ToolBane

I didn’t read close first time I read but 15.5V is really low

Unscrew the whole thing and clean it out, grease it up then try it

Interesting feedback. Always interesting how new electronics can sometimes be wonky that way. A lot of people will argue endlessly that stuff like that doesn’t exist but you can’t argue with it when you’re watching it happen right in front of you.

Gloves are made of much tougher material than your hands are just that much more capable of catching and then dragging your hand into a spinning blade Better to just keep your hands the hell away

I was just thinking...it’s been quiet Too quiet

They look cute and “fun” and I get the appeal with standard size tools often having more than enough power why not have smaller ones that are even easier to carry around if you’re working all day

Those are surprisingly low prices even for Ryobi! And I’d say yeah maybe you don’t need more but somehow I’ve accumulated 5 impacts myself and am not even sure how I got here.

Eh I think it’s just a tight field for a tool that, in my opinion at least, has very tightly defined optimums. Totally different from drills or circular saws where the ideal for any given person or application can be all sorts of different sizes and power ranges. Sure I raised my brows a bit too at where they place the Hercules and even more the Craftsman. I suspect the Hercules they probably boosted due to the value argument, maybe that was their thinking with the Craftsman too although I’m less enthused about that one. There’s a reliability question that’s not really going to be easy to address in a test like this. Still, as far as the Dewalt was concerned, it did have several “middle of the road” performance results; its best asset is being one of the lighter impacts but it was also 2nd loudest. I suspect that’s what killed it, actually. Everything together, to me a number 6 ranking isn’t unreasonable. It’s also not really all that bad out of a tight field of 16. Given how close everything else was, everything after the top-2 they could have put in any order they felt like from where I sit. There were no consistent trends for anyone even the Makita and Milwaukee had results where they were below average. Same thing I really don’t think the Ridgid at 11 is such a terrible result either, as it’s performance was similarly “middle of the road” most of the way while being one of the larger and heavier drivers in the pack. It’s just not like any of these impacts are all that bad. I have that Ryobi brushless, I use it, it has solid power, and it placed 3rd from last in this test and that isn’t hurting my feelings.

https://www.protoolreviews.com/tools/best-18v-impact-driver-head-to-head-review/43129/ I think this comparison is a bit more likely to be objectively trustworthy. Sure everyone could be paying people behind the curtains for any of these YouTube reviewers and certain performance tests can always be hand-picked to favor one product or another, but there are a decent number of hard measurements in here that are hard to argue with. For what it’s worth the Gen 3 finished number two behind the Makita but does have higher max power. Personally I think with impact drivers we’re moving past the days when max power should be the primary metric. Compact brushless motors have long since surpassed the mechanical limits of what’s sensible for the 1/4” hex format; if you need more use an impact wrench with appropriate size drive. They even say this exact thing at the end of this review. Buying 1/4” drives just to stick 1/2” adapters on that you keep breaking isn’t enhancing utility for anything.

I’ve seen plenty of people mentioning Makita using different brands of cells for different size batteries. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Makita sometimes has to change up within any given model depending on what manufacturers have available. I’d almost expect this to be status quo. I can’t wait for Makita to release larger batteries. Personally I’d only want a pair of 8-12Ah though. A pair of 5Ah covers almost everything really well really. Two pairs of you have X2 tools.

I dunno that drill looks pretty compact to me. Those 12V batteries are a decent bit smaller than 18V.

Dewalt has a planer and a number of miter saws available, actually

Today’s acquisitions. Looks like my current project will need some plexiglass cut and I’d rather have a blade purposed for the task.

Awesome impact I would have liked one myself but already have their XDT-12 which honestly is so close to the same I’m not fretting the difference. What really grabs me is the smoothness of the thing. I also got a brushless Ryobi while it was on sale to use on “dirty” projects and while the strength is pretty good it’s just a much rougher, louder tool and I find myself reaching for the Makita most of the time anyway.

This is exactly what crosses my mind every time I try and get my current Dewalt miter saw better calibrated. It’s not a terribly new model but still not much over 5 years old? Maybe the degree of slop is just par for the course even among a lot of “prosumer” level tools but I’m still hoping for better when I get around to replacing it. Best of luck hope you get your stuff sorted.

Looks like they reworked the thing pretty significantly, rolled away from all the extra cosmetics and fit it into a more compact form factor akin to the Makita. Probably the smart way to go; the previous design just looked too tall, which would have been made more awkward for anyone using a Flexvolt battery on it. But you’ll be able to put a Flexvolt battery on this. Even if you don’t get the advantage of the higher voltage, you still get the current output advantage of 3-bank batteries. If the size of them doesn’t bother you at least.

The use of CGI in advertising isn’t all that uncommon in a lot of industries. Probably just a missed detail on a cut and paste job.

That’s not a surprise to hear at all. Compactness is great and all and it seems to have been a huge point of emphasis on gen 3, but sometimes I reach for the heavier tool simply because I know it won’t get as hot even though the small tool is perfectly capable.

HD had a right-angle impact driver and rotary hammer on pretty good sales. I don’t need either very often but every time I could have used one they would have been godsends and much fewer wasted hours of my life. Issue was they were both 12V so I had to pick up some batteries and chargers. And the packages of the puny circular saw and itty bitty brushless impact with batteries and chargers basically made them free tools, so...

That’s a lot of work trying to get that perfect tool and also a surprising amount of variance if they were all essentially the same model I’m going to tell myself I’m lucky I haven’t happened to use multiples of any same model I presently own and am going to pretend I never read this

In theory one would like to think even a lot of knock-off brands would be using reasonably high-grade cells from the same oem manufacturers that the tool makers source from, which would sidestep much of the potential risks associated with lithium-based electrical fires. Such may even be true for most. But you can’t really take chances with lithium batteries the way you could with NiCad etc. The energy densities are too great and the fire hazard if a cell goes bunk is extremely real. I’ll admit it’s very possible I may take the risk for a couple of extremely narrow applications. After substantial research into the track records of the companies. And no shortage of extra safety precautions regarding fire hazards that are possible. And only because some of these companies offer battery arrangements that simply don’t exist from the tool manufacturers themselves yet.

I can only guess they’re not particularly bent on dropping top-dollar for occasional tool use but, especially if they’ve never used a tablesaw before, find themselves particularly attracted to the safety factor of the Sawstop. Best guess I can come up with.

Table saws must be the flavor of February or something. I didn’t actually want to have to get this one just yet but a new project kinda just called for it, so here it is...

Bad saw is the more likely explanation If the battery doesn’t have issues with anything else that pretty much answers the question

That’s the rotor of a brushless motor. The plastic part being a fan.