Monday, August 30, 2010

cordless drills

My old Makita cordless drill just died. Well actually, its still running. But the chuck is failing and one of the two batteries is completely dead. The other battery is getting weak. This thing is indispensable in my garage for everything from polishing components to the usual hole drilling.

After a bunch of research I just ordered a Bosch 36618-02.

I also considered the Panasonic EY6432GQKW (approximately $200). This is maybe best rated of the "prosumer grade" (my terminology) drills. But the NiMH battery, while probably stronger than the Lithium Ion batteries of the competitors just looked too bulky to me. But its supposed to be a great drill and my old Makita with NiMH batteries was great... at any rate I skipped it.

Makita BDF452HW is the other competitor (approx $185), but it had some bad reviews of the chuck and batteries. And in person looked cheap to me. It didn't look like a worthy successor to my old Makita.

So I'm trying the Bosch above. At $155, I could get a third battery for another $50, and still be in the price range I'm willing to spend. So my main concern, battery life, seemed to be best addressed with this unit as I'm pretty sure three batteries would do better than the two of the competitive units above.

Thats my summary, FWIW.
After I get it I intend to polish my truck headlights to remove the fogging. That should be a good test, and I'll report back on how it works out.

No comments:

Post a Comment