What do you guys use? 12 or 18v? I personally use 12v myself,

Corded. All my projects take place at my house or a friend's house.

I can buy nearly ANY corded power tool from a major name brand for $40 or less and some patience in the pawn shops and flea markets.

My batteries are never dead and extension cords aren't that big of a deal when productivity isn't the top priority.

The ONLY cordless tool that I see any value in is an impact driver.

18V Makita LXT

The 18V line of any manufacturer has a much better lineup of tools.

18v, "usually do the job" isn't good enough on a jobsite, I need "do the job 98% of the time," and for all else there's the backup corded in the trailer

>>1063522
12v works ok for me, but I would go with 18+ if I was building a deck or driving dozens/hundreds of screws per day, or drilling through sheet metal often.

I like the small milwaukee in your pic for shooting a few screws, knocking a quick hole into a piece of plywood, etc. I can always have it handy.

>>1063532
>>1063539

If you're using battery tools that 'dont do the job ', you're using cheap as fuck battery tools.

I'm not trying to cause any sort of debate or anything because if you're happy with using corded tools, that's fine.

On the job site; and I work on what you would call commercial construction jobs, hospital sized jobs and multi stories, all I use is battery bar two tools.

The two tools I use that are corded are a 305mm TCT cut off saw and a recip saw.

Everything else is battery and for good reason. With high quality cordless tools and high capacity batteries I can get a long run time without the hassle of extension cables that perform as well, if not better than corded (debatable I know but I'm not interested in it).

Here in the UK every corded tool and extension cable for it has to be PAT tested. A test costs £5 on every item every 3 months.

As to OPs question. I use both 18v and 10.8v - marketed in the Amerixas as 12v or often 12V MAX. The 18v tools I use ate the brutes, high power hammer/drill-drivers, Jigsaw, Metal Circular Saw, Impact Drivers, Impact wrenches.

12v(10.8) i use are small drills. These are mostly used for 'fitting'. Light, small, compact, easy to get in to small spaces and easy to use over head all day.

I use all makita tools. Hammer drills are all makita and hilti. All laser tools are dewalt and hilti.

>>1063522
20v or fucking nothing.

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>>1063522
Only 12 or lower. I guess I could use 18 or 20 if I needed to compensate for a tiny weiner.

>>1063628
Power has nothing to do with a tiny weiner. Ever try drilling through half inch steel with a 12v drill? Have fucking fun.

>>1063628
This is the same faggot that calls guys with jacked up trucks small dicked assholes as he drives by with a prius.

>>1063647
Ever tried it with an 18v drill? Have fucking fun.

12 is enough for most things that you need cordless for, if you *need* more then that you probably want a corded. However, I use 18 because it's compatible with more tools and easier to get replacement batteries.

>>1063619
20v and 18v are identical, just a difference in notation. They use the same number of battery cells.

>>1063522
I use 20v/18v (mine are marked as 20 but i know its basically the same number of cells at the same voltage), not for any reason in particular either. I use black and decker because they're cheap but I've never had a BD fail on me or not get be unable to get a job done. Guess its nice to have extra voltage. Is there any draw back to having a 18v over a 12v? Seems like the choice is obvious.

P.S i just use my tools for home repair and stuff, I don't currently work in a construction kind of field, i just have them if I need them kind of thing.

>>1063647
I've drilled through 1" still with a 10.8v CXT makita and it was like a blow torch through butter...

>>1063619
>20v

Most of not all the tools sold as 20v are 18v operational. The 20v/12v are US and Canada marketing gimmicks. Same as dewalt flexvolt. Marketed in the US as 60v. It's actually 54v.

>>1063655
There's no reason not to have both as they will both offer uses in different situations.

I work as a commercial/industrial electrician.

I laugh at all these guys using 18v onsite. All it does is weigh them down. My brushless 12v milwuakee impact driver with 4ah battery can handle just about any job I throw at it on the day to day. All while staying light on the belt.

When I do happen to need more power I use Makita 18v brushless. (Hammer drill, Grinder, 7 1/4 saw)

The key thing here is brushless..

>>1063757
You're an electrician. Your need for power tools is minimal. You can get away with a drill and jigsaw. Not even that, just a drill driver would serve every need of an electrician.

Unfortunately all these guys being weighed down in site with 18v tools often need them for their jobs.

I'm not going to fasten M10 and M12 bolts all day with a 10.8(12)v impact driver, certainly no where near the torque needed.

18v makita but the 60V flex volt for dewalt is really tempting

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>>1063757
>i don't need 18v tools to install light switches

>>1063767
Yeah. Impact driver that runs on 12V just can't do the shit it need to.

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>>1063576
>Here in the UK every corded tool and extension cable for it has to be PAT tested. A test costs £5 on every item every 3 months.

>>1063837
You don't seem to understand.

It doesn't matter what the law says, if you client requires you to have it in place if you're working for them, you have to have it regardless.

I don't think I've ever worked for a contractor big or small that hasn't asked for 3 monthly PAT certification.

>>1063576
Ya misinformed, bro.

PAT is bollocks, none compulsory by law, and if a site demands it then it's 12 months, 3 months is false. £5 an item is ridiculous also.

Buy a load of PAT stickers off ebay and fill them in yourself. You don't need to be certified in any way to perform the test. It's a grey area that people us to make money.

>>1063619
>he bought into the 20v scam

LOL

I do electrical work in an ambulance factory and we tend towards Dewalt 12 and 20v drills/impacts. They are cordless and work well for clamping, making holes, and sending self tapping screws through thin aluminum.

The moral of the story is to always have a backup battery and to use the 12v for jobs that require more finesse. God forbid I crack a Whelen 900 light by mercilessly taking a 20v to it. You gotta choose a tool based on job really.

Corded drills would get in the way while being in the truck.

I bought an 18v Black and Decker for home use today-cordless. I'm not doing much at home besides maybe wood work drilling a hole to modify my vehicle sometime.

>>1063857

>>1063857

See

>>1063849


Regardless if I buy stickers or not, the correct way of doing it is by paying someone who's certified to do it and in my own experience they charged £5 per item normally.

Again - as I said, I just just as many battery tools as I can replace corded tools with which removes the issue completely.

Again, non compulsory law is correct; I'm not doubting that. I'm saying if you want to work on a job, site, in a building, if who ever controls that property requires it, you give it, or at the very least comprehensive evidence of having it.

Also my own public liability insurance requires any equipment I use is PAT certified. I'm unsure how often it is but it's at least once a year.

I got 12v in my kit, but that's because my foreman hauls all two sets of 18v and we're not always on the same job.

I'm a finish carpenter so I'm not really ever asking too much because I use my pneumatic nail guns 80% of the time.

Picked up Milwaukees 12v brushless circular saw today. Pretty decent, the LED is a nice touch my dewalt doesn't have. Doesn't eat through batteries like my 18v dewalt. Made the switch cause my boss won't get us new dewalt batteries. So they all die stupid fast.

>>1063857
This is a weird post.
No it's not legally compulsory to pat test but there is a legal obligation to keep electrical things safe and make sure they don't kill anyone.
The easiest way to do that is to get some company to send an idiot with no working knowledge of anything electrical to do pat testing.
Sticking stickers on things yourself is pointless, if an employer requires items to be pat tested then they will have the testing done on their behalf and keep a record of it otherwise the system is open to abuse.
If they just want you to pat test it then its a bit stupid of them but not really because the whole point of pat testing is when someone dies because of an electrical fault it gives hse someone to point the finger at, and guess what, if you put the labels on they don't just have you over a barrel for not maintaining safe equipment but they will get you for the fraud when it turns out you don't know shit about testing it too.
That's the key to pat testing, you need three things, a tester, a half day of training and a fucking huge amount of liability insurance.

I generally work with concrete or greenheart so power is important.

So 220v from the wall.

Got some 18v ryobi stuff for lighter, quick jobs but i wish the grinder and saw had more power.

I never feel "weighed down" even with a 4ah battery drilling overhead.

i only use 60v tools these days. get with the times poorfags

>>1063522
yeah uh i use 20 volt

28v milwookie everything here. Made the switch several years ago. Heres why :

Corded sds hammer died chipping two tiles on a bathroom floor (my home reno). My 28v cordless sds removed the rest to smooth concrete (1.8cm slate with concrete adhesive) in 1.5 batteries (around 3hrs continous).

Then i bought a corded $700 demo hammer. Was breaking a chunk of rock near a pool, hammer overheated. Same drill saved the day again.
While i waited for a milwookie kango corded demo hammer to rock up, i ended up stripping four rooms in the house - around 130m2 with the same cordless sds+ drill. Fckin magic.

Lets not talk about my recently selling my as-new chainsaw, given i do everything with a 28v sawzall. Or the time savings with the 28v impact driver and grinder. Etc etc etc

Only downside is they had no impact driver to suit normal little screws (most of my work is heavy). Ive been thinking of getting an 18v for diy driving tiny screws on occasion

>>1063972
Fucking stupid. Dewalt's 60v batteries are limited to the current output of a single cell. I seriously doubt if the tools even run in series mode for that reason. It's a worthless gimmick, considering how powerful the average 18v brushless tool is these days.

I do handyman shit (apartment complex maintenance), so I have a 12v driver set to fit in tight spaces, and a variety of 18v tools for whatever else. I almost always end up just using the 12v tools though.

>>1064002
>20v

https://youtu.be/EYhrBGkt8jk


>>1063972

What, all 5 of them?

>>1063959
It doesn't mean a thing. 9/10 times the tool will be damaged on site, a PAT test just tells you it's working electrically, nothing else.

Essentially the chuck could be loose or damaged and it'd still pass a PAT test. Completely pointless.

The system is wide open to abuse regardless of who's responsibility it is or is not.

Stick a sticker on it, what's to say it hasn't failed after that time??

PAT testing is the biggest load of bollocks ever. I mean, I can understand why a tool hire shop would do it to cover their arse, but if you're working for yourself then there really is no point.

Has anybody here used any of DeWalt's flexvolt tools? I was thinking I might grab the sawzall and angle grinder sometime in the future.

>>1064173

You need to explain what you mean by working for yourself. I'm self employed but I don't ever technically work for myself in the sense, I'm not in my garage farting about with shit I'm trying to sell.

Sole traders on paper 'work for themselves'.

In reality, it's not the case. If you're on site using power tools (ie, the time a PAT cert would probably be produced) you're not really working for yourself, are you.

This is where you come back to the point, if the person you are working for (and you are working for someone) and they require you to have it, well guess what...

>>1064183

The Milwaukee Sawzall isn't 60v?

As for the flexvolt stuff, I haven't used it. I've seen a lot of tool pages on instagram shilling for it but otherwise no. I do like the look of the 120v mitre saw though

I'm a manual toolset kinda guy

>>1064192
So put a sticker on it and keep a list of everything with a sticker. How else do you think you prove you've PAT tested the item? What do you think they can ask for as proof? The line is so feint it's nearly non existent.

A PAT test is literally just a sticker, nobody can find out that you haven't actually tested it, how could they? If you say you've done it thenow who's to call you out, as you don't need to be qualified?

Like I say, it's complete bollocks. Why waste £5 an item?

>>1064372

I'm going to have to spell it out I see. I don't. I don't pay for it, I do exactly that. My point is you should be doing that.

Do as I say, not as I do. Does that not come to mind? Regardless if I buy stickers, forge documents, whatever else, the proper process would involve you paying someone to test it and they would present you with letter-headed certification which ties them to that piece of equipment.

The world of work is one big heap of shit where insurers and the HSE and every other fucking entity you can imagine will get involved, all be people of the no win no fee bullshit. If people didn't find any bullshit excuse to make a claim against someone, this wouldn't even be an issue.


As for your earlier point of "£5 is ridiculous, why waste £5 an item etc"; I agree. People who do this for a living have to make a living from it - If you have £100 items they might be able to test in a morning, it wouldn't be unusual for them to charge £1-2 an item. If you have 5-10 items, they're not going to charge the same, otherwise it simply wouldn't be worth doing. They will want either a minimum fee, or a minimum cost per item depending on amount tested.

Again, so I'm clear. It all comes back to liability, if there's an accident, who's liable and why; someone will pay eventually. And no, I don't pay for testing but to avoid the question and dishonesty altogether, I use battery tools wherever possible if not for practicality alone.

>>1064385
Charger still needs testing, hope you got enough batteries m8

>>1064646
Plenty. Charger doesn't need testing if I don't bring it to work.

Neither 20v

>>1064939
sooo.... 18v average with a 20v charge peak that adds an extra 50$ to the tool for additional marketing with no real performance increase?

>>1064939
HAHAHA.

>>1064166
Thick cunt.

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Where do you guys get your NiMH SC cells?

Should I distrust the Chinese specified capacity. Eurofag btw

>>1065694
Ordered 24 NiMH SC cells in china two weeks ago to renew my dead NiCd Makita battery packs. I will keep you aware of result (eurofag too).

>>1063522
>usually
and thats why you go with 18V

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24v

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20v dewalt or go home.

>>1065694

The batteries from china are cheap enough that you can afford to buy a dozen when you only need one, and if two don't work you're still ahead.

Also, most people don't know that a lot of these cheaper suppliers in China still have really good returns policies. They can and will send you working cells for free if you return defective ones. It's just not usually worth paying $$ postage a second time for a 50 cent battery.

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>>1066246
>20v

>>1063757
>Electrican

Doesn't understand breakdown Torque and how brushless motors severely lack it.

>>1066292
>Severely lack it

Since when?

>>1066140
> Lowe's branded shit

>>1066607
Could be worse, he could have been cheap and bought Dewalt

I have a 12V set for all the small stuff, but corded tools for anything that needs more balls. Shit like 12V sawsalls are a fucking joke, but those Milwaukee dremel tools are super handy.

>>1066622
> cheap
>dewalt
Pick one

Many dewalts are actually pretty high quality now

Much better than etl shit

10.8v

>>1063522

Personally I have hard wired adaptors with fly leads so I can run all my 12v devices from my car battery when out on-site.

>>1066697

What, now they're mostly produced outside of the US? Kek

>>1067589
Name a power drill that isn't made outside the US? Not that I'd buy one, but I do understand the realities of the market.

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>>1067590

Well... DeWalt for a start. Most tool companies make their products in shit holes to cut costs. I understand you can get US made DeWalt but you pay more for it and there's no gain in quality.

>>1067590

Oh wait, sorry. Misread it. Disregard >>1067601

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>>1065796

>>1065694
Windmax on amazon is good. I ordered a few from them to unfuck a 6vB&D and make it 7.2v in the process. They sent me one less than I ordered, and when I asked them to mail over one more, they sent another 6 free of charge. They were some of the cheapest that weren't paper cased, and they've held up well so far.

>>1066246
lol fucking DeWalt dont listen to this fag. he clearly is not a pro.

An air compressor and air tools. The power difference is absurd.

>>1063522
Working as a GC laborer, I use 18v brushless Milwaukee's and there have been few occasions where they haven't done the job.

A couple of co-workers have 18v Fuel's and there have only been few if any times that my drills couldn't do something the Fuel's could.

My Project Manager is the only one who uses 12v's regularly and that's mostly because he does a lot of the finish work on our jobs. I plan on getting some 12v's for finish work, as well as for tools that I don't really need to use enough to get an 18v version (Hackzall, Multi-tool, Right-angle).

To put it simply, everyone uses 18v's on our job sites and the jobs always get done. (Milwaukee, Makita, DeWalt and Ryobi are the most popular brands).

>>1068779
>DeWalt
Fuck, I forgot DeWalt's are 20v.

It's weird, they are used almost exclusively by our Mechanical sub-contractors and no one else.

>>1066246
Its 20 v when its not being used. 18v working load.
>falling for dewalts 20v meme
Lol

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Would BOSCH GSB 19-2 RE 850 W be overkill for around the house use, occasional hobby woodworking

>>1070253
Thats a 2 speed percussion drill. Its made to hammer and eat concrete. Its large and heavy.

For woodworking, you would be better off with a variable speed drill with a clutch.

>>1070258
Ahh yeah figured that would be the case.
Thanks.

>>1068789

>tfw your cars battery sits at 12.7 volts unused
>start walking around bragging about your 12.7v electrical system

60v

I have a 12 v bosch impact driver with a spare set of batteries. For anything that needs drilled I keep a corded silver metal case black and decker drill in the truck, and for any large bolts or nuts I have a corded porter cable half inch impact wrench that I got for 50$ used..

however I do appliance repair so small and portable is perfect untill you run into something like a tub nut... and then your pretty much sure to have an outlet nearby to use so for me springing for large cordless stuff isnt really worth it.

fwiw I have an 18 V makita I got from a relative for around the house stuff... but even with that last time I did any heavy screwing I used my 12V impact... used a fully charged battery all the way up, but let me run a box of 4 inch bugle head screws into 2x12's to make a couple of garden beds.

>>1063522
At work i primarily use 18v cordless drill and 18v impact wrench from panasonic. I travel a lot, working on maritime electronics, so i need the extra power 18v provides in a portable packaging. It's also nice that they use the same batteries, so i have only one suitcase that has: tools mentioned above, 2 spare batteries, charger, drills, bits, a few sockets (only 13, 15, 17 and 20 needed) and 3 types of screws that i use for almost everything.

>>1070887
Followup: 14.4v at home. Don't really need that much power and endurance for my home projects, and i like the compact size.

I've only used 18/20volts at work. I'm considering getting some 12volts as the default 20s my co-workers have suck in terms of battery life.

So I'm asking how a 12 compares for screwing to. 20. For drilling I have a chorded hammer drill for that.

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Ingersoll Rand IQ V20 Series 3/8