Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Milwaukee). This thread is read-only.
I’m considering buying a M18 Surge to go along with my M12 Fuel Impact. The M12 has plenty of power for what I do and I was wondering if they are comparable to each other in power? The most difficult work it would be doing is a 3 inch tapcon screw. I know that the Surge is considerably weaker than the regular Fuel impact, but I figure that someone out there has both tools.
Your M12 Fuel Impact still has more peak torque. The trade off is acoustics. The surge is quiet.
The surge is plenty fine for tapcons unless you suck at drilling and cleaning out your holes!
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The Surge has just over 1/3 the torque that the M12 impact does but the Surge has a higher IPM and RPM. I have the Surge, M18 One-Key Impact, and the M12 Impact. While the Surge has the least torque of the three it still works just as well as the other two. I haven’t used it with tapcons but putting in 3″ screws and lags it was twice as fast as the M18 Impact and a whole lot quieter.
I just bought the M18 brushless impact (HD BF special) to go with my M12 Fuel impact, but I still want to get a Surge…
WTF is wrong with me?
The Surge doesn’t have near the peak torque that the regular Fuel does, but there’s more to it than just that. It drives screws up to 4″ just as well as my M18 One-Key, and with its sustained torque, will try to drive smaller ones right through 2x framing, head and all, if you let it. As much as anything, I use my M18 for boring framing with Bosch Daredevils, and the Surge would go out on overload with them over 1/2″ when I tried it for giggles. For that reason, my Surge doesn’t come out much, but if I were primarily driving fasteners, it would see much more use.
My first time posting, but I keep coming to this forum for the wealth of information on here. I have the M12 fuel impact and just bought the Surge this week. I was also curious which had more power so I did a quick test driving 1/4 x 3 1/2 Spax Powerlags into a 4×4. The Surge was easily twice as fast. I am heavy into the M12 line but wanted the Surge for the noise reduction.
I posted this question and I have since bought a Surge and the Black Friday M12 impact set that comes with the packout box. Both are great. The Surge is definitely quieter and powerful enough to send 3 inch x 1/4 inch tapcon zipping into blocks. Both are great products.
BT32 wrote:
13 hours ago, BT32 said:My first time posting, but I keep coming to this forum for the wealth of information on here. I have the M12 fuel impact and just bought the Surge this week. I was also curious which had more power so I did a quick test driving 1/4 x 3 1/2 Spax Powerlags into a 4×4. The Surge was easily twice as fast. I am heavy into the M12 line but wanted the Surge for the noise reduction.
Welcome to the forums Bryan, Happy New Year bro
I have the surge and just got the m12 for Christmas. Both really are great tools. Even though the m12 is slightly longer than the m18s it still has a smaller overall feeling. I still think a m12 surge would be a pretty awsome tool.
I just want an M12 One-Key Surge model.
When will Milwaukee offer a Surge compact cordless impact wrench?
Surge = 50% quieter operation, 3X less vibration for smoother operation, and faster driving speeds compared to standard impacts.
impactsocket wrote:
2 minutes ago, impactsocket said:When will Milwaukee offer a Surge compact cordless impact wrench?
Surge = 50% quieter operation, 3X less vibration for smoother operation, and faster driving speeds compared to standard impacts.
I expect this to be really unlikely. Since one of the most critical functions of impact wrenches is to break bolts loose that have been toques above a certain spec, these fluid-based impacts would give up way too much of their function with larger bolts.
I supposed they *could* always do some for smaller nuts used for general, little things under the hood. But forget about taking lug nuts off or suspension work, etc.
Milwaukee does have a 1/4 anvil compact cordless impact wrench for lower torque bolts. Why not make a surge version?
The 3/8 and 1/2 anvil compact cordless impact wrenches are high torque so Milwaukee probably would not offer Surge versions on these anvils.
impactsocket wrote:
1 hour ago, impactsocket said:Milwaukee does have a 1/4 anvil compact cordless impact wrench for lower torque bolts. Why not make a surge version?
The 3/8 and 1/2 anvil compact cordless impact wrenches are high torque so Milwaukee probably would not offer Surge versions on these anvils.
Well maybe you just gave them an idea. Email them and make sure they know where to send your bonus check. 😉😁
What vibration? That’s where the Surge idea kind of fails. The vibration of an impact is very little on current designs unless you’re running all day then even with the Surge use impact gloves. Second sure it’s quieter but quieter than what saw/hammer on the job site? Ear plugs aren’t just for impacts. It’s an interesting concept and that’s why it’s a good item to sell but so far we’ve passed on it in favor of torque per dollar or whatever you want to call it in my crew.
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The M18 Surge and the newly introduced M12 Surge both have a 450in/lb rating.