What cheap drill for guitar work?

Rocker

Sporky said:

Rocker said:

When the rechargeable batteries fail, as they always do sooner or later, replacements cost nearly as much as a new drill (the same model).

Yes. The batteries are the expensive bit. Use and charge them correctly and you'll get years and years of use out of them.

Perhaps you could post a link to a mains drill comparable in size, weight and power to the 10.8v Bosch?

I agree with the geeking statement, well said. I have a Makita battery drill, both batteries are effectively gone west. Thus I found out about the cost of replacement batteries. The drill itself is easy to use, balances well, hand openable chuck with hammer action drilling capability. A great machine apart from the failed batteries. And I did follow the shops instructions on using and charging the batteries. I bought it three or four years ago. My Bosch mains drill is at least ten years going strong. It is more powerful than the Makita and has a better hammer action. Given the choice I would opt for the Makita if the batteries lasted much longer. For occasional infrequent use, a mains drill is the better choice as you do not have to think about or charge the batteries.

OilCityPickups

I have two of the 18v ones from Maplin sub 40 quid each.  http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-18v-lithium-ion-cordless-drill-n29lk?cmpid=ppc%3Adiy%3Apla%3Agoogle&gclid=CJXR_MXDx9QCFSO-7QodnnMIsA 
They have taken five years of constant use in the Oil City workshop and have never missed a beat. They come with a fairly shitty selection of drill bits ... but I had hundreds of those anyway.

Sporky

Rocker said:

Sporky said:

Perhaps you could post a link to a mains drill comparable in size, weight and power to the 10.8v Bosch?

I agree with the geeking statement, well said. I have a Makita battery drill, both batteries are effectively gone west. Thus I found out about the cost of replacement batteries. The drill itself is easy to use, balances well, hand openable chuck with hammer action drilling capability. A great machine apart from the failed batteries. And I did follow the shops instructions on using and charging the batteries. I bought it three or four years ago. My Bosch mains drill is at least ten years going strong. It is more powerful than the Makita and has a better hammer action. Given the choice I would opt for the Makita if the batteries lasted much longer. For occasional infrequent use, a mains drill is the better choice as you do not have to think about or charge the batteries.

So is that a "no, I can't" to my question?

Rocker

Sporky said:

Perhaps you could post a link to a mains drill comparable in size, weight and power to the 10.8v Bosch?

No.  I have better things to do with my time than go around DIY shops checking out drills.  IMHO, for occasional use, a mains powered drill is the best buy as it will always work as there are no batteries to keep cycled and charged.  I use those tools quite a bit and find my battery powered Makita to be very useful.  The batteries are the problem right now.  Interestingly, a shop suggested me buying a new Makita drill and using one of the two batteries in my old drill.  Possibly a workable solution as I hate chucking the Makita into the recycling bin.  Over the past two years, I have recycled two battery powered drills and a battery powered sprayer.  All due to failed batteries.  One of the drills was an SDS machine and extremely useful, I now hire one when needed.  As for the sprayer, I bought a Knapsack model.  Talk about downgrading....

Sporky

Rocker said:

Sporky said:

Perhaps you could post a link to a mains drill comparable in size, weight and power to the 10.8v Bosch?

No.  I have better things to do with my time than go around DIY shops checking out drills.

Right.

My point was (again) that mains drills are bigger and heavier than a battery drill that's perfectly up to this sort of work. Cordless has a significant advantage in that.

Gagaryn

10+ years ago I would have been on Team Mains - most affordable cordless drills had shit batteries that lost charge sitting in the cupboard but nowadays with modern battery technology cordless is definitely the way to go. Go Team Cordless!

carlos

I regret starting this thread now.

lysander

I wonder if one could take a 12v drill that has failed batteries and solder a laptop power supply to the drill's battery terminals - making it into a lightweight mains drill.
These supplies often have a lot of high frequency switching noise but I'd think the motor wouldn't care too much about it.

jimification

Our Ryobi cordless is 6 or 7 years old and it's been brilliant. Only came with one battery but that's still going (albeit doesn't hold charge like it did..) No way I'd ever go back to mains unless a particularly tough wall comes my way and if it's that tough it would probably want an SDS anyway. The chuck is a little wobbly now, probably not helped my me using it as an impromptu router

I was actually all set to buy a new drill - probably a Makita brushless. Are they not so good then? I see the ones they sell in B&Q for £150ish come with two batteries but reading the small print, they're only 1.5mAh, whereas the better Makita batteries look like they're up to 5 or 6 mAh now. Obviously the higher capacity batteries need recharging a lot less, so would presumably last longer for that reason. Supposedly the brushless drills use a lot less power too. Builders that did our extension used Makita drills all day and seemed to love them.

Anyway if I didn't have a drill and wanted to buy one I'd probably splash out on something decent and have done with it - it's just such a useful tool if you do a reasonable amount of DIY. One handy tip somebody told me was that you can tell if a cordless drill has a decent amount of torque by whether it comes with a side handle. I think you're talking £200 ish for something like that, though.

Gagaryn

Sporky said:

Depends a bit on what you mean by cheap. I have the previous version of this and it's superb - light, enough power and the chuck will take a 13mm bit.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/bosch-gsr-10-8-2-li-cordless-drill-driver-li-ion-in-l-boxx-10-8v-2-0ah-503774

I just got one of these (actually the version with hammer option) with an impact driver as an Amazon warehouse deal - only issue is a few marks on the L-Boxx. It cost less than the drill and two battery kit (£130) so the impact driver was a freebie! Very happy with it.

Pete_B

These are great too http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6169471    
http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6161400