"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

Yes indeedy....

I couldn't figger out the functional diff between the drill/driver and the
impact driver I bought
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...&storeId=10051
and was initially going to query the groups on this, but then I found
http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-...t-drivers.aspx

an inneresting review of a variety of drivers (and shows how an impact
driver works, via the internals, fascinating), which indeed states that
these impact drivers are specifically for driving tough, deep screws. I
was initially thinking, Dayum, this impact driver seems awfully small to
remove the lug nuts of my car..... doh
Just in case others have shared my conunudrum....

The above HD Makita set ($99, 12V drill/drive+impact driver, charger, two
batts, in a bull**** alum "camera case", like Aire Jordans) is cheaper
than other stuff, and the power of the driver seems substantially less
than the similarly sized Milwaukee drill driver (also 12V, also made in
Chiner) that my buddy has, as we were able to do a side-by-side
comparison.

And the makita battery doesn't last nearly as long. But, those small
milwaukee batts are $70 all by themselves -- holy **** -- but seem to last
forever.
So actually, I couldn't say f'sure whether the raw power of the makita was
less, or that the battery had just gotten comparitively weaker by that
point -- but, which is sort of six-one/half-dozen, from a practical use
pov.

Still, the Makita set is neat, useful, relatively cheap. Note that these
drivers are much smaller than the big-battery style, but really handy, and
did well on some substantial-sized projects. . Even the above reviewer
comments on size/convenience.
I'm almost done with my outside home-moaning projects (boucou fencing,
gates, etc), but if I were to do it again, I'd buy like 3 sets of those
makitas (6 drivers altogether), just to have the right driver bit, drill,
etc always handy -- helpful in the heat of home-moaning battle and
confusion.

Note that altho impact drivers always seem to be chuckless (that spring
hex ditty), that drill/drivers also can be chuckless with that same
spring/hex ditty. Fortunately the makita drill/driver was chucked, altho
if you catch one of the HD demo videos on this makita set, the
drill-driver is not chucked.... weird.... but this could be a different
set, as I think they mentioned 10.8V, and this set is jalternately listed
as "12 V" or "10.8-12 V max"..

Plus, these impact drivers *sound* really cool, seem to amp up
home-moaning testosterone a bit.... which would proly be a really big plus
for Trader4 et al.

Assuming that the drill/driver and impact driver both have the same motor,
the impact feature is actually "kinder" to the motor, using the physics of
momentum, rather than plain ole I^2 x R or EI, etc. Sorta like the diff
between pounding a nail with a small hammer, and trying to shove it in with
yer foot....

But, if the designers are aware of this, and then chintzed on the motor
itself, then there's proly no advantage ito tool longevity.
But the two drivers in this makita set do look identical, from the motor
housing pov, and use the same batt, so it may very well be that if from an
economuy-of-scale pov, they used the same motor, so the impact driver for
driving would be the proper-er way to go.

But for light stuff, and stuff needing the clutch, the drill/driver would be
better, and proly faster.
--
EA


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EA