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method

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Everything posted by method

  1. For those interested, I used the vac to catch dust from the table saw earlier this evening. I was impressed with the results. You can see from the table and floor there is almost no dust present after the cuts.
  2. As above, most of my cordless bare tools just get thrown into one box or bag. The bags are great space savers but aren't waterproof. I too throw out the cases they come in as the cases are too bulky for what is in them. I just bought an AEG quickstack box today to see what I can store in it. It seems to be better built than the dewalt toughsystem if not on par, but was $55 as opposed to $90. I keep a lot of things in the cheap galvanised boxes, that way most bums who sight them wouldn't think they are power tools however, they need to be siliconed around the bottom seam to keep them completely water tight. Corded tools just get the cord coiled up and stored in drawers etc. The only tools I keep in the cases are my cordless 9" grinders, corded multitool and jackhammers etc as it's easy to keep all of the parts together and both the milwaukee and metabo grinder cases hold several disks neatly inside.
  3. I wish we had 2 x 9.0 for $200. 1 x 9.0 is still $199 here and there are no bundles anywhere. Some places even sell the milwaukee 12.0 for $349, pretty much forcing you to buy a kit as I ended up doing if you want a 12.0.
  4. Can't wait! I can't fit the 12ah milwaukees with the adapter into the dcs690 which is the only dewalt tool I really need them for. The table saw is fine with 9's for the amount of time I use it. I see Sydney tools sent a promo email today with it advertised for $249 saying 'limited stock'. As for customs, typical but good to know!
  5. Auto darkening helmet is the way to go, 15 years back you had to spend a fortune for one now they are relatively cheap. I would suggest buy the best you can afford, ensure it has grind mode and settingd for tig welding if you go down that path as you will keep it forever and it will generally last longer than a cheap one. Get arm length gloves, a good jacket and spats if your work boots have exposed stitching. If you can stick weld, everything else will be a piece of cake. I stick weld everything given it's always on site. With stick welding, you don't have to grind off the paint or galvanize, you don't have to worry if it is wet, dirty or dusty. Mig is much quicker for the application, you don't have to clean off any flux etc but flux cored wire isn't as good as it may seem. It's similar to welding with an inverter welder as opposed to a transformer welder. 200A on an inverter welder will penetrate very differently to 200A on a transformer welder. If you're not doing heavy welding it shouldn't matter. Buy a good welding blanket, I have a carbon blanket which I like as it seems to burn less than leather. Never weld in short sleeves, I do it sometimes and you get sunburn wherever you skin is exposed. I constantly do this when I'm too lazy to get my jacket and weld in a long sleeve shirt and my neck gets burnt. HTH!
  6. They are listed for $249AUD but says available from the 7th of Jan. Originally it was available on the 30.10 then 07.12 now 07.01 on the Sydney tools website. Total tools have them for special order. It's strange the way they work here, I bought my dcs690 from Sydney tools in port Melbourne, no other Sydney tools store stocked it at the time, and total tools got it over a month later. Wouldn't you think it's released on the same day everywhere? Something to do with the deals the store owners make with the company so I was told.
  7. Looks like we won't see these until early next year. Third time they have been delayed now!? Why advertise it when you can't provide it? So annoying!
  8. As CATERPILLAR says, it needs to be adjusted while running.
  9. Nice! The grease gun looks great. I've had two older nicad alemite guns and bought a milwaukee 18v gun earlier this year. The design is similar to the one you posted and is much more comfortable to use with that style although the milwaukee looks more rugged having seats beneath the cartridge for it to be laying on. How do you find the power of it? You can't really buy cordless IR stuff here unfortunately.
  10. It is similar here, in "most" smaller country towns, you could leave your keys in your cars overnight, house open and it is fine. In Melbourne CBD, completely different. The ute that was stolen a few years ago was taken as I moved the car out of a school entrance to bring a truck inside and as I walked away from thr car someone pulled up, the passenger got out and into the car and took off with it (watching us all morning obviously) I was 15 meters away and gave chase in my old work Ute which carried my engine driven welder, reels and tool boxes on it so it was too slow to keep up! This was in a shitty suburb though. Lost the whole lot and they used the car for weeks clocking up tolls, speeding fines, red light cameras and petrol runners. They also tried to get into the garage/house as they had all of our keys and address etc but the same day we had everything re keyed and remotes reprogrammed.
  11. Im assuming 5"? If you need corded I'd go with metabo, cordless as rcarnes911 suggested the flexvolt is the best I've used. I've had cordless metabo, milwaukee, I've used cordless AEG and hitachi but the new 54v Dewalt truly has cord like power. If you're going to be grinding fillets you should look at some fillet weld grinders too. You will be able to get the wheel just about anywhere and then buy a cheap corded grinder for general grinding.
  12. Over the past 10 years here, especially since the GFC our construction industry boomed as well as the theft. Some things we have had stolen: - $15k excavator grab and skull bucket - $60k hydraulic rotating shears - Ute stolen and recovered about 40 minutes later with every cordless tool and battery taken from the boxes - 2 x 10x5 tandem box trailers - 2 stihl demo saws and 2 stihl chainsaws - Ute with large diesel tank on the back (never recovered) - Truck batteries (often) - cheque books used in the stolen Ute to buy a $45k Rolex watch, a $12,000 push bike and a motorbike for $16,000 - Numerous amounts of scrap metal from our jobs The list goes on! We alarmed everything, including tool boxes and trailer plugs. Welded the pins on the trailer hitch so they couldn't be removed (several failed attempts). Immobilized all of our excavators, skid steers etc. Monitored alarms in all garages with cctv cameras and put satellite tracking in most vehicles and mobile equipment which we ended up cancelling as the police did nothing about following up the locations of some stolen items which I have proof of in emails over three months. It cause massive stress, headaches and inconvenice yet here in Australia if you do anything wrong and go to court, your lawyer will say you had a hard upbringing, drug abuse or were from a broken family and you literally walk free with a small fine. I even went to the point of setting up GPRS scoutguard cameras on site in which we caught one guy who had been caught over 15 times prior. How do you find theft in your country/area? How do you keep your tools secure? You literally can't leave anything in the back of your truck here anymore and even go into a store to order a take away coffee without returning and finding something missing. Police even advise not to leave tools on the worksite and go for lunch or smoko as it's common you will return and something, if not everything will have gone.
  13. M18 is compatible throughout. You can even use the old v18 batteries if you cut 1 tab off the bottom of them. You won't get the power using the 5.0 but it will still work fine.
  14. I picked up one of these and used it yesterday to take rubber track pads off the grousers on one of our excavators. The bolts were 21mm, damaged and rusted out from being exposed to the weather, mud etc, and had been on for almost 10 years now. I was surprised how easily it removed all of the bolts. It definitely got extremely hot (could not even touch the hammer or the socket) yet the motor and battery were cool to the touch. It was 36 degrees yesterday also. It's light weight and reasonably compact so anyone looking to buy I'd recommend it. It felt better than my old milwaukee 1/2 inch which I loved to use. Haven't used any newer milwaukee models to compare it with though, but for the price it did the job easily.
  15. Since the first lithium cordless tools came out, I have always and still do store my batteries either fully charged, their end of day state or empty. At times the batteries will sit for months, several months. I've got some that are 8 years old and still going strong. I've only ever had 1 AEG battery fail and it was less than 3 years old. I honestly don't believe it's crucial that they should be stored with a certain charge state/temperature but, I do think storing them fully/mostly charged is better than storing them dead flat. Some of my batteries were kept in a trailer for years, hot, cold, whatever the weathera, fully, partially and completely discharged for weeks/months and none ever failed. Lithium has many chemistry types, yet I always store my phone, cameras, shavers, tablets etc fully charged and they last a long time given their use. I think if it was so critical to store batteries at a certain temperature or charge state it would be printed clearly on the battery/device. I'm sure Teslas would be fully charged as often as possible. I know I'd have mine (if I owned one) plugged in every night regardless of if it was down 10% or 90%. Batteries are so cheap after a few years that if you lose 6 months of its life by not adhering to lab recommendations, it is not worth fussing over.
  16. I think this is a brilliant idea for high demand applications like a 9" grinder, vacuum etc. I agree I don't see it being that useful on a sabre saw, circular saw, drill, 5" grinder etc as a few of the high capacity batteries are good enough to last a day now.
  17. I used the vac today as a dust extractor with my circular saw. I was actually surprised at how well it worked. I was ripping 60mm thick Jarrah railway sleepers which I had band sawed in half (original thickness 120mm). The sawdust is literally like powder, cement like dust when I cut these. I attached the milwaukee vac with a pressure pipe sleeve, it fits very snug around the dewalt adaptor and perfectly inside the milwaukee hose. You can see how much dust it caught from 1 rip 2.7m long and if you need adapters, these only cost a few dollars from any hardware store. The filter was after two cuts, so 5.4m and hadn't been cleaned prior to using it for the cuts.
  18. We are use to metric/imperial here in Australia. Some things you work on have both just to be annoying! Agree with the box idea. I started to do that over the last few years. It keeps everything together, even at times when it isn't organised (more often than not) at least you know it's all there.
  19. We had a stihl chainsaw with a similar tensioning system years ago and it was in constant need of adjusting. I think it's just a poor design regardless of manufacturer. I recall seeing this on some stihl models only recently also!
  20. If you still have warranty, save yourself time and just return it.
  21. I definitely don't have that! I must have misplaced it, all I have is a small flange about the size of the nut. My Metabo flanges do not fit either, they are about 0.5mm too small on the groove. Does anyone know where I could purchase a flange from? I've had a look online for the part number, found one part number but can't find the part when I search for it? I've contacted Milwaukee and haven't had a reply yet either. I did use it briefly however and I was surprised with the way it ran. Initially, I purchased the Metabo over this as the Metabo has a more powerful motor and you can definitely feel it both free spinning and under load. The brake on the Metabo is much faster with a grinding disk. It is almost non existent on the Milwaukee when you have a grinding disk installed. Quality wise, the Metabo feels like a much higher quality tool, even when running it, it just feels like the quality is there. It feels much more solid, is heavier (especially with the two batteries at the rear) and there seems to be a lot more metal parts on the Metabo. The rotating handle on the Metabo is a feature that is really lacking on the Milwaukee, as is the three position handle (Milwaukee has no top mount). The trigger on the Metabo is really neat, firm and large. The Milwaukee trigger is smaller and very flimsy. It moves side to side at least 3-5mm when depressed. The quick nut on the Milwaukee has a flimsy handle, similar to a kanga one I bought for the flexvolt 5". I put my Metabo 5" quick nut on my 9" grinder and the nut is much more solid than the Milwaukee. For cutting vertically, the Dewalt (although not as powerful as the Metabo) is a gem to use with the 9ah batteries. I almost don't cut anything with the Metabo anymore. For grinding, the Dewalt obviously can't be used and the Metabo is definitely like a top model corded 9" Metabo grinder. The Milwaukee is a lot lighter and will be good (handy) for small jobs (I only really bought it for the 12ah battery). I think the best way to describe the Metabo, is a cordless powered corded Metabo quality grinder, and the Milwaukee feels exactly like the flexvolt 54v grinder only bigger. I was very surprised at the power in the 5" flexvolt grinder as I am impressed with the power of the Milwaukee 9" with 18V. Grinding on both the Metabo and Milwaukee is really only for tiny jobs. The batteries get chewed up so quickly that any review which states that the batteries lasted the whole shift are a load of shit. The runtime on the Metabo is better than the Milwaukee (2 x 7.0LiHD vs 1 x 12AH). With 2 x 8.0LiHD it will be a lot better. Hard to see the height differences in the photos but the Metabo is slightly thinner at the head. Length wise they are almost the same and the Metabo is obviously heavier at the rear with the twin batteries, knuckle guard and metal spark guard. The case of the Milwaukee is huge! I think it's unnecessarily large as the Metabo case holds more and is smaller but the Milwaukee case handle doesn't crush your fingers like the Metabo case does. Hopefully this info will help someone decide what cordless 9" tool will work best for them!
  22. I've never looked at the specs of these two products but the reviews show the 54v model throwing chains because of a cheap tensioning system. If the power of the two are rated the same, I'd go with flexvolt because theoretically the motor and internals are not working as hard, or should I say, being pushed as hard. An 18v platform requires higher amps (more heat and stress on the tool and battery) to output the same amount of power. You might see a benefit from newer batteries with larger, higher current drawing cells with the flexvolt line. I'm not sure what cells are in the latest 18v dewalt tools though as I do not own any 18v batteries.
  23. I picked up one of these yesterday and was wondering if anyone can share what backing plate they received? There only seems to be a small backing flange plate? Unless I dropped it or put it aside and didn't realise but I cant seem to find it anywhere? Also curious as to why they don't supply front and back flanges like traditional 9" grinder and even my metabo cordless 9" came with 3 types of flanges to use on all wheels.
  24. Thanks for the feedback. Possibly more power from the bigger cells if your comparing it to the original 9's? As per my previous post, I didn't know the 9's had gone to the 21700 cell now. I do notice more power under load with the new 9's as opposed to the old 9ah packs albeit, only with the cut off saw do I notice it. I just bought another 4 9's and am waiting for the 12s to get here instead of purchasing more 9ah packs. I think the packs will get smaller but it will be at least 5 years away judging by the time between the first 4ah packs metabo introduced, to the new slim 4ah packs they have (although still not out here in Australia) By that time maybe a new technology will be out, solid state possibly? Who knows. I think as you say with the 15ah if they ever come out, once you get up to 300wh, run time is really balanced and you should not be able to drain many batteries without having a charged one ready to go. I know this is the case with my Bli300, I can't drain the battery even with the chainsaw before another battery is charged (with the fast charger of course). I think this is the case with just about every tool out now except for the cut off saw and the 9" grinder (when grinding).
  25. It doesn't separate fine dust very well. I vacuumed the filter of my cordless orbital sander and the hepa filter was clogged with all of the fine dust from the filter in the vac. It just doesn't have the power to draw the fine dust downwards into the bin. This is where dyson cyclones work well, fine dust is better trapped with additional cyclones above the main bin without needing extra power yet it still clogs, just not as quickly. I think dust extractors need bags to be more efficient, or have to be just that, a dust extractor. It is a shame the Milwaukee needs more power as I think you could then have decent run time using it as a dust extractor without having to clean the hepa filter as quickly. As a vacuum it is excellent for around the job, the shop, car, truck and machine etc.
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