How to choose a cordless drill
Choosing a cordless drill can be very confusing as there are so many to choose from. You can often buy a cordless drill for as little as $30 or you can pay hundreds of dollars for one.
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This skil cordless drill was for sale on Amazon for $37 |
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This Dewalt 36v Drill is often seen for sale for more than $450 |
Which Voltage?
Cordless drills operate on different voltages, they are all charged at the same voltage-110v in the USA and 240v in other parts of the world. The higher the voltage of the battery on the drill, the more powerful it will be. At the moment the highest voltage cordless drills are 36v, these are currently manufactured by Dewalt, Bosch, Milwaukee and Hilti. A 36v drill is very powerful and will easily match the power of most corded drills. Drills that use a low voltage battery such as a 9.6 volt battery will not be anywhere near as powerful as one of the drills above 18v. New lithium-ion technology now means that lower voltage batteries can be used and can provide vastly improved performance than their ni-cad or ni-mh counterparts.
Amp hour
As well as having different voltages for the batteries in cordless drills they also have different ampere hour ratings. For example a 18v battery may have a rating of 1.2 AH, or you can also get a 18v battery that is 3AH, this does not mean that the drill will be any more powerful with the higher AH rating, but it does mean that the battery can be used for much longer periods before it requires charging again. The higher the AH, the longer the battery will last before it requires re-charging.
Chucks
Most cordless drills these days are keyless chucks and so a chuck key is not required to operate the chuck. Cheap drills have cheap chucks, they are often made from a mixture of metal and plastic. A common problem with cheaper chucks is that they often do not grip the drill bit securely, some chucks also do not even run true and so you often are trying to drill eliptical holes with them. The better quality chucks such as the all metal chucks found on Dewalt drills are superior pieces of engineering. The metals used are of very high quality and they are engineered to a very high standard. These chucks often have magnezium jaws, which grip the drill bit extremely well and are very durable.
Hammer action or SDS?
Hammer drills, impact drills or percussion drills are only really suitable for light drilling, if you need to drill hard masonry then you need a SDS drill. Sds drills have a pneumatic hammer mechanism and a special chuck and these drills will easily drill through the hardest of masonry materials with ease. Here is a demonstration of two 18v Cordless drills, one is sds and the other is cordless hammer.
