The Power Tools Thread

[Perc]

I can’t see the point but it’s still awesome.

 

[Perc]

I just put my 18V Makita inflator to the test by airing up the forklift we have at work. It had no problems reaching 4.5 bars. I was aiming for 5 but it's too damn cold out. This is a lot better than the house brand one we sell, which including battery and charger is a couple tenners cheaper than the bare Makita tool.

The Makita requires you to stand there and hold the trigger, though. Our house brand one doesn't, but you can't leave it unattended anyway because as soon at it reaches the desired pressure and turns off, air starts leaking back out through it so you'll come back to a tire with less air in it than when you started.

 

[Matt2000]

The Makita requires you to stand there and hold the trigger, though. Our house brand one doesn't, but you can't leave it unattended anyway because as soon at it reaches the desired pressure and turns off, air starts leaking back out through it so you'll come back to a tire with less air in it than when you started.

I was going to say just use a spring clamp as it has auto-shutoff but that's no good if it leaks. You've justified my decision to buy the DeWalt though with it's one button operation and no leaks.

That jacket was really interesting, I'd want one if I was working outdoors in the summer but as it is I just like the variable DC power supply you can pick up for about £10 on its own. Guessing it's something like 8V, 10V, 12V and 14V boost, could be very handy and I wonder how many amps it can supply before the overload protection (if it has any) kicks in.

Anyway thanks to The Expanse I can't stop saying 'DeWalt' in a funny accent.

 

[Perc]

I haven't checked if the Makita leaks. The Chinesium one I sell myself does, though.

 

[Matt2000]

I haven't checked if the Makita leaks. The Chinesium one I sell myself does, though.

Whoops, skim read it. Sorry.

In that case, just get yourself a spring clamp or mini quick-grip clamp for the Makita's trigger and you're all set!

 

[eizbaer]

It had no problems reaching 4.5 bars.

How long did it take (and what pressure did you start)?

Whoops, skim read it. Sorry.

In that case, just get yourself a spring clamp or mini quick-grip clamp for the Makita's trigger and you're all set!

Does the Makita turn off automatically though? I understood it the way that the Chinesium one does, but the Makita doesn't... or just wait until the battery dies I guess

 

[Perc]

Yes, the Makita turns off. Weirdly it runs way longer at "4.50 bar" on the display than it feels like it should take to reach 4.55 (judging by how long it took to go from 4.45 to 4.50), before it decides it's done and switches off. With the target set to 4.50 that is. And it still shows 4.50 when it does turn off.

It took maybe a couple of minutes to go from around 3 to 4.5, on a fully charged battery. This is on a forklift tire the size of a classic Leyland Mini tire or so.

 

[leviathan]

Today was a chance to see whether the Ryobi cordless drill is actually good for "semi-serious" home use of more than a single hole at a time: I hung up some shelves in my place, to make use of a large bare wall that was created after my last furniture re-arrangement last year. Took me a while to actually come up with what I want to do there, but at some point 4 corner shelves came up unused at my mom's place, and I finally had an idea. Here's what it ended up like:

All in all, 16 holes needed to be drilled into a concrete wall, 8mm across and ~5cm deep each. Then some dowels were put in, and large screws driven into those to hold some metal brackets, and the shelves slide onto those. Usually I'd use a two-handed corded hammer drill to make the holes, and then spend a while swearing trying to drive the screws in with the tiny old 3.6V driver (in practice, mostly by hand).

And I must say, the 18V Ryobi compeletely succeeded here. More than enough power in hammer drilling mode to get those holes in with my decade old concrete drilling bits. Started with 6mm opening up to 8mm in a second pass, but after doing 4 holes with much more ease than I'm used to with the "big" drill, switched to just drilling out 8mm straight away. And then just swapped the drill bit for an extension with a PZ3 bit on the end (extension being necessary to clear the bracket protrusion with the drill body and not have the bit at an angle to the screw), and easily drove the screws in, with only an occasional slippage of the slightly-chinesium bit on slightly-chinesium screws.

Very happy with the end result, and the performance of the drill, both as a hammer drill and as a driver. 1.5Ah battery is also easily enough for this amount of work, I assume it's more than half full still - annoyingly these small batteries don't have a charge indicator on them, only bigger Ryobi ones do -.- Still, expectations definitely exceeded.

---

What sadly didn't exceed expectations was the vacuum cleaner, which also saw some use during all this. I usually have a second person (in this case my brother) hold a vacuum next to the drill hole, to avoid or at least reduce the inevitable mess of drill dust all over the room. Usually this means getting the old 2kW "big" vacuum out, which is a hassle - so I tried using the shiny new R18SV7, with an extra attachment I printed from Thingiverse:

This thingie is supposed to suck itself to the wall around the drill hole, and suck away the dust as it's produced. It worked well enough for the first 2-3 holes or so, and then the amount of dust dropping away past the inlet has increased substantially. The cause was quickly found: fine drill dust gets straight through the "outer" filter layer in the vacuum dust collection bin, and clogs the "secondary" paper filter, reducing the amount of air the vacuum can suck and thus making it rather ineffective. Had to swap back to the old corded vacuum for the remainder of the work.

Annoyingly the printed attachment doesn't fit the old vacuum - for some reason the attachment on the Ryobi is the wrong way around: male end of the connector on the attachment, and female end on the vacuum or the extension; whereas on the corded vacuum (apparently on most/all of them) it's female on the attachment, male on the vac or tube/extension. Why would they make it incompatible, no idea. Seems like the Dreame is the same as the Ryobi is this regard - actually, Dreame and Ryobi attachments are probably cross-compatible (apart from electrical connections for the powered brushes), the tube diameter seems to be the same.

 

[eizbaer]

In case you’re ever missing that second person, this one has served me well for years:

I actually fold in the corners of the crease as well so the stuff doesn’t leak out to the side. It means drilling a little more carefully, to avoid the dust just blowing everywhere, but apart from that smooth sailing.

 

[Matt2000]

I want to get the big boy Makita cordless bandsaw for cutting things either as a portable machine or as a vertical bandsaw using a handy table I can buy in this country. DPB180Z or XBP02Z, same machine AFAIK. Generally overkill but I want something that will last and cut whatever I want, the smaller models don't fit the tables and have a much smaller capacity in both directions.

I could pay a minimum of £340 (assuming I wait for an eBay discount that may never happen - it's usually £400) for one here or import one from the US for £275 including shipping and taxes. Any reason why I should see sense and wait to get it here instead of importing? I know the XBP02Z is made in the USA, not sure where the DPB180Z is made.

 

[jack_christie]

You're going to need a bigger shed

 

[Matt2000]

You're going to need a bigger shed

Shed? These are too valuable for the shed, they live inside.

The steel rods I'll be using for making switchable magnets (along with some N50 magnets) turned up today, it would take a week to saw through the inch thick one by hand and I don't trust myself or an angle grinder disc to do a good job of cutting it straight.

 

[jack_christie]

Open source house plans, that you can use with a CNC router



wikihouse

Resources — WikiHouse

www.wikihouse.cc

Example of a CNC router

https://www.shopbottools.com/products/alpha

 

[jack_christie]

Fake Makita v genuine Makita

 

[NecroJoe]

Fake Makita v genuine Makita

Not so much power tools, but banggood has made a run at selling higher-end knock-off woodworking tools/accessories. Replicating stuff like Incra, Woodpeckers, Shinwa, etc. And while most aren't as good as the name-brand products being knocked-off, they do seem to be pretty-to-really good, and hard to deny the value for what they are (as long as you get a good one).

This guy's done something like 20+ videos reviewing some of these tools:

 

[CraigB]

We had a ton of Tap-Con concrete screws to drive for a project on the new wall. Our current 1/4" impact driver is so old, it's a blue Ryobi. It's always done what we've asked, but I've been eyeing the new brushless models. Just so happened that they had a few on clearance, so I picked one up for the track.

At first, I fired it up and was completely underwhelmed. It turned so slow, I thought something was wrong. Then I found, this one has three speeds!

Flipped the switch to 3 and boy howdy does this thing drive! I guess I'll need to go get one for myself now.

 

[NecroJoe]

We had a ton of Tap-Con concrete screws to drive for a project on the new wall. Our current 1/4" impact driver is so old, it's a blue Ryobi. It's always done what we've asked, but I've been eyeing the new brushless models. Just so happened that they had a few on clearance, so I picked one up for the track.

At first, I fired it up and was completely underwhelmed. It turned so slow, I thought something was wrong. Then I found, this one has the speeds!

Flipped the switch to 3 and boy howdy does this thing drive! I guess I'll need to go get one for myself now.

Ha, I did the same thing when I got my first "real" impact. After the initial testing, I've never used "3". :lol:

 

[Perc]

Fake Makita v genuine Makita

AvE's video has probably helped sell quite a few of these. I have one and it's very much worth the €27 it cost, or exactly one tenth of the real deal from the hardware store next to my work. I do make sure to never leave a battery in it though, because I don't trust a cheap chinesium knockoff tool to not drain my expensive Makita batteries empty and kill them, or set my house on fire.

 

[CraigB]

Ha, I did the same thing when I got my first "real" impact. After the initial testing, I've never used "3". :lol:

Done off the Tap Cons wouldn't fully seat unless we used three. I had my slightly newer model there too and it did ok, but brushless is the way forward for sure.

 

[Matt2000]

The Makita XBP02Z portaband turned up today, much quicker shipping from the US than expected via eBay's global shipping thingy.

Naturally the first thing to do was take it apart, part of the reason I imported it was I can't void the warranty if it doesn't have one! Checking the current so I can spec a remote switch for my table (which has been assembled and sent out). The Omron switch is specced 20A at 24V and I was hoping it would be less but I got 12A when loading the drive wheel so I'll get an equivalent 20A/24V toggle. There's space for a socket but I'll come back to this later.

Also turns out that this tool was made in Japan, I was expecting USA but even better.

When it comes to impacts, I really like my DTW1002Z for special occasions. It's heavy but the power behind it (as a one handed tool) is amazing.