Mud-club
Chat & Social => The Bar - General Chat => Topic started by: TwoSheds on March 13, 2009, 06:48:28
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(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nQ6_5DazuN4/Sbnu4tNLuPI/AAAAAAAAAFU/DmhQwSajgP8/Drill%20Drivers.JPG)
From left to right:
(1) Bosch (made in Switzerland) 7.2v - 15(?) years old and FANTASTIC if a little under-powered. :)
(2) Halfords (made in PRC) 14.4v - 1 year old. Bought as a replacement for (1) but the torque is hardly any better and the battery life is poor, so is rarely used. :(
(3) Bosch (made in Malaysia) 14.4v - 2 days old. FANTASTIC! :)
The little 7.2v Bosch drill has served me faithfully for such a long time it owes me nothing, but last year I decided that I needed something with more power and so I got the Halfords 14.4v thing. The torque on this is hardly any better, the speed is up by possibly 50% and the battery life is actually worse! Feeling the weight of the battery pack I think that it's a big case with a small battery inside :x as a comparison the 14.4v battery from the new Bosch weighs 25% more than the Halfords one.
So far I am VERY PLEASED with the new Bosch drill :) :)
It has a two speed box, and it's torque - even in the high speed gear - is far better than the Halfords one.
It has a smart charger that can be left on and will cope with anything from 7.2v to 14.4v (auto-sensing) and so does nicely for my older drill too, and is clever enough to switch to trickle-charging when the battery is full.
It is neat, compact, has good balance and fits in tight places (It doesn't look it in the pic, but the Hf one is actually bigger and is nose-heavy) and it feels good in the hand.
I don't know about battery life yet, but I suspect it will be good.
The Halfords one will be heading for the bay of E, I think...
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we use the bosch one's at work, hae done for years just make sure that you empty the battery's completely before recharging them.
Or what we have done is wire a small lam to a spare charger, then plug the battery into that 1st then when the light is out charge it, trust me it will last a lot longer
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The worst set I've ever had would be the multi-pack of cordless tools from Aldi (one of their very few flops). Terrible battery life, and they won't hold a charge between uses. The actual tools seem well made, so I've actually considered rebuilding the battery packs with better cells. Only problem is that my soldering skills wouldn't enable me to do that!
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I have a little 9.6v Makita that was given to me as a pressie. It has performed faultlessly for several years, but only has a 10mm chuck which I find a bit restrictive sometimes. Then I have to get the big boys drill out :lol: