Impact driver or Cordless drill??

[Mike B]

Hi

Anyone use an impact driver instead of a cordless drill/driver for screws?? If so any thoughts??

Primarily, I am looking for a new cordless drill for general drilling and screwing in a house renovation, but have noticed some twin packs of a larger drill and an impact driver body - I think the extra power of the drill would be useful but don't fancy the extra weight when using screws, hence the question.

Would this be a better setup than say a pair of Makita 6280s??

I would like to keep the batteries compatible if possible.

thanks
Mike

 

[Scrit]

Impact drivers lack the torque clutch of a screwdriver so a light touch might be needed in some circumstances to avert screw shearing. Metabo do an interesting drill/driver which pulses to extract screws. Might be interesting

Scrit

 

[Jake]

Impact drivers are fantastic. I have an Elu 12v which I got off Ebay a few years back, and would never think of using a drill/driver for driving a screw since.

Much more powerful - (my 12v has driven 200mm (self-boring) coachbolts without a pilot hole). 100mm x 6 screws go straight in as fast as a little 35mm x 5.

No torque reaction, because the power is transmitted in hammer-bursts rather than a twisting motion. So the above is achieved without your wrist coming off.

Less cam out. In fact, I've never had a screw cam out with mine using decent bits, although I think someone else has (Chris/Waterhead, maybe?) with theirs.

One of the best tools I've bought. A night and day improvement over a drill/driver.

 

[Scott]

Metabo do an interesting drill/driver which pulses to extract screws. Might be interesting

I have a 12V Metabo with this feature and on the odd occasion I've used the Impulse thingy it seemed to work reasonably well

 

[Jake]

Impact drivers lack the torque clutch of a screwdriver so a light touch might be needed in some circumstances to avert screw shearing.

Funny, I've never had that problem at all. Just squeeze the trigger, and in it goes. Might be something to do with the way the impact motion transfers to the screws, but I can't think of a single screw that has snapped with my Elu. I used about 1000 plasterboard screws on my torsion box workbench base, and for part of it used a (mains) fein drill/driver. That was quieter, but snapped a whole load of screws. No torque clutch, though, but as some of them weren't driven in fully when they snapped, a torque clutch would have just left them protruding, I guess. Others a clutch would have saved, as they snapped when the head registered in the countersunk hole and I didn't release the trigger fast enough.

Fed up with that, I reverted to the noisy but faithful Elu impact driver, which just drove them in time after time. It just grinds to a slowing halt when the screw is home (although with a turbo self-countersinking screw it will just keep going all the way through until the bit length runs out of depth).

 

[Colin C]

I have A B&Q impact driver and when it dies I will be getting a good one but for £50 I payed for it I am very happy.
I was doing some frames on site with a friend and it was putting in 3 to his 1 ( screws ) :shock: , I will not be without one myself

 

[tim]

I have this:

and this:

The drill/ driver is a good drill but is too heavy as a driver for repetitive work - the impulse thingy is fine but is not really for full time use ie only for really stuck screws.

The Bosch impact driver is simply magic - short nosed, light and powerful. I wouldn't be without it. I also have a powermax screwdriver which only now gets used for very tight spaces and as a mini drill (3mm bits etc).

Cheers

Tim

 

[Chris Knight]

I have one of the original Hitachi impulse drivers. I use it for everything from heavy duty driving to quite small screws screws in box hinges. It is much, much nicer to use than a drill/driver, thanks to its light weight and small size.

 

[cutting42]

Hi

I have the fabulous Panasonic 12v Drill and Impact Driver. I use nothing but the ID for all screwdrivering, bolting and nut tightening. It has configurable torque settings and a "one hit" mode for sensitive situations, best tool I have untill my latest purchases arrive

 

[Mike B]

Thanks for all the replies!! Very interesting that impact drivers make excellent screwdrivers - definitely appears the way to go...

Couple of other questions:

Do the torque controls actually work on cordless drill/drivers?? (a recent popular woodworking article implied that they were not particularly effective on 14.4v drills...

Gareth - is that the Pan impact driver with the digital torque control?? Is so does it work as well as the marketing implies??

Cheers

Mike

 

[cutting42]

Hi Mike

I have not read the marketting blurb, just bought it on recommendations on here and other places.

The digital settings have 9 levels of torque from memory and three levels of how hard it hits the impact bit. The torque settings do what it says on the tin, I usually leave it set to the lowest level unless I can't drive something in and raise it accordingly. I also use the one hit feature which despite its name hits the screw 3 times and stops regardless of trigger pressure.

How hard it hits the screw is set from soft, mid and hard and I leave on soft most of the time as I usually work in small scale. When I laid decking I set it to hard and max torque and it would drive the screw straight through the decking no problems, so I just backed it off to a soft hit and torque of about 6 and it would stop with the screw about 2 mill under the surfeace, about perfect.

This is the best tool I have every used and the battery life is incredible, I have charged it about 5 times ever. Admitedly I am not using it every day but the charging take about 45 mins anyway.

HTH

BTW by "hit" I mean the whack the driver gives in a rotary direction - different to a hammer drill, not to teach you to suck eggs