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brushless motors.


tooljoe

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Why doesn't dewalt, or any other brand, have brushless cordless drill drivers? i understand that two brands recently came out , if i am not mistaken, (one of them is makita) have brushless impact drivers but no brushless drill drivers.

i was hovering over at festools owners groups today and noticed that their first brushless drill driver goes all the way back to 2005... that's a long time with brushless motors in their drills.

is it a marketing thing, a patent thing, or what?

is hard to believe that brushless technology is hard to understand by dewalt. 

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It boil's down to cost, and public ignorance. If nobody understand's the benefit's of having a brushless motor, no one is going to pay the hiked up cost. Makita for example, there 3 speed brushless impact kit LXDT01 retail's for $369.00. The same Impact BDT141 with brushes retails for $250-$299.

Festool is probably the most expensive tool on the planet, so they don't suffer as much from hiked cost. People expect if from Festool, and are willing to pay for it.

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One more thing is that in real world application it seems to be none or very little benefit to have brushless motors. There where a test in a Swedish tool magazine and they used the same battery on a impact, drill or what it was with same spec and the brushless tool did not have any better runtime or performance.

And the talk about the time saving service: Honestly I´ve never changed a brush in a tool ( exept on makita but that was due to melted brushholders and a result of poor material choose from makita combined with to heavy load from the user )

I have a Kenwood kitchen machine that is 40 years old and used almost everyday ( kenwwod kitchen machine is in Europe what Kitchen Aid is in the states ) and that kenwood still have original brushes.

Further more, more complicated tool means more breakdown.

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It boil's down to cost, and public ignorance. If nobody understand's the benefit's of having a brushless motor, no one is going to pay the hiked up cost. Makita for example, there 3 speed brushless impact kit LXDT01 retail's for $369.00. The same Impact BDT141 with brushes retails for $250-$299.

Festool is probably the most expensive tool on the planet, so they don't suffer as much from hiked cost. People expect if from Festool, and are willing to pay for it.

The way i see it is as the rest of the brands start using brushless motors, festool is going to go down hard. i really see their tools as toys.... well, their drills anyways since i am relatively new to the tools thing. when i first saw the festool drill, with virgin eyes, i though it was not a good drill. why? for one, i hate changing drill bits at work... just to change from pilot hole drill bit to philips head bit is a pain for me. i can just imagine how it would be changing drill heads over and over again. i would rather pay 700 US dollars (what a festool drill would cost you here in the USA, 1000 dollars outside of US) for a dewalt kit or a few batteries and bare tools.... i would end up getting a lot of good tools (not perfect) for the price of one over the hyped drill.

another thing is that the forum has a complains section. one of them being that the expensive drill just started using ratcheting chucks like my 12v max dewalt has (don't know the technical name)... i just read the complains as people ignoring the facts about that.

having said that, i would like to see a dewalt brushless tool :)

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One more thing is that in real world application it seems to be none or very little benefit to have brushless motors. There where a test in a Swedish tool magazine and they used the same battery on a impact, drill or what it was with same spec and the brushless tool did not have any better runtime or performance.

And the talk about the time saving service: Honestly I´ve never changed a brush in a tool ( exept on makita but that was due to melted brushholders and a result of poor material choose from makita combined with to heavy load from the user )

I have a Kenwood kitchen machine that is 40 years old and used almost everyday ( kenwwod kitchen machine is in Europe what Kitchen Aid is in the states ) and that kenwood still have original brushes.

Further more, more complicated tool means more breakdown.

points well made but the fact of the matter is that brushless does have it's benefits. i am not an expert in this area but it does do perform better than brushed motors. i like to use the RC hobby as an example because i am a little familiar with it. as the technology advanced so did the RC hobby toys. for example, the transmiters moved from one tech to another...and so is the brushless technology slowly. There are some RC cars doing 100 MPH on brushless motors, for example.

regarding the more complicated the tool the more break down, yes. i just saw a t18 festool video (drill that just came out) and i was not impressed at all. for example, the torque settings. in drill mode, the electronics decide when to stop the torque... lol, sorry but that is a joke to me. in that video one 2 inch (maybe 2 1/2) wood screw did not even go all the way in (screw head was popping out the wood) before the electronics kicked in and stopped the drill. and that was in one short 5-6 minute video.. i can imagine working and having to deal with that in an 8 hour shift or just working on a weekend project. i would rather pick the traditional click click click noise then to deal with that. The understanding to stop before one breaks/sinks the head of a screw is not that hard to understand the feed back of the tool and the materials.

in all, i would like dewalt to come out with a brushless drill/driver. i would buy it over festool drill any day.

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Well, one nice thing with nonbrush motors is that the tool can be shorter since there is no need of a comutator and brushes. Personaly I think that is the biggest point with brushles motors.

Other than that I really do not know. Lets say that the trigger goes out. Even a simple trigger today is pretty expensive to change if going bad, can only imagine how much more it will cost to change that on a nonbrush tool. We must remember that is is much more complicated to control rpm on a brushless motor and therefore it will be much more expensive to change parts.

But if the price will be about the same or just a little bit higher, why not.

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Brushless motors do have advantages but there are also disadvantages to the consumer which the manufacturers will not exactly advertize.  You won’t see an ad that states, “New brushless motor - features highly complex design with sensitive, costly, difficult to service electronic componentsâ€.  In my opinion the added electronic complexity and more difficult diagnosis/serviceability are concerns.  If a conventional cordless drill stops working it is quite easy to diagnose the problem, possibly even on the job site.  You can test the motor by by-passing the switch and running straight DC battery power to the 2 motor leads.  You can test a conventional cordless switch by hooking a voltmeter to the output terminals.  With a brushless design, the motor will not run without the controller, and certainly not on straight DC, so you can’t easily test it.  Testing the control board and switch are another issue all together.  Even though Festool has been touting the advantages of the brushless motors in their cordless drills, their most expensive and powerful tools like the Kapex mitre saw, Domino joiner, and OF 2200 EB router all use universal, brushed motors.  Hmmm, what does that say?  Maybe the proven brushed motor isn’t so bad after all.  Dewalt does use a brushless motor in the D26456 random orbit sander (also in its sister Porter Cable PC390) so they are quite aware of the technology.  I own the PC390 and yes it has a lower profile than my DW423, but I can’t yet say that the brushless motor is longer lasting or requires less maintenance as I haven’t had any motor issues with my conventional sanders.  With Milwaukee announcing their upcoming M18 Fuel series, and Makita apparently preparing additional brushless LXT tools, yes brushless is likely the future for professional cordless, but I won’t feel any urgent need to immediately jump on that band wagon. 

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Well, one nice thing with nonbrush motors is that the tool can be shorter since there is no need of a comutator and brushes. Personaly I think that is the biggest point with brushles motors.

I have been reading about brushless technology and the more I read the more I am amazed. Brushless technology has been invented since years ago, I don't know exactly when was invented but it has been a least 10 years from what I’ve gathered.

To get back to the topic at hand... look at this test...

o1xr5.jpg

esteva.jpg

120lf9d.jpg

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/industry-news.asp?sectionID=1490&articleID=705143&artnum=1

the brushless panasonic 14.4v impact came in 2nd (126 lags) place out of the first place 18v Milwaukee. I did some more reading and the milwaukee is a huge drill compared to the panasonic. here it is next to a makita 18v

2qv8h7k.jpg

Other than that I really do not know. Lets say that the trigger goes out. Even a simple trigger today is pretty expensive to change if going bad, can only imagine how much more it will cost to change that on a nonbrush tool. We must remember that is is much more complicated to control rpm on a brushless motor and therefore it will be much more expensive to change parts.

again I am going to bring the RC hobby :). they torture the brushless motors and ESC's... take a look at any traxxas video and see how they torture them really bad. Compared to just contractors submitting cordless drills/impacts to sheetrock dust and screwing screws here and there (not contiguously).

Moreover, brushless outweighs the possibility that a trigger might go bad. Still, the prices always go down with more quantity. Once everyone start using brushless, we concentrate on fine tuning for better performance.  

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Brushless motors do have advantages but there are also disadvantages to the consumer which the manufacturers will not exactly advertize.  You won’t see an ad that states, “New brushless motor - features highly complex design with sensitive, costly, difficult to service electronic componentsâ€.  In my opinion the added electronic complexity and more difficult diagnosis/serviceability are concerns.  If a conventional cordless drill stops working it is quite easy to diagnose the problem, possibly even on the job site.  You can test the motor by by-passing the switch and running straight DC battery power to the 2 motor leads.  You can test a conventional cordless switch by hooking a voltmeter to the output terminals.  With a brushless design, the motor will not run without the controller, and certainly not on straight DC, so you can’t easily test it.  Testing the control board and switch are another issue all together.  Even though Festool has been touting the advantages of the brushless motors in their cordless drills, their most expensive and powerful tools like the Kapex mitre saw, Domino joiner, and OF 2200 EB router all use universal, brushed motors.  Hmmm, what does that say?  Maybe the proven brushed motor isn’t so bad after all.  Dewalt does use a brushless motor in the D26456 random orbit sander (also in its sister Porter Cable PC390) so they are quite aware of the technology.  I own the PC390 and yes it has a lower profile than my DW423, but I can’t yet say that the brushless motor is longer lasting or requires less maintenance as I haven’t had any motor issues with my conventional sanders.  With Milwaukee announcing their upcoming M18 Fuel series, and Makita apparently preparing additional brushless LXT tools, yes brushless is likely the future for professional cordless, but I won’t feel any urgent need to immediately jump on that band wagon.

good points but lets not forget that festool is a proven fact (since 2005) that brushless technology works in cordless drill/drivers. in fact, upon further research, panasonic, bosh, makita, milwakee.. and others, are using brushless technology in their tools already (not cordless drill/drivers yet, eccept festool, which puzzles me). but to counter your points, once a lot of people get to know the brushless technology, is when everything settles down in the transition. meaning, that it becomes easy to understand and diagnose. it may seem complex right now, but once we understand the inner workings, it becomes easier to diagnose and the price goes down. most importantly, we get to enjoy our tools with more performance.

brushless have their place and so do brushed motors but one place they do work is in the cordless drills and other areas like...

home appliances

http://grandapplianceandtv.wordpress.com/tag/dishwasher/

HVAC systems... do you want to save up electric bill payments? :)

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/brushless-dc-ecm-motors/hvac-motors/motors/ecatalog/N-cxq

garden tools

http://www.epicpowerproducts.com/why-epic.htm

and I'm guessing the list goes on....

i am just disappointed now that dewalt does not have a brushless impact at least.

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here is another brushless drill that i encountered... although this drill seems to just specialize as a sheetrock/drywall screw driver. plus, the engineering looks very different than traditional drill/drivers... the motor is point upward...

2vlsg7d.jpg

the drill is one of the fastest out there too...

dp9306.jpg

http://special.tts-protool.com/duradrive/index.php?cc=en&lc=en

BTW, it is german.

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That looks like a rebranded Festool CSX.  The Festool CSX is $225 for the basic kit, and $275 for the full kit (2 extra attachments). The Dewalt three tool 12V Max combo cost less. I understand the high quality, German engineering perspective BUT the Dewalt 12V max tools are not crap.

here is another brushless drill that i encountered... although this drill seems to just specialize as a sheetrock/drywall screw driver. plus, the engineering looks very different than traditional drill/drivers... the motor is point upward...

2vlsg7d.jpg

the drill is one of the fastest out there too...

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That looks like a rebranded Festool CSX.  The Festool CSX is $225 for the basic kit, and $275 for the full kit (2 extra attachments). The Dewalt three tool 12V Max combo cost less. I understand the high quality, German engineering perspective BUT the Dewalt 12V max tools are not crap.

I personally don't know whom copied whom. The protool seems to be using the same EC-TEC motor as festool... but the CSX has the motor at the top... but personally, I don't see either drills as high quality engineering... more like hype...IMO. I don't really understand why they are so expensive compared to the rest.

If all they are taunting is brushless, what will happen when all drill go brushless? I mean, the dewalt 12v max combo won't do you wrong for the price. They are not heavy duty (nor the CSX) but they are not whimps either... also, the LED lights in the impact are really bright... the brightest out of all 12v... in fact. Also, if you are a car mechanic, you can just buy the anvil and you have two for the price of one.

Hasn't the festool c12 been the same since 2003? i read in popular science 2003 issue somewhere and it looks the same.... i'll dig it up sometime...

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interesting, something new i learned today... also protool all cordless drill are brushless http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.protool.de/PRODUKTE/Seiten/Produktuebersicht.aspx&usg=ALkJrhh4RX60wDcZlOEDsX3Hw4VUUTyjqg but the 12V goes for €493.85 = 637.214655 U.S. dollars. something else interesting is the 4 speed transmission which i'm guessing the 4rth makes them reach 3800-4000RPM. thanks for the info.

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There's no way I would pay that for these.

For an application like drywall I could see a 4th gear faster low tourque gear being useful.... maybe.    At a third to half the cost a LXSF01, BFS450, or BFR750 would be my choice.

interesting, something new i learned today... also protool all cordless drill are brushless http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.protool.de/PRODUKTE/Seiten/Produktuebersicht.aspx&usg=ALkJrhh4RX60wDcZlOEDsX3Hw4VUUTyjqg but the 12V goes for €493.85 = 637.214655 U.S. dollars. something else interesting is the 4 speed transmission which i'm guessing the 4rth makes them reach 3800-4000RPM. thanks for the info.

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