On 03/07/2020 09:01, wrote:

I'm tempted to spend some of the kid's inheritance on 18V tools (they'll
probably be less-than impressed to inherit used tools instead of cash -
kids today! ;-) ) and would like some advice from those who use Mak,
Ryobi, DeWalt, etcetera.

I've only just started looking and had expected that Ryobi would be
significantly cheaper, but the price difference is not so great. I've
had a Ryobi scroll saw and a chop saw for many years and both are best
described as "adequate", but the chop saw has recently died and the
Bosch replacement is hugely better (and hugely more expensive).

I have had a couple of combination line trimmer machines from Ryobi -
admittedly not battery, but the general experience has put me off the
rest of their stuff (short life due to poor design, and bad choice of
materials)

(IIRC Ryobi are owned by TTI, and they position it as their "mid range"
brand with brands like power devil at the bottom, and Milwalkee at the
top).

What do people think of their main brand (18V) tools?

I would expect the 18V LiIon tools from Mak, Bosch, Dewalt, Milwalkee,
and Hikoki (Hitachi) to all be pretty decent these days.

For years I ran some 18V NiMh makita kit that was *very* good, and some
14.4V dewalt NiCd/NiMh stuff that was a bit disappointing to be honest.
I wanted to add more tools, but also I had replaced the batts on the
Makita kit twice (in 10+ years or so) and was looking at the third swap,
but realised it was getting hard to find the range of tools in the old
format. So a few years ago I sold off the dewalt stuff, and jumped to
the LXT platform for the Makita.

All in all very pleased that I did. The range of tools is vast[1] (250+
machines), and the performance exceptionally good.

[1] Although there are a couple of gaps - for example if you want an 18V
framing nailer that does not need gas they don't yet have one (Hikoki,
have had that for ages, and Milwalkee also now)

I started with combi drill, ID, circ saw and angle drill (that replaced
all the original Mak and Dewalt kit, and have added Brushless angle
grinder, hedge trimmer, and line trimmer, plus an extra dual charger.

(The hedge trimmer in particular surpassed expectations - I can do lots
of serious work with it, and think, "this battery must be close to done
now", push the charge state button, and find its still reading full or
close to it!)

Personally I quite like it that Mak are sticking with 18V as their main
battery, and just use two of them in machines that need the extra power,
rather than adding a whole new 36V battery platform. So you get the
choice of running 36V with no new investment in batteries etc if you
need a chainsaw or 9" grinder etc.

Has anyone here tried the battery adapters for Ryobi-Mak-DeW?

I have a couple of adaptors that let me power my old NiCd/NiMh Makita
kit from LXT LiIon batteries. They work ok.


--
Cheers,

John.

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