The Power Tools Thread

Probably the best 18V tool I've bought so far - certainly not what I expected :)
I’m now eyeing the Einhell equivalent also because both the 50 cm hedge clippers are just too big and get in their own way and the grass cutter thing with spinning plastic blade (lol) is also pretty shit… both 30€ tools that came with a free 2.5 Ah battery, so I’m not too fussed about it.
The Einhell equivalent also comes with a broom handle extension thing for cutting grass. That’s actually quite good, because it plugs into the battery socket and has its own power button up top. Whole thing is fairly expensive (for an Einhell lol) at 75€ or so… but it’ll happen soon (ie next time I get a free battery with it again 🤣).
 
I was looking at the Ryobi water pump earlier. Shame Makita doesn’t make one, I could use one at the cottage.

I already have a Ryobi-Makita badaptor for the glue gun but the pump has a waterproof lid for the battery and i’m sure the badaptor wouldnt fit.
 
My €0,02 about cool boxes:

- Peltier boxes. This is your average €49 or €99 12V cool box. Cheap as chips but not very efficient. They can usually achieve a temperature of say 15-20C under ambient which isn't very good for groceries if it's 35C in the car. Leaving it in the car for any length of time will drain your battery. The cheap ones are pretty shit. The first cheap one I bought back in the day basically made one of the walls inside slightly cooler than ambient. I now have a big and fairly expensive but still peltier based box that runs on both mains power and 12V. The cooling hardware is all in the lid. Still not something you want to leave in a parked car, and certainly not something you can run off of tool batteries, but it makes a decent drinks cooler or extra fridge for bigger get-togethers.

- Compressor boxes, like the Makita, or a Dometic or whatever. They work like your average household fridge or freezer. They're much more power efficient (this is why you can run them off of tool batteries) and you can also leave one running in the car plugged into the lighter socket while you're at the beach all day. You can set it to a desired temperature including freezing temps if that's what you need. The downside is that the compressor hardware robs lots of space (see below) and weighs quite a lot. They're not really as portable as the manufacturers all want you to believe. Notice how it seems to fit about as much as a normal €20 non-powered cool bag and Makita still decided to put wheels on it?

Makita_DCW180Z_Beauty_Shot_1.jpg
32lbs when empty. 😳
 
I was looking at the Ryobi water pump earlier. Shame Makita doesn’t make one, I could use one at the cottage.

I already have a Ryobi-Makita badaptor for the glue gun but the pump has a waterproof lid for the battery and i’m sure the badaptor wouldnt fit.
This one maybe? Comes with an excuse to buy a cordless Maktia strimmer if you don't already have one.

Thanks for the heads-up, but since I only have Bosch and Ryobi stuff I don't have any suitable batteries for one of those :cautious:

Bosch 18V? There are adapters to use those with Makita tools or you could invest in Makita batteries and use adaptors for the Ryobi and Bosch tools if you need to, which is what I do.

Basically a beard trimmer on steroids.

My dad has decided that he wants one of these big pube trimmers, I wasn't sure why but if it's anything like the Ryobi one then maybe it's pretty good.
 
Have a black and decker KSTR8K Jigsaw that every time I've had to use for an important cut, I want to set it on fire :mad:

Has a tendency to drift to the right, even if I have a batten on each side, and then the blade breaks. And another and another...

Might try an new blade or two, but never had a power tool used so little and been so rubbish.
Black & Decker is generally considered garbage today. They used to be a high quality tool maker but we're bought years ago and now make barely serviceable toasters
 
Recommendation request: small cordless screwdriver.

Something the size of the Ryobi Ergo A2, which I currently have and would love, if not for the lack of speed control. It's plenty powerful, but that's also the issue: when trying to tighten anything, it usually rounds out the bit/fastener with too much speed and torque, unless insane pressure is applied, especially with Philips fasteners (which are unfortunately very common...).

Basically I'm looking for something exactly like it, but with speed control. More trigger squeeze = more speed. Other than that, the Ryobi is damn near perfect, so whatever is closest in size and appearance I'm happy with :)

Currently looking at the Bosch Ixo 6. The 7 is out already, but apparently they removed the speed control feature that the 6 had for some reason?.. But the 6 looks weird af.
 
I'm also interested in the right answer, I don't have a compact power driver yet.
 
Maybe a bit bigger than you need but I have a Bosch 10.8V power drill. I use it to build flat pack furniture, mostly.

Skärmavbild 2023-06-11 kl. 12.48.04.png
 
A portaband with a table like that is such a handy thing, SWAG have been making tables for years and even show this one with what appears to be the same model of saw:

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Adam Savage made his own table for his corded portaband, instead of messing around with a mechanical on and off control on the trigger he locked it on with a clamp and put a switched outlet on the unit.

For my cordless Makita saw I got a UK-made table and fitted a socket for a remote switch, which is also a circuit breaker.

As for the compact drill/driver, I went straight for the compact Milwaukee FUEL M12 FPD over something like the Bosch. Definitely overkill but it can hold its own as a small hammer drill if I need it to and it was a great way to buy into the M12 battery system.
 
Maybe a bit bigger than you need but I have a Bosch 10.8V power drill. I use it to build flat pack furniture, mostly.

View attachment 3569554
Yeah, this is a size larger than what I really want, but may be the only really adequate solution ultimately. The 18V Ryobi drill I have is way too large for many uses cases, but a compact 10.8V/12V driver like this may be good, and not much larger than the single-cell 3.6V/4V variants. Need to look around what I can find.
 
Yeah, this is a size larger than what I really want, but may be the only really adequate solution ultimately. The 18V Ryobi drill I have is way too large for many uses cases, but a compact 10.8V/12V driver like this may be good, and not much larger than the single-cell 3.6V/4V variants. Need to look around what I can find.

I have a name for those small electric drivers like Bosch IXO etc. It's "utter crap" :ROFLMAO: then again I've mostly seen them in use when the job at hand called for a more powerful tool, but this was the only tool available. I guess if I really had a use case for one, my opinion would be a bit different.

Back when lorries still used countless incandescent bulbs, my friend kept one in his toolbox because bulb changing was a daily chore. I would've had one too.
 
Yeah I’m honestly starting to think about one as well, purely because some popular Chinese manufacturer of lorawan sensors we use at work has decided to put a physical jumper inside their sensor to power it on. Others put their stuff into deep sleep until you put a magnet on it, much more sensible of you need to take a whole bunch of them into operation - because the jumper crap requires you to unscrew and re screw 4 screws on each unit 🤦‍♂️ … things to look out for when doing large scale iot. Just like people requiring nfc activation or manual configuration…
 
@eizbaer You were quite happy with the Einhell stuff, right? Looking at 12V-sized drivers, the Bosch are ofc the "proper" option to go for by all appearances, but the Einhell TC-CD 12 Li seems an amazing value for the asking price. Good enough that I might just give it a shot, even if it's a bit bigger than what I really want.
 
You were quite happy with the Einhell stuff, right?
Yeah, taking the price of the stuff into doubt it’s frankly amazing value… won’t be the quality as double price Bosch or makita ofc

Einhell TC-CD 12 Li
I have, however, mostly stuck to the E line - so the more expensive / top of their line stuff. At least for everything that I feel I might use regularly. I think I have two C line garden tools that were frankly very cheap (not good value, but cheap cheap) and that does show…*

* although that is frankly the point where I’m amazed they can build a tool at all for the price, never mind quality.
 
Recommendation request: small cordless screwdriver.

Something the size of the Ryobi Ergo A2, which I currently have and would love, if not for the lack of speed control. It's plenty powerful, but that's also the issue: when trying to tighten anything, it usually rounds out the bit/fastener with too much speed and torque, unless insane pressure is applied, especially with Philips fasteners (which are unfortunately very common...).

Basically I'm looking for something exactly like it, but with speed control. More trigger squeeze = more speed. Other than that, the Ryobi is damn near perfect, so whatever is closest in size and appearance I'm happy with :)

Currently looking at the Bosch Ixo 6. The 7 is out already, but apparently they removed the speed control feature that the 6 had for some reason?.. But the 6 looks weird af.

I assume you've seen this right? Granted, it's 2 years old....


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ealubZGT8ec
 
Well my father's corded Flymo finally bit the dust. It's belt driven and there's a reinforced plastic piece that has both the motor attached to it and has a bearing pressed in for the blade shaft. Well I guess the shielded bearing got to its breaking point, as it spun in the mount and melted the plastic, going off-centre and tilting to one side with the tension of the belt. The blade started chewing at the main body of the mower on one side and started trying to create grooves in the lawn on the other. The tiered front lawn looks quite interesting.

Anyway, point is this was my time to get him to buy a cordless mower. He hates mowing the lawn because it involves getting the cable out and dealing with that, he never bothered to put in an outdoor socket so it has to go through the window...

Of course it had to be Makita as I can share my LXT batteries with him and maybe get extras down the line. He had already asked me to order the DUM111 giant beard trimmer for him to edge the lawn with and we decided on the DLM330 as the best fit for his small lawns.

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It's the smallest mower they currently list. The Flymo was 31cm cutting width (seems silly narrow but he liked it) and the Makita is, as the name suggests, 33cm. Next up was the 38cm mower, which was 2x18V, this only uses one LXT battery. Unfortunately this isn't included in the promotion, it would've been nice to get the DLM382 kit with 2 5Ah batteries, the twin charger and then get two more batteries for free, but honestly we can't justify the cost. The DUM111RTX kit would get a free battery, but when you look at the price of the kit it's cheaper to buy two batteries when they're on sale. I ordered another 5Ah from one of my preferred eBay sellers, which has a discount on it and so it far cheaper.

This is the DUM111 beard trimmer, again I don't really see the point and I remember AvE not being too kind to it and it seems like a good way to lose an appendage. Even without that it seems like a good way to get a bad back. Oh well, I hope he enjoys using it.

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