Favorite brand of battery powered tools?

Colossus · February 25, 2018

Great feedback, thank you.

Nanotech Environmental · February 25, 2018

8 hours ago, GhostWriter said:

There was a time when a 12 volt Panasonic could still outperform the box store pro-sumer 18 volts.

Still have my original 12 volt drill/driver Panasonic from the late 90's. Been dropped from a ladder at least a dozen times. It never broke.

Originally, believe Hilti's were re-badged Panasonics.

Won't find either in big box stores.

I wouldn't be able to say for sure on that one way or the other. I do have a friend who works for Hilti & they do have a pretty robust R&D program as well as pretty high & tight manufacturing standards & controls. You can definitely feel it when you pick one up and use it, especially back to back with other stuff.
That being said, there have been counterfeits found on the market (kind of a funny story behind that one).

AvE did a review on some Hilti Cordless units. He rates them pretty highly;
(For those unfamiliar with AvE, he uses some odd & funny lingo, but really knows his stuff. There's an online AvE translation page as well for those who need help understanding him.)

GhostWriter · February 25, 2018

1 hour ago, Nanotech Environmental said:

I wouldn't be able to say for sure on that one way or the other. I do have a friend who works for Hilti & they do have a pretty robust R&D program as well as pretty high & tight manufacturing standards & control.

Even if the rumored collaboration was true, Hilti's probably gone their own way by now. Nice videos.

grizz_wi · February 25, 2018

Milwaukee for me , alot of battery packs are just 18650 battiers soldered together, nothing fancy. Can easily be rebuilt.

GMC4Zee · February 25, 2018

I have Makita brand cordless. I have drills, circular saw. reciprocating saw, flashlights and a few others. Once you go with a particular brand it makes sense to stay with it as the batteries swap around. I found Makita to have good battery life and they keep increasing the amperage over the years. Its started at 2 and now you can get 6 amper hour batteries. The bare tools are available pretty cheap especially if you dont mind reconditioned. They have stood up over time and preferred them over the dewalt I first started with.

Colossus · March 1, 2018

On 2/24/2018 at 7:45 AM, diyer2 said:

I have owned Hitachi, Ryobi and Dewalt.

Retired construction worker.

Recently bought a set from Costco.

Green Works is the brand.

Half inch drill and a quarter inch impact driver, 20 volt with 2 batteries and a charger.

3 year warranty.

$100 plus tax.

No complaints.

I decided to go this way given the price, and now it's a 4 year warranty. Paid $89.00 + Tax. Thanks for the suggestion, should work well for me for the occasional use it will get.

Edited March 1, 2018 by Colossus

shadowsnkx · March 2, 2018

On 2/24/2018 at 12:21 PM, MixerDriver said:

Most of mine are Ryobi. They're cheap and it's nice being able to power any of them with the same battery. I've slowly been expanding my collection over the last 7 years or so, and I'm yet to have a problem with them. They don't get used daily, but see their fair share of abuse. Only recently did I wear out the first battery, and it's one of the ones that came with my 7 yr old dill/impact combo. All the others hold a good charge, and power remains consistent till the end. Any time I'm at Home Depot, I look for the 4ah battery 2 pack for $99. For how long those batteries hold a charge, you can't beat the price. I especially like the 3spd 1/2 inch impact; it'll take off lug nuts that would give a gorilla with a breaker bar a run for it's money.

If I depended on the tools to put food on the table, I'd probably go with a bit better brand. Since I don't, Ryobi works good enough.

I second this. The batteries seem to work better and longer if you get the large , 8 slot, charger. I don't know if its a better way to condition them but I've had the same batteries for 3+ years.

SilverIce17 · March 8, 2018

Love my milwaukee stuff.

Colossus · March 9, 2018

WOW!!

idnative1948 · April 5, 2018

On 2/24/2018 at 11:21 AM, MixerDriver said:

Most of mine are Ryobi. They're cheap and it's nice being able to power any of them with the same battery. I've slowly been expanding my collection over the last 7 years or so, and I'm yet to have a problem with them. They don't get used daily, but see their fair share of abuse. Only recently did I wear out the first battery, and it's one of the ones that came with my 7 yr old dill/impact combo. All the others hold a good charge, and power remains consistent till the end. Any time I'm at Home Depot, I look for the 4ah battery 2 pack for $99. For how long those batteries hold a charge, you can't beat the price. I especially like the 3spd 1/2 inch impact; it'll take off lug nuts that would give a gorilla with a breaker bar a run for it's money.

If I depended on the tools to put food on the table, I'd probably go with a bit better brand. Since I don't, Ryobi works good enough.

Totally agree with your statements. I still have one of the orginal 18v black batteries that just won't die. I have six of the 4ah becuase the wife bought herself the weedwhacker and blower. She is all excited because her new to her 4runner has 120v plug receps so she can charge batts do yardwork at our off the grid cabin.

huntwyo · February 29, 2020

Dewalt/Milwaukee

elcamino · January 25, 2021

Just a word of caution, be careful buying discounted tools on line. Friend bought a Milwaukee drill set on line, think is was AMAZON for about $50 less the any other place. When it came he put the batteries on charge for a couple days as he did not need it right away. When he went use it the battery barely allowed him to set 5 screws and was dead. Subsequent charging he got same result. So he contact Milwaukee and they told him the one he purchase was over 4 yrs old and to make things worse, he bought if from an unauthorized seller, some one who was liquidating new old stock apparently. In other words, products sold by unauthorized dealers are not entitled to the manf. warranty.

Colossus · January 25, 2021

Yup, lots of this on Amazon and Ebay, car parts too. Be very careful. They can make the stuff look very legit but isn't.

slide187 · January 26, 2021

I’ve had a couple different brands over the years but my battery powered stuff is the 18v ridgid line. I have a hammer drill that’s 15 years old and still kickin and I just got their oscillator multitool. Solid tools and you can’t beat a lifetime warranty. I’ve built a shed, remodeled bathrooms, bedrooms, trex’d a deck, and finished a 2-car garage/in-law apt addition and they’ve survived that heavy use. Thinking about their new mini cut-off saw now too cuz I just smoked my rotozip wheel attachment for the third time in about 7 years and they don’t even make it anymore. Ridgid is still alive and well tho. Haha.

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Crazykid38 · February 1, 2021

Milwaukee all the way!!! I’m a lineman for a small municipal utility company and all we use is Milwaukee. No complaints other than the extreme cold killing battery life but that’s to be expected. Love their tools so much I started buying them for my own personal use around the house.

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