrist if it grabs, IN HIGH GEAR. Nobody's using 1500W palm sander, oscillating tool, impact driver, air ratchet, or saber saw. That's even before getting into the more esoteric stuff, like the glue guns, caulk guns, work lights, rotary tools, hand vacs, or whatever. And a fricking dryer outlet? Really? What the shit am I going to do with a 10kW hedge trimmer?
The performance of tools like these isn't limited by the battery. It doesn't matter how much "better" an outlet is as a power source if the tool itself can't make use of it.
in corded tools are gimpy brushed shitters
Because the wall is AC power, and it's way cheaper to add more power to a corded tool by upsizing the motor than it is by throwing in a bunch of expensive electronics and a BLDC motor. You're also ignorant as hell if you think "corded tools will never get the chance to compete", when all you're looking at is bargain-bin crap from Walmart. There are plenty of well-made corded tools. Every major manufacturer has a decent corded version of most cordless tools. I don't know why you think they fact that they use universal motors somehow means every aspect of their design is bad, when using any other kind of motor makes the thing more expensive for no actual benefit.
>do you know what a 120V 20A plug looks like
yep
>There’s no consoomer stuff rated for >15A
wrong
the UPS for my computer has a 20A plug
I’m sure it’s a UPS off the shelf at Best Buy, right? Comes in a plastic clamshell off one of those pegboard hooks? Regular consoomer stuff the Average Steve would buy?
>and everyone wants to be the guy selling to some contractor with too much money
Contractors spend money on tools to save much more money on labor. Stupid contractors go out of business.
They work well for some tools but not so much others, if you're working up ladders or confined areas they're great but if you need actual heavy grunt for long periods then they probably aren't a good choice, horses for courses and all that.
lmao show me a cordless hammer drill
nobody is saying you should go cordless for the sake of it.
if it requires an absolute ton of juice yeah, it needs a cord. 9 inch angle grinders are an example. but anything you can comfortable hold with one hand should be battery.
>cordless hammer drill
https://www.dewalt.com/product/dch773y2/60v-max-2-brushless-cordless-sds-max-combination-rotary-hammer-kit
Ummm pretty much every brand has cordless SDS type drills.
The cool thing about modern lithium ion powered tools is that you can easily swap batteries. Many kits come with 2, 3, or even 4 batteries to start! So when you’ve done 2-3 hours of heavy work and the first battery is gettin low, you can swap it out for a second battery, and proceed to stick the first battery on the charger and it will be at 4 bars before your lunch break!
Batteries on rotation and chargers in multiple places ensure I always have a few ready at all times.
Range anxiety only applies to EV drivers at this point
There are a shitload of them. They're so viable even Harbor Freight get good ratings for theirs.
Why do you have opinions on subject you know nothing about?
there not for removing tiles 7 hours straight that's when you use the corded hilti te72 from 1980.
but when you get a call to hang or reattach something, to mount a shelf a a cordless is just gold, not having to search an outlet and run 2 cable reels through half the building.
Hammer drills are easy. Try a cordless jackhammer.
I'm a legit milwaukee simp, but considering how fast their m18 weedwacker sucks down a battery. I wouldn't trust this thing to function for even half an hour on a single battery. impact power is probably good though.
The weedwhacker, specifically, is just fricking awful for that yeah — but assuming you have the quick-lol version, the articulating hedge trimmer is INCREDIBLE and I use it for most things I would otherwise use a weedwhacker for — set the head right and you can sweep back and forth to cut grass, etc. Also good for brush clearing.
Half an hour on a weed whacker is totally fine for most residential yards. I have no problem with a 4.0 battery on the 15” brushless Ryobi trimmer. Most people are using the thing to trim along trees and fences, not clearing brush from a huge field. That being said, something like a 6.0-8.0 has to run nearly as long as the little tank of 2 stroke in a typical gas trimmer.
cordless trimmers are too weak for more than a thin line of grass
not even 10 minutes full speed the battery is drained and got hot. Battery will not be as good as it was 2 weeks ago
corded electric trimmers have balls and the brushes can be replaced with standard size 10 pack of brushes
you have a ball-less troony tool
it can barely make it half way around the cabbage patch
>yesterday was Sunday
>there are no cabbages it is February and it could be snowing in April so no new Sunday cabbages will be consumed until June
No my DeWalt. I leave my excellent gasser Shindaiwa hanging on the wall. Haven't used it in many years.
Don't buy shit tools then generalize about the other sort.
ngl I have a brush saw permanently attached to it and swing it around like a scythe so it cuts shrubbery & branches too, although I have to put some inertia into it, it gets the job done. my jobs for it aren't usually that big tho. if I had to do this frequently or for a living I would just buy a 2 stroke weed wacker. I need like ALL of my batteries fully charged to even get my yard done tho. frickin poor little guys are hot and blinking by the end of it
I will look into the trimmer attachment tho
I would say, Satan, that a more effective way to put a camel through a needle is to use pressure. Use a pressurized chamber up to say 50 bar, then poke a hole and hold the eye of a needle over it.
Like a crab into a pipeline.
i can never tell if the battery is fully juiced out or if it's just in thermal protection cutoff. Once had a 5Ah cut out on me after literally ten minutes of whackin, absolutely pathetic. Again though, that same 5Ah will go for like an hour of using the articulating trimmer.
Its cordless
Suck it, plebs
I’ve got a cord for ya right here (my penis, erect)
My condolences
if you think needing to worry about batteries is going to be a huge issue you probably only use a power tool once every 5 years. if you have any experience at all the answer is obvious.
In almost every case EXCEPT picrel, cordless is a major upgrade. Even the best cordless circular saws do not have enough of a life to do more than spot work. Cutting sheets of plywood for example puts a ton of braking force on the blade and will absolutely kill battery life in minutes on even the big double battery Makita worm drives. If you're an electrician using an auger bit to drill the runs in studs you run into a similar problem. We had premium battery tools and we left them on the truck much of the time. However all our screw guns and hand drills were battery operated compact varieties and lasted days in constant use.
Depends on the tool and how you use it, with one or two exceptions: There's almost no reason to use a corded drill or driver anymore. They don't need much power, and even a small-ish battery will usually last an entire project or more. Additionally, drills/drivers find a lot of use in odd jobs all over the place, and the portability factor really helps here. They've also gotten so cheap that there isn't even much cost savings to be had over the corded versions.
For everything else, it's an individual judgement call. As an example, I get some good mileage out of my cordless circular saw. I use it pretty frequently, but not for hours at once. Someone who almost never needs one will never really get much use out of the convenience of a cordless saw. On the other end, there's no need for the portability on some production job where three people are regularly taking turns going through hundreds or thousands of board feet of lumber in the same spot.
The stuff that's normally stationary is absolutely a meme for 90% of people who buy them, I think The miter saw, assuming you don't already just have it permanently installed on a dedicated table, is getting put in one spot at the start of the day/project and isn't going anywhere until it's put away. Same for the table saw, even if it's a contractor's saw with wheels and folding base. Until battery tech gets both way better and way cheaper, I don't see much value in those.
>Cutting sheets of plywood for example puts a ton of braking force on the blade and will absolutely kill battery life in minutes
I don't know where people are getting this. I just made a compartmentalized work desk and some shelving that ate through three sheets of 3/4" melamine and five pieces of hardboard. I have the 7 1/4" Ryobi brushless saw. I only had to change the 6Ah battery once. If I remember right, it didn't even start at full charge in the first place.
>miter saw
My battery miter saw is the best thing ever. I can grab it and haul it anywhere on the property. I don't have to drag cords across the yard or take a generator with me when I'm working on something across the field. I can throw it in my truck and take it to a friend's, and be immediately productive. It has a corded adapter, but I've never used it. There's been no need.
Youve literally never done this anon
I do it all the time. I've built several sheds and a barn completely cordless. I throw it in the back of my truck and go help out friends all the time. Go back to your corded dilator and seethe.
Youve literally never done this anon.
Not him, but building a shed with totally cordless is incredibly easy and doable. Obviously a barn would take a lot longer and you'd need to recharge. Just don't buy meme tier homeowner shit like ryobi and a 3aH battery and expect it to last. You buy professional brands and professional size batteries, you get professional results. Use at least a 6 for a circular saw, I only use the 5s for my impact. I never buy anything less than a 5
The little battery packs have their place. I love 2.0s in impact drivers assuming I’m not building a big dock but rather repairing a section of said dock. Not really worth running a saw with anything smaller than a 3.0Ah most of the time, although the hackzall with a 2.0 isn’t bad for light pruning duty and it doesn’t need the extra power for 1”-2” branches.
Pic related is you.
i do my work in the shop so i dont care about cords. Only use a battery drill and impact regular
Cordless angle grinder suck ass, they are the leatherman of angle grinder
>There's almost no reason to use a corded drill or driver anymore
Ergonomy is a pretty big reason when drilling in metal.
The pistol shape that all cordless drills have is shit if you need to push really hard. A good drill is designed with that in mind, has a groove collinear with the chuck while you press the trigger with your pinky
I'd also put grinders on the edge. Cordless is fine when you need to remove burrs or cut a few struts/pipes.
But when you are taking long cuts, the battery just die to fast.
And cords are less of a problem in such case as you usually are doing shit to prep for welding. So power is already ran
I love my battery grinder, it's so handy for use on the farm
High material removal tools are simply not there yet in terms of battery life. I have used the most modern ones and that is just a fact, the only exceptions to this have 2 lb of battery attached to them and those batteries cost almost as much as the tool. They are much less comfortable to use, and basically exist so that a contractor can do light pickup work without having to pull out a generator.
There is nothing I hate more than battery powered shit
Ok boomer
Batteries belong at the bottom of water bodies, nowhere else, cope zoom zoom
I’m attaching stiff arms on a 200’ run of staging every 10’ because it’s winter. the staging goes up 48’. I should just run a shit ton of cords to power my drill and impact wrench right. Instead of just using cordless tools I should work like an butthole
How nice. In what professional capacity do you use electric tools and for what task(s)?
We always enjoy hearing from experienced knowledgeable users.
what about a jigsaw? battery ok?
corded will literally always have more power (120V * 15A = 1800 W of shit smearing fun, frick 24V batteries) but manufacturers intentionally nerf corded motors. most corded tools have shitty brushed motors from 20 years ago, if they used equivalently good motors to their cordless lines, they'd lose so much money on battery sales
solution: buy tool-only cordless and redneck rig them to run off a cheap amazon transformer
Battery tools can get up around 50 amps.
That’s why voltages went up… from 9.6 to 12 then 18… ad nauseam… — thinner wires, less copper, and cheaper to make.
That’s the reason those little impact tools became so popular, more apparent power in exchange for slower driving, since the motors are underpowered. Of course home gamers won’t care/know.
The problem with the transformer (switching or otherwise) idea is you have to have it close to your tool, otherwise you’re looking at a 8 awg cord which is going to be massive and inconvenient.
It's simple really. Batteries are hard to compete with if you work out of your truck. For truly off-grid applications, batteries are actually cheaper once inverter/generator costs are considered.
For home use, I am always corded with the exception of drills and impact guns. I don't want to have 3 brands of battery and charger just so I can get the best engineering offered in each category of tool.
If these companies ever standardized or open-sourced all their batteries, I would have no argument for corded use, besides maybe long-term storage. Obviously that will never happen.
> battery tools good working out of truck
If you have an engine powered miller welder in your truck, that puts out like 20 kW. Battery powered welder would last like 30 seconds.
Maybe when you get a cybertuck.
Your alternator (that you already have) probably puts out 100 A at over 12 v, so DIY an adapter.
I don’t want to give them any ideas, but we’ll probably see battery powered battery chargers soon.
>I don’t want to give them any ideas, but we’ll probably see battery powered battery chargers soon.
you mean a jackery?
> wtf is a jackery?
It looks like a $1000 emergency car starter that can’t start a car.
Maybe we should stop wiring houses for AC and just carry a jackery around from room to room. We can get it charged at the government charging station if our social credit score is high enough.
Whats stopping manufacturers selling cordless tools where the clippy inny bit for the battery can be clipped onto a cable with a rectifier for use in corded mode from mains? Seems like that'd get you the best of both worlds
Nothing (but the MBAs that infiltrated power tool companies).
Hitachi made a dual power contractor saw. It not a popular option because they squeeze more money out of know-nothings that get moist about “going to 40v” on the battery scam cycle.
Just my 2 cents, carpenter almost 20 years and have switched over to nearly all cordless. The tech is there, batteries last a while, and especially with Makita x2 battery tools, it's like corded power. BUT I long for the old days of corded tools simply because you didn't have to carry 14 batteries, the cordless tools are more fragile than corded, and I've had more problems with the computers/chips in the brushless tools compared to the old brushed cordless. But I do a lot of 1 or 2 day jobs or couple weeks worth, and not having to worry about cords and tripping breakers is wonderful, makes me speedier, but if you have power or diy, if totally go corded. Right now I'm cutting trim panels for IKEA cabinets for an office, and I don't need one cord it a room to cut, just took 2 parking spaces.
I have a question on the topic. I have a bosh 12v battery drill and it came with 2 batteries. Naturally, the prices on these batteries are a rip off so I wanted to buy generic Chinese battery packs. I asked if they will work with Bosch but the manager said they will only work with their name brand but not with Bosch.
I still bought 4 of them for a Chinese 12v angle grinder, but when original Bosch batteries bottomed up I tried using generic batteries on Bosch drill and they worked just fine. Are there any downsides to using them? Could they catch on fire or something? If not, why are brands selling their own packs when I can use generic Chinesium for half the price?
Btw 12v angle grinder is very handy stuff, but eats through batteries like it’s nothing. I’m not stealing bikes.
The knockoff batteries are hit or miss. Of course Bosch tells you that you need to buy their name brand $$$ packs.
Downsides are going to be shitty quality, there’s a 100% chance the cells in the Chinese packs are going to be worse. Less capacity than they say, they won’t last as long as the originals, likely won’t put out as much power under heavy use, and could be a fire hazard.
They could be 90% as good as the originals, could be 60%, or they could die the second time you use them. It’s the gamble you take on Chinesium.
> a 100% chance the cells in the Chinese packs are going to be worse.
Considering all these packs come from China, you can't really shit on China for their quality. It's whether you are using the Chinese batteries that passed QC, or the knockoffs that are made using the batteries that failed.
With Amazon's ridiculous return policies, you can order batteries, put them through a few cycles and then return them if they are crap.
Whenever you have any kind of electrical setup more complicated than a battery and a resistor you need to have a regulator somewhere in the system to prevent the device from drawing too much power and spontaneously combusting. In the case of cordless tools you don't know if the current limiter is a part of the battery or the tool and what standard it's using as it varies by manufacturer. In the worst case you pair a tool that is not regulated at all and a battery that is not regulated at all and something explodes when you push it too far. Then again you could have also lucked out happen to have a tool that contains all of the regulation circuitry and a battery with none. Without doing a lot of research on what you're buying it's difficult to determine what you've got.
>Then again you could have also lucked out happen to have a tool that contains all of the regulation circuitry and a battery with none
If present, the BMS (battery management system) resides with the battery. Period. There may be additional bullshit on the tool that communicates with the BMS (99% of the time, it only does this to force you to use first-party batteries), but it won't be specifically for the battery's protection. Something like stall detection might sort of do that a secondary effect, but concern for the battery wasn't why it was implemented to begin with.
I don't know if Bosch, specifically, has tools that verify the batteries connected to them, but I know some manufacturers are doing things to that effect. Milwaukee's security lockout crap comes to mind. Currently, I don't thing most major manufacturers have tools that check the "main style" of battery, though. Reason being, the older batteries don't have that capability, which would make them incompatible with newer tools. Manufacturers don't want to annoy the portion of their customer base that has older batteries, so the tools will still run with nothing more than voltage present at the +/- terminals. It doesn't even have to be a battery, necessarily.
They'll definitely at least try to force the issue eventually, though. I guarantee it.
I use cordless for things I need a lot of mobility for, things I need to lug up and down a ladder a bunch, or things I need to use all around the job site. Things like drills, nail guns, or demolition saws. For things I use mostly in one area, like a circular saw, or a jig saw, or a belt sander, I use corded.
It's perfectly safe.
Both. The annoying part is that batteries are proprietary when the tech and internals are pretty much the same between brands so you get roped into a brand. Corded tools you could mix and match as you please.
I'm a Milwaukee prostitute but you can get adapters to put almost any battery on almost any tool. Yellow tools make my eyes twitch, so I can't do that in my house, but it's possible.
Just gotta be careful with those since they don't have all the proprietary chips they can end up breaking your battery
They ushered in the era of stolen catalytic converters.
I will put off a task forever if i have to roll out the extension cord. I just got a Milwaukee m18 sawzall and cleaned up most of my yard. Every single little branch just went into bite size pieces directly into a fire.
Could i have done that with my gas chainsaw, corded sawzall, or a handsaw? of course. Would i have? frick no.
it's convenience, and it's worth it.
For automotive, my Milwaukee m18 impact gun is a lifesaver, and the little m12 ratchet is amazing. I haven't powered up my compressor for air tools in a year.
Future? Yes
Now? Entirely depends on the job. If you're gonna be walking miles then cordless is almost always better. High power jobs tend to need cords though. Nail guns especially
Let me derail the thread for a moment.
I have a Dyson V8 which shows no signs of dying and I believe it will easily last for 5+ years at least.
Its battery, on the other hand, is dead. Today was its last day, RIP.
I have two options:
- Buy a replacement battery. Convenient, easy solution.
- Buy an adapter + Makita battery instead. Adds some bulk, costs $20 more, but at least this way I can be sure that a few years from now I will not be in a situation of "battery is dead again, no replacements or adapters available for this old vacuum". This concern might be dumb given that even v6 replacements are still available.
Am I trying to create a problem for myself?
Don't be a brainlet. Just buy a handful new cells and repair the pack:
I have an old-ass D16 and repaired the pack with sony vtc5a cells. Still works great.
So what do you think of the future potential of sodium batteries?
less power density but better retention, cheaper materials, recycling and low temperature performance.
quit watching 'uninitiated' with matt ferrel.
we should all be driving into work on our thorium powered cars automatically driven with quantum computers running chatGPT and paid for with NFTs.
it's just the next scam. they just recycle old popular science articles from the 30s and 40s.
I don't even know who that is
I literally don't fricking care. Batteries and fusion are the poster children for "just a few more years". Virtually none of the "revolutionary" battery tech over the last 50 years has panned out. Lithium was basically the only one. Until shitty bootleg versions start showing up on eBay for a third of the normal price, it might as well not exist.
> Don't care about battery advancements
You say that, but elon already designed a new lithium cell with FIVE TIMES the energy : the 4680 cell. It's only a matter of time before it replaces the 18650 and corded shit will be just a bad memory.
>the 4680 cell
I had to look this up. They really did try touting "make the battery bigger" as some kind of revolutionary thing. Jesus F. Christ.
It's not just the size but construction as well. A Tesla 4680 is very much different than a commodity 18650 internally.
They're _supposed_ to be, but aren't. Unless things have changed recently (I don't keep up with this), they're literally just larger versions of the cells they already use.
https://medium.com/predict/teslas-new-battery-isn-t-what-they-said-it-would-be-152a4463bbe8
Also, I didn't know this part:
>To enhance this cost saving, the cells aren’t in a bolt-down style pack like every other EV and instead are effectively set in a resin brick.
Best hope those cells and QC are really damn consistent. One cell dies (and there's hundreds because lol frick large format I guess), and the whole pack is effectively bricked.
I've been looking for a chainsaw to clear up a pile of dead limbs and a piece of trunk about ten feet long by about 18 inches wide that I paid some hispanics to cut down awhile ago. Is cordless a viable option?
> Need cordless chainsaw?
No. Doesn't seem like you need a chainsaw long term.
If it were my money, I'd get an original corded sawzall (the tool that put milwaukee on the map) and an approprate blade.
I have a smaller 18v chainsaw and it’s pretty dope. Sawzall works but they’re different. If the sawzall blade starts shaking the branch and you can’t keep it on the shoe, it cuts much slower.
Name brand packs will have good cells possibly made in Korea or Malaysia though and it’s like 100x more likely you will get packs that actually keep up with their rating and last a few hundred cycles. Best case scenario with Chink packs is you get recycled name brand cells with <50 cycles on them that came from packs with one dead cell.
Also if you’re a burger, you can shop sales and get 3.0-5.0 Ah 18V name brand packs for $40-$60ea with sales. That’s only like $20 more than the knockoff packs that are almost guaranteed to be worse than OE
Thread has too many replies for me to read them all, but cordless tools are legit in some applications. Impacts, drills, ratchets, sawzalls, oscillating tools, work lights, etc. are awesome.
Things I wouldnt go cordless on are circ saws, table saws, mitre saws, grinders for heavy use, compressors, and vacuums other than small spot cleaning vacuums. Oh and yard tools unless you only have a tiny yard...
I just love when my battery work light shits out 10 minutes into crawling through attic insulation. What a fantastic tool.
Get a better battery work light that doesn't suck. Shit I have cheap headlamps that take 18650 cells that will last for 8+ hours...
Life is harder if you're a fricking moron, and you're proving that point readily.
Yeah, I'll go buy more shit when I can just plug in a flood that will light up the place like a hospital.
> buy even more disposable junk (and their battery systems) until you find out the switches and electronics also fail regularly.
I've got work lights that are probably older than you are.
>Why even have a flashlight, just drag a corded drop light around with you everywhere...
Stunningly moronic.
I was thinking of buying a cordless Hoover or Dyson, Would you advice otherwise?
any other practical use for these than batteries?