Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Power Tools). This thread is read-only.
If you were in charge of improving power tools, what tool or tools would you improve and and what would you do to improve them?
Don’t get me started we will still be here at Christmas. LOL. 😀
First thing that jumped out at me was equipping Milwakee impact drivers with 1 handed bit change. That’s just because I’m using it the moment. I’ll think of more.
Make a circular saw where you can choose to have the blade on either side of the motor for left and right handed people is one of mine.
Also a docking station for site workers which you charge at home and would have capacity for 8 batteries 2 on each side and it would charge them all when there is no power at all.But also work from a power supply giving you endless possibilities.
But my main improvement from a U.K perspective would be equality of service, warranty and availability.So many tools have for example batteries for life (not available in U.K), 5 year warranty ( not available in U.K).
Metabo PUT A BLOOMIN BELT HOOK ON YOUR DRILLS AND IMPACT DRIVERS and make the impulse function and all the cool stuff available for my friends in The U.S. :rolleyes:
And to Paslode and several other manufacturers TWO batteries MINIMUM for professional tools please. :wacko:
Wayne Burgess wrote:
Make a circular saw where you can choose to have the blade on either side of the motor for left and right handed people is one of mine.
Stanley used to make a cool tool that could do exactly that, they called it the Eager Beaver. It was really a trim sized saw (4 1/2″) that was in a wedge shape that you could flip over. It had dual triggers one on each end of the rear handle. It actually had two shoes that the bevel could be set independently.
Eager Beaver in Popular Mechanics
Also a docking station for site workers which you charge at home and would have capacity for 8 batteries 2 on each side and it would charge them all when there is no power at all.But also work from a power supply giving you endless possibilities.
I don’t think you would want to carry around a battery capable of doing that. I have had to work remotely before and looked into a lot of options from hybrid solar wind power to battery packs. For solar power figure on about $1000+ dollars for solar cells to charge each battery with a stock 12v car charger. A lead acid battery capable of charging six battery packs is going to weigh in at around 80 pounds. Something like Xantrexs portable power unit will charge about 4 batteries, cost close to $600 and weighs in at around 60 pounds. I don’t really remember what it would cost to do a big pack with Lith-Ion car batteries but do remember that the cost was so high that it is not really worth considering and it still would have been in the 50 pound range and would have required building a custom charger. So that leaves the only really viable option, a small generator like a Honda EU1000 or a larger generator and you might as well bring your corded tools or buying enough batteries to last for the duration of your job. One of the reasons I like Makita is they do offer a 10 pack of batteries.
We do need more multi-bay chargers, silly that only Ryobi is offering one with any real abilities to charge many packs at once.
And to Paslode and several other manufacturers TWO batteries MINIMUM for professional tools please.
Seriously, this needs to be done for any tool that can’t run for more than a day on a single charge.
It can be done I have worked it out, lithium ion batteries packed into groups but yes it would need wheels and cost a bloomin fortune LOL. 😀
Wayne Burgess wrote:
It can be done I have worked it out, lithium ion batteries packed into groups but yes it would need wheels and cost a bloomin fortune LOL. 😀
What I liked was Valence u1-12rt system, a “drop in replacement” for a regular 12v lead acid battery, that doesn’t need an expensive dedicated charger/management system and could power a standard car charger available from most major tool manufactures, one of these at approximately $850 should be able to charge three 18v tool batteries. They only weigh about 15 lbs. so even a couple of them should be easily manageable.