Electric vs Lithium ion drills

[Don Morris]

Heretofore, I've preferred my Dewalt electric drill for the most part, rather than the NiCad battery version which I also have. For the last several days I helped put together a project, mostly wood, and some plywood. This was done in a wharehouse for a high school Robotics team practice field for their robot. I must say the Dads, as I was the only grandfather, who came with their lithium ion drills seemed to be able to drill very quickly, with just as much or more control, and didn't run out of battery charge while doing the same work as I did with my electric drill. Of course I had the hassle of a long extension cord. The point was, once at the site, I thought I would have the advantage with an electric drill. Not so. I was also envious of the small size of some of the drills. They got into tighter spots than I could have without the hassle of the cord. You can select a lower torque on many models, a handy feature I found about. I predrilled one screw in some plastic but still cracked the plastic a little when putting the screw home. The guy next to me didn't, said he had put his drill on "Low torque".

I just haven't paid much attention because I remember several years ago a question on SMC about what members preferred, and the electric drill won. I wonder if that same question were asked now if the results would be the same. Without hesitation I chose electric before, but I'm not sure now. Are you guys/gals shifting to lithium ion?

[William C Rogers]

My answer is yes. I still use my old craftsman electric for pocket hole drilling and a few other jobs. I use my 12v driver for 90% of screw installation. I use my 12v drill for most pilot holes. I also have a 12v impact, which has a lot of torque, but is loud. I have two 18v drills, one with high torque and one less torque,but lighter. My li-ion drills are Hitachi. Not necessarily a fan, but I got them reconditioned and prefer the feel of these tools. I was skeptical at first how a 12v would be useful after using some of the 6-9v tools that didn't do much. I was amazed how well they work. Batteries last a long time and recharge quickly. World of difference from the NiCa batteries. My 12v driver easily drives 3 inch screws. For harder wood or lag screws I use the 12v impact. Get the li-ion and I don't think you will be disappointed.

[Charles Lent]

Yes. I have a fleet of 18 volt DeWalt tools and lithium ion batteries for them. I also have a pair of Makita 14 volt driver/drills with ni-cad batteries. I prefer the DeWalt. Lithium ion batteries. They have a much longer life than ni-cad and they don't develop memory problems. Lithium batteries are more expensive to buy, but have a much longer usable life.

Charley

[Peter Quinn]

I haven't used nicad drills in over a decade. That technology had some serious drawbacks, and the drills made at the time weren't as advanced as what is presently availably either. Try the new ones. I switched to NiMH as soon as they became available, and have almost completely gone to Li Ion cordless drills. I have a milwakee 12V system that does most of my screw driving and pilot hole or small hole drilling. Its small size and lighter weight are an advantage on ladders or long work days where the heavier drills start to wear you out, still plenty of power for 90% of what I do. I have a makita compact 18V drill driver for larger drill bits and longer screws, and an impact driver for driving longer screws and lags which also works well with speed bore bits for occasional rough holes. I still see a place for corded electric drills. Pocket screws comes to mind, most cordless drills operate below the suggested 2K rpm speed, my corded drill operates at 2200RPM and will maintain that easily under load and over time. I'f I'm drilling a few quick holes for a jig, I'll probably chuck up a cordless anyway, if I'm drilling all the holes for a large project, definitely corded. For professional work there a high torque low RPM drill is often needed to punch large holes through plates and studs. I use a 1/2" 300RPM Millers Falls drill from my grandfather to mix 5 gal buckets of mortar for tiling...try that with a cordless drill!


I guess ultimately its a balance of hole size, frequency, job location and the total number of holes needed. I noticed when the electrician wired my garage he used both corded and cordless. For drilling the hundreds of 3/4" holes to chase wires through studs and a few large diameter holes for conduit he still chucked up the electric drills, for a few quick holes in more remote locations like the garage attic, cordless was used. One nice feature of cordless drills for amateurs is the clutch. Let go of the trigger.....drill stops. I've seen more than a few guys that didn't quite know how to handle an electric drill get it bound up and wind up with smashed knuckles or wrist injuries.

[Earl Rumans]

I had the DeWalt NiCad cordless drill and to me it wasn't really worth that much. I still had to get out my corded drill for anything heavy duty and the charge didn't last at all. I haven't used my corded drill since I got my first Milwaukee Lithium battery model, a V18 version. I have upgraded to all Milwaukee Lithium tools over the years and their new Fuel series is unbelievable, in what it can do. I have their Fuel series in both the M18 and M12 versions. The new Fuel M12 drill is so light, compact and powerful that I don't use the Fuel M18, which is itself very compact, that much anymore. The M12 will handle about 80% of my tasks. I break out the M18 when I really need the extra power and torque for something. You should really check them out.

[Jim Andrew]

There is a joke about a carpenter who went skydiving for the first time. He took a extension cord along, as he said he knew it would get caught on something if his chute didn't open.

[Craig Hoehn]

With modern lithium ion batteries I dont see any advantage to having a power cord. I recently purchased a Milwaukee M18 fuel hammer drill and impact driver and these things pack one heck of a punch, 3" long deck screws in framing are not a problem and the impact will drive it in in under 2 seconds. The 4 Ahr battery will last all day with continuous use at a job site. I usually lean towards buying more powerful tools thats why I got the M18 and you can dial back the torque settings and power output which comes in handy because this thing is overkill for most common tasks. If you are only doing light assembly work you might even want to consider the M12.

[Bruce Lowekamp]

I still have a corded drill that is my hammer drill and I use for massive things like hole saws. But that's pretty much it.

I use a lightweight Makita LCT200 (same 18V driver but with a smaller battery pack) that is very easy to move around and more than enough for the shop and around the house. The batteries fast-charge in 15 minutes, so if I'm doing something with constant drilling, I just keep them charging. I remodeled my kitchen last year and it's more than enough power to run auger bits through joists, etc. Can't do quite as much as Craig's cordless hammer drill, but I don't find myself needing that often enough to carry around the extra weight.

[Art Mann]

I think I used a plug in drill maybe once last year. I consider them to be largely obsolete.

[glenn bradley]

I keep corded drill for applications where speed is a concern. The upside is that a quality corded drill can lay in a drawer for months and be immediately ready when called upon. I would not, however, like to be without my lithium units.

P.s. I had never heard the joke about the skydiving carpenter; that's great.

[Loren Woirhaye]

Li-on is nice. I like the 12v format because it gets a lot of things done and the batteries are not too expensive. You get into the higher voltage formats and the batteries are spendier and also clustered in the pack so they retain heat more. Heat wrecks batteries of all kinds. If you let you batteries cool thoroughly before recharging you'll probably have longer life from them. The Li-on batteries can catch on fire, so they have circuits in them to prevent that. If you trip the circuit, the battery thinks it has become defective and it shuts down for good and you'll have to replace it. Ni-cads and NIMH batteries don't have this issue. Li-on battery tools are pretty sweet all things considered. A corded drill is still the right tool for some jobs.

[Tai Fu]

Im curious about Li Ion drills... we hear a lot about cell phones and laptops exploding, what if you accidently drop a Li Ion drill and it explodes?

[Dennis McDonaugh]

The only thing I used a corded drill for in the last five years was to drill holes in concrete.

[Jon Shank]

I had some old Ni-cad tools that I was always pretty unimpressed with. I mean they did the job for the most part but battery life was pretty short and got worse and worse over time. I still had the corded drill out most of the time, and just stopped bothering with the Ni-cads after a while. I picked up a set of Lithium battery tools after using some at work and the difference is really pretty amazing. Now I use lower cost cordless, Ryobi stuff. But the Ryobi 1+ tools all take the new lithium batteries so sticking with the same brand made sense. The drills were workable when the Ni-cads were new, but not great. The reciprocating saw and circular saw were really almost useless from the get go. Now, same tools, new Lithium batteries, they are all good useable tools. Even the saws cut about as well as my older corded versions, although granted not for as long(within their capacity, the circular saw is only good for about inch thick material for instance, dinky little thing). If I'm doing a bunch of demo, I'm probably going to grab the corded saw, but for 90% of little jobs, it's cordless all the way. And the drills are amazingly better. The clutch and high/low speed settings are great and they last for a real good long time now. I've got the old Ni-cad drill running with one Lithium battery, and the new green drill that got me into the Lithium with another one (both the Lithium small, low capacity batteries) and I can drill pilot holes with one and drive the screws with the other all day long without charging. I have one of the larger high capacity batteries and it can run the Circular, recipricating, jig saws for as long as I have ever needed them (not a contractor or anything), and it will even run the weedwacker I picked up for long enough to get my yard cleaned up. If I didn't already have all those Ryobi cordless tools I would have gone with a better brand nowadays, great bang for the buck but you can see and feel the difference in quality with a Dewalt or Bosch, etc. I know that corded drill is still hanging around but I can't remember the last time I had to pull it out.

Really is night and day between the 2 battery types.

Jon

[Duane Meadows]

Im curious about Li Ion drills... we hear a lot about cell phones and laptops exploding, what if you accidently drop a Li Ion drill and it explodes?

They don't explode from dropping. They can swell or expand enough to bust the case they are in, generally from over charging/old age. Haven't seen one where shrapnel was involved!