While there is plenty of truth in some aspects of this, as a general
statement is not really supportable IMHO.

A more nuanced answer might be that many battery tools are crap, however
some are excellent, but don't ignore mains one for certain classes of
tool or for certain applications.

On 13/09/2017 14:31, Bill Wright wrote:

It sounds so attractive! No power cord! Use it where there's no mains!
But battery tools are rubbish compared to 110V or mains ones. Now I
don't do site work any more I can buy mains powered tools, and what a
revelation they are!

Firstly there's the fact that a mains powered tool can cost less than a
replacement battery. For instance a battery for my reciprocating saw
would have been £120. A new mains powered saw was £110.

Yup, price you can't argue with - mains wins every time.

Then there's the fact that battery tools run out of power just when you
don't want them to. So have two or three batteries and run mains for the
charger out to where your working ? Give over!

I have never really found that a problem with decent batteries, and
having enough of them.

Then there's the fact that battery tools are always underpowered. You

That does not need to be true. Many have more than adequate power, but
you need be a bit selective as to what you are doing and where you are
doing it.

pay more than twice the price for less than half the power. Even the
bigger battery tools tend to be rated at 300 to 450W, whereas the mains
equivalents are usually 1kW+.

Many tools don't require more than a few hundred W - even in mains form.

And what a difference having adequate power makes! The job is so much
easier. Mains powered tools just glide through the work. The battery
equivalent would be slowing chugging along, then stopping due to a flat
battery.

Again it depends on the tool. I have used battery tools that perform as
well or better than mains, as well as some that are vastly inferior.

Why people buy battery tools to use at home I really don't know.

In my case, convenience, and the ability to do things that you can't do
with mains tools.

Ignorance of the customer plus the vendor's sales hype I guess. Thinking
about it, I bet a lot of people who buy a battery drill have never used
an electric drill before, so they won't realise how limited their new
toy is.

An electric drill is perhaps a poor example - I doubt I have used my
conventional mains drills more than a couple of times in the last
decade. They offer no more useful power than my various cordless tools
while being significant more cumbersome, have vastly inferior speed
controls and in some cases lack reverse. I keep them however since there
may be times where one wants to do that would be a task well suited to
the mains tool. When the cordless drill won't hack it, its usually time
to reach for the SDS (corded in my case).


--
Cheers,

John.

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