Hi. I am seeking advice on a good mid range cordless drill/ combination light weight, ease of use and handling, as well as being powerful and robust enough for most jobs. My budget is around the £350 mark. I have used the 18v and above at College, and have found them to be to heavy and ***bersome to use. Also i am still trying to get my head around some of the technical jargon and feature's of some of the drills. Any advice or links to any good deals would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks & Best regards
Staceyxxx
first i think you need to decide what you want the tool/s you buy to do. Its not worth jumping into buying a expensive tool to later realise its not suitable for your needs.
for cordless drivers/combi drills you have a few types to consider. Amost every manufacturer has a range that has a sub compact 10.8v for light duty work, compact for med duty work and full sized drill for heavy duty work.
Some manufacturers then complicate things buy having tools between these lines, with different battery sizes and chemistry.
what you want as a min is :
all metal gearing
lithium ion batterys
1 hour charger or less
3 year warranty
as the batts, what your really looking at is the voltage and the capacity. the capacity is rated in milliampere/hour units, which indicates the batterys electrical charge. The higher the a/h the more work the battery will do per charge.
most makes now have 1.5-2 a/h batts as compact sizes and 3-4 a/h for standard sizes (although you can get as large as 6 a/h batts now).
So when your looking at a tool make sure the batterys are the ones you want before ordering.
for power you want to pay attention to the Max. torque of the tool. The higher the torque the more capable the tool will be for larger heavier work. Although not all manufacturers will use the exact same way of measuring torque its a good indication of its capabilities.
As a general idea :
30nm is good for a sub compact, and will be fine for screw driving small screws and drilling small holes.
60nm is good for a compact drill, and will be fine for screw driving small to large screws and drilling med sized holes.
90nm is good for a standard sized drill, and will be fine for driving most screws and drilling large holes and lots of med sized holes.
more nm normally means larger more powerful motor.
Every drill will have a rating of max capacity for drilling wood, metal and maybe brick. These are given as a guide to help you know what the drill is capable of. These figures are max sizes and the drill is not necessarily going to last that long if you us it at its max all the time.
the other thing to consider is brushless motors, tools with brushless motors work for longer on the same batts, run cooler, last longer etc....
