Jpgwoodworking

Only so many things it can be. Blown head gasket or broken piston ring would be my guess. In the time it would take to run a diagnostic test you could just pull it apart and look.

6x12 cargo trailer. Saves me loading tools up from the shop every day.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I’m not a big fan of the pallet wood projects myself, and generally try to talk the customer into going with T&G pine or something a little cleaner. For that project, they were adamant that they wanted the pallet wood and had already broken down and sanded their own pallets.

Yeah the Dewalt brushless circular saw eats the Ridgid for lunch!

Believe what you want, but I own both saws and use them heavily. All I’ve stated is the basic advantage of brushless, more power and better run time. I don’t have time to do a run time test of them, but I may try to show the power difference. The most common thing I use the little saws for is 1x2 - 1x6 radiata pine, but Rigid has cut 3,000 ft of laminate flooring, and a decent amount of pallet wood. The only time my 10” and 12” saws come out anymore are for 12” wide panels, 4x4’s, and crown. The Ridgid with a 5 ah battery will run for 2 days of high volume cutting. This is job after job, with me and one of my guys both using the saw, so it is cutting almost constantly. It also has enough power that you really have to be trying to bog it down, and it will kick back like a corded saw rather than stalling if you bind a cut bad enough. The Dewalt with a 6 ah Flexvolt pack ran a fully charged battery down to 1 bar while cutting 1x6’s for Shaker wainscoting in a 16x16 room. That was about 4 hours of cutting, by myself with no helper, so more down time between cuts. While it still has enough power to be useful, you do have to pay attention to not bogging it down accidentally, like the previous generation of cordless saws. Here are a few pics of what I’ve done with the Ridgid: FWIW, that miter saw, along with the 18 gaguge nailer, router, and fan are Ridgid’s only decent cordless tools. Their sander, grinder, radio, job max, and brushless impact/drill/circular saw are all horrible. They are the reason I picked up Dewalt in the first place, and I’ve been happy with them.

The Daredevil bits are great, but you need to make dang sure that the drill you’re using has enough power to make it out the other side. Due to the screw tip, you can’t just pull back on the drill to clear chips like a regular spade bit, you have to reverse it out. I buried one 6” deep in a cherry beam, and by the time my Bosch HD19-2 started to bog down, it couldn’t be reversed out. It broke the chuck retaining screw and the chuck spun off, still attached to the bit in the beam. It finally came out with a pipe w ranch and had a full extra twist in it. Also so be aware that no spade bit will make a clean hole for things like fishing rod or coat racks.

These aren’t the most durable but they are warm and have good dexterity. I don’t work in mine, so I’m not sure if they would last a week or a month. Some duct tape strips on the fingers may help.

They don’t lock together with the T-Staks unfortunately, but the larger bins in the pro organizer hold 2 Dewalt bit cases perfectly. https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-10-Compartment-Deep-Pro-Small-Parts-Organizer-DWST14825/203367153?cm_mmc=Shopping|THD|G|0|G-Pro-PLA|&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyszSBRDJARIsAHAqQ4rbsHXOmYHlLLdFyVptYvgLx_Q0YcrzOBeXzgPpnAr5wIl9ebaeWCwaAsF_EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CMDKuPGpyNgCFUJZwQoddg8I-A I prefer to carry my commonly used bits loose in one of the small bins, then a set of drill bits and tips with me. The rest of them stay in the truck or trailer until needed. It’s one of those organization/efficiency things. It seems logical at first to put all of your drill bits and tips in the same case until you realize you’re lugging masonry and SDS drill bits, hole saws, and 4 boxes full of tips into every job that you only use every few months (if you’re a finish carpenter). You’re much better off carrying what you expect to use and a few spares, and leaving the rest somewhere that is easily accessible.

I wondered how useful the theft recovery aspect of it would be, but I realized that the most likely scenario is finding your own tool again at some point in the future in the Home Depot/lumberyard parking lot, or driving past a pawn shop. While most tools are going to be stolen by thugs who don’t work, they are typically going to be sold to thugs who do work, but don’t mind buying a stolen miter saw for $100. I’m at Home Depot just about every day, sooner or later I’m likely to cross paths with them. Obviously, if the stolen tool is sold at a garage sale and ends up in some old guy’s wood shop out in the country, you’re unlikely to see it ever again.

I’ve ended up with 4 at this point (not counting Craftsman 19.2 which are no longer in use, and considering the 60v Flexvolt the same as 20v since they are compatible). I started with Bosch 12v and 18v which I’ve been happy with, but they have limited tools and haven’t kept up with other brands. I picked up the Ridgid 18v router, miter saw, brad nailer, and sander, and have been happy with them. However, I recently bought a cargo trailer I needed to outfit with more tools and found Ridgid’s brushless drills, impacts, and circular saws sorely lacking, so they went back and I tried Dewalt 20v. So far, I’ve been very impressed with the Dewalt stuff. While it is expensive having so many batteries (currently have 34, and could use 4-6 more Dewalt), it does keep things separate and organized. Bosch tools live at the shop, Dewalt tools live in the trailer, and Ridgid tools live in my SUV for quick jobs. This will ensure that I have what I need wherever I’m working, and it isn’t borrowed and put somewhere else.

The tests I’ve seen found that the flexvolt batteries added 4-5% more torque. Not sure that would be noticeable if you’re not measuring it with test equipment.

Yeah, I’ve debated whether or not it is even worth using the Dewalt Bluetooth tracking tags. I realize they aren’t really designed for theft recovery, it’s more for tracking where your equipment was left, but I’m not going to put a tag on every ladder, sawhorse, etc, that I own. I never leave my higher dollar tools on jobs unless they are locked in the garage or basement and the house is occupied. I can see them being useful for stuff like “I can’t remember whether I left my big shop vac on the demo job where I’ll need it today, or took it back to my shop so I need to swing by and get it on the way,” but at $20 each every 3 years it would be expensive to tag a bunch of tools. I debated using the Track’r or Tile tags instead of the tool company ones since I’m sure they have more users, but my thought is that those people aren’t likely to end up in close proximity to stolen tools. The Home Depot and local lumberyard parking lots, as well as pawn shops, are the most likely places for someone else using the app to ping your stolen tools, or come into the 100’ range again yourself. The Milwaukee ones may also have more users, and have replaceable batteries, but a 1yr life compared to 3yrs with Dewalt. As the Bluetooth tracking becomes more popular, there is a good chance stolen tools could show up in a year or two down the road.

Any update on this? The current 20v 7 1/4 is lacking in run time and power compared to the Ridgid brushless 7 1/4, even using the 6 ah Flexvolt battery.

I have mine set to automatically disarm every morning and arm every evening. If you wanted to arm it on the job while you go to lunch, or forget to disarm it before going in at night, you can just text it from your phone. The automatic phone proximity sensor would allow someone to break in at night while parked in your driveway, not something I’d want. However, since it has a Bluetooth sensor as well as receives cell signal, somebody that is a tech junkie should be able to hack it to do that fairly easily.

Don’t overlook the 20v brushless 7 1/4 saw if you’re ok with a right blade design. I’ve been using Bosch’s 18v circular saws for awhile, but went with Dewalt for the tools in my new trailer. I’m more accurate with the smaller 6 1/2 left bladed trim saws, so I picked up Dewalt’s and it is slightly weaker than the Bosch but not a huge difference. I also got the 20v brushless 7 1/4 and it is a beast when using the 60v 6.0 ah battery. I was able to put it at full depth and rip into a PT 4x4 faster than I could accurately follow the line. I thought about returning it and getting the flexvolt saw, but it seems you trade a large amount of run time for slightly more power. Your 20v 6.0 ah battery becomes a 60v 2.0 ah battery. I’d rather have it last all day, especially since the 20v has all the power I need. In the test someone linked, the flexvolt passed their cutting test in 6 seconds, the 20v did it in 8 seconds. The Bosch’s I have took 20 seconds, and the 6 1/2 Dewalt would be slightly slower than that. The Porter Cable they tested looks identical to the Dewalt, and took 23 seconds, so that’s probably pretty close.

I just picked on up for my trailer, as well as the Bluetooth motion sensor. It is a really nice unit and should help with both someone stealing the entire trailer, as well as breaking into it. You can program an automatic arm/disarm schedule so you don’t even have to think about it. The major flaw I’ve found so far is the lack in an Apple/Android app. This is ridiculous when Dewalt has an app that will let you control their work light. I’m not an “app guy” but this is one I would use, especially since it doesn’t display well or a phone or iPad. You can text it to arm and disarm it, but I don’t want to have to go to the website and login to see the battery level. They really need to fix this. I have it set up with a 10 second audible alarm and have the unit hidden. Hopefully this would scare anyone off that breaks into the trailer, but not let them be able to locate the unit and smash or remove it. The only other improvement I’d like to see is some sort of optional camera that can integrate with it. If somebody breaks in and takes the tools before you can get there, but leaves the trailer, a camera would be helpful as the alarm/tracking won’t do much for you. I bought 4 of the Bluetooth tracking tags to put on higher value large tools to help with recovery if things are taken out of the trailer. I think for the Bluetooth tracking to be really useful, it needs to be an open source design where when an item is reported stolen, anyone that has Bluetooth running nearby can be used to send you its location. As as it is now, I believe if you have a Dewalt tag and someone using the Milwaukee tags, or the Trackr or Tile systems is right by it, it won’t help you. If you report a miter saw with a tag on it stolen and it’s in the back of someone’s truck, it needs to give you the location when a girl listening to Bluetooth radio pulls up next to it at the light. GPS tracking units for individual tools haven’t come down in price enough yet to make it worthwhile. I’m not going to pay $220 plus $20/month to monitor a $400 miter saw. You can use the Mobile Lock in a gang box or wherever you want though as it has its own battery and magnetic mount.

I agree with the Flexvolt vac. It would be nice to have it as the base carrier with the larger wheels on the back and swivel casters on the front like the T-Stak dolly. I’d really want it to have the corded/cordless option though for bigger jobs though. I picked up the corded/cordless 20v vac and added casters and an extension wand with a floor attachment, but it’s low on power and better suited for spot cleanup. I put it in a Tough system tote, but it basically fills up the whole thing. I’d also like to see some slotted dividers or bins that can go in for better organization. The totes look like they have ribs to accept something, but I haven’t been able to find it. The bins in the Tough system organizer were all too small to fit even the Dewalt bit cases, so I took them back and got the Dewalt pro organizers instead. The bins weren’t interchangeable either. Since Dewalt also has so many systems (Tough, T-Stak, Pro Organizer), it would be nice for them to make an adapter plate to lock them together.