Cordless Tools Brushless Or Brushed?

[kmmcrafts]

I'm not a electric motor guru and looking to get a cordless angle grinder. I'm just going with cheap set-up likely from Harbor Freight to use at a salvage yard where you pick your own parts.. This all being said, I have a nice DeWalt drill and flashlight that the batteries have had better days.. originally was going to look into a DW angle grinder but the tool only cost more than a tool with battery for the Harbor Freight stuff. One of my out buildings here I have no electric in.. and it's a good sized shop to work in.. other than no power so having a lot of cordless tools is handy to have since this shop is at the other / far end of my property. I might just get a bunch of cordless tool as a kit or something.. Ryobi has some decent prices too.. Though I have a cordless leaf blower from HF so I have a battery for so that battery would work with the other tools.. The issue is having all these different brands of tools and having to replace batteries cost dang near what a new tool cost. LOL 

Anyway, looking at cordless tools some say brushless.. and are a bit more pricey.. I assume that should mean maybe a better tool? How about battery life between brushed and brushless or is that what is different.. Edumicate me on this topic if you know please, 

[BadBob]

A brushless tool will have a longer battery life, assuming everything else is equal.

Having multiple battery types is a pain. I have Dewalt, Bosh, and Hitachi in several different voltages.  You can buy adapters for all of them to use a Dewalt battery on a Bosh tool.

I don't have any Harbor Freight cordless tools. When I started down the cordless path, they didn't have the Hercules brand, which is what I would buy if I were in the market today. Harbor Freight's in-store replacement warranty and lower cost would trump everything else.

Almost all of my cordless tools were purchased refurbished or grey market. I can only think of three that were not. All Bosh tools.

 

[kmmcrafts]

45 minutes ago, BadBob said:

A brushless tool will have a longer battery life, assuming everything else is equal.

Having multiple battery types is a pain. I have Dewalt, Bosh, and Hitachi in several different voltages.  You can buy adapters for all of them to use a Dewalt battery on a Bosh tool.

I don't have any Harbor Freight cordless tools. When I started down the cordless path, they didn't have the Hercules brand, which is what I would buy if I were in the market today. Harbor Freight's in-store replacement warranty and lower cost would trump everything else.

Almost all of my cordless tools were purchased refurbished or grey market. I can only think of three that were not. All Bosh tools.

 

Many of my tools were refurbished.. or a black Friday special... My DW stuff was purchased around 2013 on black friday and it's just a drill and a flashlight I got for Christmas because I was tired of buying NiCad batteries for my old Hitachi drill and flashlight set. $99 for the 20V max drill and two batteries and charger back then. Just the smaller batteries but they've worked well enough for me most of these years. I now getting to a point where the battery dies before I can get very many holes drilled and I'm having to go steal the battery from the flashlight. 

I'm now in a spot where is it worth $70 - 80 for 1 battery when I could really use two and then $200 for a angle grinder or do I sell off / give away / throw away this DW stuff and start fresh with ryobi or the Harbor freight stuff, LOL.. DW has pretty good tools but you do pay for them.. I like having all the tools with same battery and since my other shop has no power I've been considering more tools than just the drill and flashlight.. I could see the angle grinder and a Sawzall.. and many other tools would be handy to have out in the old shop that no longer has power run to it. 

My son got me the Earthquake 1/2" impact from HF a few years ago.. that has been a really good tool used a lot too. I've always been going to check to see if that battery is the same as the Bauer leaf blower.. they look like they might work. Even the Hercules batteries look very similar.. Probably different, LOL. I know the DW battery is different even though they slide in the same way as I've tried that, Hahaha. 

What's the thoughts on the Bauer brand? My wife bought a leaf blower last year and it's been wonderful.. use it way more than we thought. That's what we have a battery for. I was thinking about getting a couple more batteries and a drill, grinder and some of the other offered tools.    

[BadBob]

26 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

What's the thoughts on the Bauer brand?

I purchased three wired Bauer sanders because they have round dust ports I could hook up to my vacuum for dust collection, and I don't like changing paper. They work well for me, but compared to my Hitachi sanders, they don't work as well. They sand OK but don't seem to remove the material as fast, and the cord is much shorter. My Hitachi sanders have very long cords, 10-12 feet. If you are the kind of person who takes care of your tools, Bauer tolls would likely work fine for you. They might not hold up as well if you use them hard. If I remember correctly, I paid less than $15 each for my sanders. If they die I'm not out much. At the time I purchased mine, I had to order them because my local store could not keep them in stock.

 

[scrollerpete]

Brushless tools are the only way to go if you want it to work way longer than tools with brushes

[ChelCass]

One thing to keep in mind is all of these batteries need to be recharged. This means you need electricity!  Now maybe a generator would work in the old shop to recharge the batteries (and/or run corded tools) or else you will need to tote the batteries to somewhere there is electricity..  Just food for thought.

[kywoodmaster]

3 hours ago, kmmcrafts said:

Many of my tools were refurbished.. or a black Friday special... My DW stuff was purchased around 2013 on black friday and it's just a drill and a flashlight I got for Christmas because I was tired of buying NiCad batteries for my old Hitachi drill and flashlight set. $99 for the 20V max drill and two batteries and charger back then. Just the smaller batteries but they've worked well enough for me most of these years. I now getting to a point where the battery dies before I can get very many holes drilled and I'm having to go steal the battery from the flashlight. 

I'm now in a spot where is it worth $70 - 80 for 1 battery when I could really use two and then $200 for a angle grinder or do I sell off / give away / throw away this DW stuff and start fresh with ryobi or the Harbor freight stuff, LOL.. DW has pretty good tools but you do pay for them.. I like having all the tools with same battery and since my other shop has no power I've been considering more tools than just the drill and flashlight.. I could see the angle grinder and a Sawzall.. and many other tools would be handy to have out in the old shop that no longer has power run to it. 

My son got me the Earthquake 1/2" impact from HF a few years ago.. that has been a really good tool used a lot too. I've always been going to check to see if that battery is the same as the Bauer leaf blower.. they look like they might work. Even the Hercules batteries look very similar.. Probably different, LOL. I know the DW battery is different even though they slide in the same way as I've tried that, Hahaha. 

What's the thoughts on the Bauer brand? My wife bought a leaf blower last year and it's been wonderful.. use it way more than we thought. That's what we have a battery for. I was thinking about getting a couple more batteries and a drill, grinder and some of the other offered tools.    

I have no experiance with the Harbor Freight Brand. I do own both Dewalt and Craftsman tools. Some are brushless some not.

As has been said the brushless seem to get more run time per battery.

I have adapters to be able to interchange the battery platforms. I have also ordered adapters to convert all my old 18v Dewalt to the 20 v batteries. They work great, more power and run time that with the 18v.

If you can wait until black Friday / Christmas time Dewalt always runs a special buy 2 batteries and charger get a tool free.  I bought 2  4ah batteries and chargers for about 129.00 got the jig saw free. The Angle grinder was an option but I already had the Craftsman.

I got into the Craftsman line because my wife wanted a cordless light weight weed eater. We now also have the hedge trimmer, limb saw, leaf blower, angle grinder and and drill. She has also hinted that she wants th R/O sander that they have. I am not the only tool junkie in our family.

If you decide on the Harbor freight I would be very interested in your thoughts. They make adapters to be able to use the Dewalt batteries for the H/F tools. I my experience make sure that you get at least a   4 ah battery for anything except a drill.

Edited September 24, 2023 by kywoodmaster
add info

[kywoodmaster]

I will also add that if your shop is unheated the batteries do not cherge well in cold temps.

[BadBob]

If you use Dewalt batteries, you might want to look at this.

[OCtoolguy]

I have a few Bauer tools both corded and cordless. I'm happy with all of them. At my age I just buy cheap.

[kmmcrafts]

Well, I pulled the trigger and got the grinder from HF this morning.. I also bought the big 8ah battery because I wanted a bigger one for the leaf blower I already had since I only had a 3ah for it, which btw really wasn't too bad unless you run the blower on high speed then it would only last about 15 minutes.

Anyway, while I have not actually used the grinder just yet it seems well made and I have turned it on. I do like how the special wrench is stored in the end of the handle. I have so many air and electric tools and each takes a different wrench to change out the grinding wheel or sanding / buffing wheels etc that it takes a bit to find the right tool for the right tool, LOL.. 

Unfortunately, I'm not happy with the big battery just yet, Got it out of the package and plugged it into the charger and the lights flash indicating a issue with either battery or charger.. plug my old battery for the blower in and it charges so that new battery must have a issue.. going to head back after lunch to exchange it I guess.

They are running a special on the 5ah battery 2 for the price of 1 almost.. however the other day they had zero of them and today they only had 1.. I tried to talk them into giving a deal on the one since that was all they had.. I'd rather of had 2 5ah batteries than the one 8ah but didn't want the smaller 3ah or the 1.5ah.. The deal would of been perfect fit for me but they just don't have any of them on hand. Unfortunately the deal is in store only too, checking other local stores is showing none available too.  

[kmmcrafts]

2 hours ago, BadBob said:

If you use Dewalt batteries, you might want to look at this.

That's a pretty good deal on those, I might have to make a purchase of them. I know electronics can be hit or miss sometimes but I ordered some "New" batteries back in the day when I had my Hitachi drill from eBay and they was almost as bad as the ones I had that were several years old. I've kind of been skeptical to buy online for those unless they're from a box store that would return / exchange them locally.. I'm not sure how the policies are for some of these places but I know the local Best Buy will not give me customer service if I purchased online even though it's still through Best Buy they won't help... been there done that just recently on a watch I got for my wife last summer.

There used to be places that you could send in your tool battery and they take out the old cells and rebuild your pack with new cells which is / was cheaper than new ones.. I might look into that too.  

[ChelCass]

50 minutes ago, kmmcrafts said:

Well, I pulled the trigger and got the grinder from HF this morning.. I also bought the big 8ah battery because I wanted a bigger one for the leaf blower I already had since I only had a 3ah for it, which btw really wasn't too bad unless you run the blower on high speed then it would only last about 15 minutes.

Anyway, while I have not actually used the grinder just yet it seems well made and I have turned it on. I do like how the special wrench is stored in the end of the handle. I have so many air and electric tools and each takes a different wrench to change out the grinding wheel or sanding / buffing wheels etc that it takes a bit to find the right tool for the right tool, LOL.. 

Unfortunately, I'm not happy with the big battery just yet, Got it out of the package and plugged it into the charger and the lights flash indicating a issue with either battery or charger.. plug my old battery for the blower in and it charges so that new battery must have a issue.. going to head back after lunch to exchange it I guess.

They are running a special on the 5ah battery 2 for the price of 1 almost.. however the other day they had zero of them and today they only had 1.. I tried to talk them into giving a deal on the one since that was all they had.. I'd rather of had 2 5ah batteries than the one 8ah but didn't want the smaller 3ah or the 1.5ah.. The deal would of been perfect fit for me but they just don't have any of them on hand. Unfortunately the deal is in store only too, checking other local stores is showing none available too.  

Since they didn't have the battery you wanted in stock ask for a raincheck so when they do get them in you still get the sale price.

 

[OCtoolguy]

If it ain't lithium, it ain't worth owning. Just my opinion. I've had nothing but bad luck with NiCad and the other ones. Even through Makita at their own warehouse I got 4 worthless batteries. That's why I stopped buying Makita stuff. Buy cheap stuff and if it fails, toss it and buy another. So far, I've had 2 B & D 20 volt cordless drills that were under $25 ea. They each came with one battery. I bought a 2 pack of knockoff batteries for them and then I also bought the matching saw. I've never had one failure with any of that stuff. Buy cheap! Unless you are a professional user, then buy the best you can afford. When I sold tools for a living, I sold "service" over quality but they both go together. Providing service is what will keep you in business. 

 

[BadBob]

15 minutes ago, OCtoolguy said:

If it ain't lithium, it ain't worth owning.

Every NiCad-powered tool I have owned was junk. Low power and batteries that had a short life span. Worst to me is that they would die sitting on the shelf, and I would need to charge them before using them. Some were so bad I would not sell or give them away. After the last one went into the trash, I swore I would never have another battery-powered tool. Then, a few years ago, I needed a hedge trimmer and bought a Dewalt. Now I had batteries that worked and held a charge. When my reciprocating saw exploded, I replaced it with a Dewalt after reading how handy it was for clearing brush. I can cut it off at or below ground level faster than I can haul it away. Today I have a substantial collection of lithium-powered tools.

The only lithium-powered tools I have had that I did not like are anything that runs continuously. I have a battery-powered string trimmer. It eats batteries.

[BadBob]

2 hours ago, kmmcrafts said:

That's a pretty good deal on those, I might have to make a purchase of them.

I ordered a pair they have already shipped. Sometimes on eBay, low-priced items are scams. I've ordered some of these. eBay always refunds my money. Sometimes without even asking.
 

[kywoodmaster]

I

2 hours ago, BadBob said:

I ordered a pair they have already shipped. Sometimes on eBay, low-priced items are scams. I've ordered some of these. eBay always refunds my money. Sometimes without even asking.
 

I ordered those last fall. The 4ah from home Depot seem to last as long as these do. Not saying their crap but something don't seem right with them.

[BadBob]

37 minutes ago, kywoodmaster said:

I

I ordered those last fall. The 4ah from home Depot seem to last as long as these do. Not saying their crap but something don't seem right with them.

Without some way to test where you could measure how much load you put on the battery and do the same for both, it would be hard to tell. Maybe 98% of my usage is intermittent, so I would not notice an issue. The only problem I have had with lithium batteries is that they are all 3rd party. Some were DOA and got replaced by the seller. The others stopped charging well after the one-year warranty had expired.

[kmmcrafts]

Well to be fair the issues I had with the eBay batteries was the NiCad type batteries as this was before the Lithium stuff was out there. They weren't junk.. but they weren't like the original new ones were either. The issue with those are, once the battery is made they start deteriorating so while they was "new in sealed package" they was old. Whenever I buy car / tractor batteries I look for the date code and I buy the newest one they have because the same issue with those.

Now, to my bad battery issue today from HF.. They took me and the battery back to the backroom of the store and they plugged it into their charger.. which showed initially it was charging but then suddenly showed it was fully charged but the test light built into the battery showed low battery, so they exchanged it.. Yay..  BUT, then I get home and plug the new one into my charger ( which I had with me at HF too ) and the same thing happen. SO, I make another trip back to the store and they tested the replacement battery and it worked on their charger so we plugged mine in again and it didn't work. MY Charger was bad... But my charger works on the smaller 3ah batteries so I bought a new "open box charger" that we used to test the battery with as it worked.. being open boxed it was cheaper and also proven to work, LOL It is the slower charging one but I don't care if it takes a few hours to charge. Plus I guess it's better for the batteries to do slow charge anyway. so finally a win win,  after 3 trips to the store.. which is about 15 miles each way..  Anyway, glad to have it sorted out and I can get to work first thing in the morning with a couple fully charged batteries..

 

[kmmcrafts]

2 minutes ago, BadBob said:

Without some way to test where you could measure how much load you put on the battery and do the same for both, it would be hard to tell. Maybe 98% of my usage is intermittent, so I would not notice an issue. The only problem I have had with lithium batteries is that they are all 3rd party. Some were DOA and got replaced by the seller. The others stopped charging well after the one-year warranty had expired.

Yeah this is how I will be with the tools too.. mostly intermittent. most times I don't notice that my DW batteries are going bad.. but when I was doing a lot of drilling a couple weeks ago I had to keep changing / charging my two batteries.. and the lithium aren't so prone to go bad like the NiCad issues I had back in the day with those eBay batteries I mentioned in my last post. These old DW batteries made it at least 10 years.. I was replacing those old NiCads about every 2 years if I was lucky to get that much time with them.

Limited use is mainly why I went with the cheap HF tools.. I don't see myself using the grinder a lot.. but it'll definitely be nice to be able to make use of it in the old shop that the power was cut off too once the new shop was built. It's mostly a storage for lawn mowers etc now but does have a nice heavy workbench with a vise.. no vise in the new shop or big heavy bench.. so some certain jobs is nice to take to the old shop.. no power has made it a hassle so buying new tools to replace old broken ones I'm going cordless. Just don't see spending $200 on a DW grinder that is going to see limited use. 

[BadBob]

I have had to upgrade chargers three different times because the old ones would not charge new higher-capacity batteries.

[Scrappile]

The down side of lithium:

 

[Gene Howe]

21 hours ago, kmmcrafts said:

There used to be places that you could send in your tool battery and they take out the old cells and rebuild your pack with new cells which is / was cheaper than new ones.. I might look into that too.  

Batteries Plus used to do that. IDK if they still do, though.

[kmmcrafts]

1 hour ago, Gene Howe said:

Batteries Plus used to do that. IDK if they still do, though.

Yeah, I looked on their site and I didn't see it listed on their services page but maybe I should just give them a call..

[kmmcrafts]

Well, I used the grinder this morning with a metal cutoff wheel on it to cut 8 3/4" U-bolts at the salvage yard.. It sure has a lot of power and buzzed right through.. The air cutoff wheel I use in my shop here at home slows up some when you get into the thick part of the bolt so I was pleasantly surprised with the power of the grinder. It paid for itself this morning so anything beyond this is a plus.. I can say that it was quite comfortable to hold onto since I'm used to having to work around the air hose etc with the air one.. This one might just replace that air powered one.. I may use it more than I originally thought, LOL

Now to the funny / not so funny part..

I was cutting off leaf spring brackets / mounts from a dodge truck as I needed new ones and nobody makes / sells new.. nor will most yards sell just the brackets as they want to sell the whole spring assembly.. anyway to get to my point.. the first one I took off was right there in the open as the tire was already off and that side was already jacked up and setting on some other pile of junk so it was up in the air already.. I bust my butt to get cleared out for the other side and get it up in the air etc.. cut the bolts and grabbed the piece and on my way back to my wheelbarrow to take my parts up to pay.. there lay a real nice one already off and half sunk into the ground in the roadway..  Go figure.. just proof that I always do everything the hard way, LOL