Today I took delivery of my new Brushless Dewalt drill driver set, which means I can now lay to rest the best drills I have ever used.
My old drills have been faithful servants for nearly 6 years now and I use them every single day at work, so I feel I’m in a good position to give a fairly comprehensive review of them.
The Dewalt DCD785 Type 10 18v
This drill rocks! It does everything you ask of it and just keeps going. It has two gears and a pressure control trigger which means you can go as fast or as slow as you like. It also has 14 torque settings, drill and hammer action for when you need to get your masonry bits out!! I haven’t found a wall it can’t drill through. There’s very handy belt clip on the left side and a magnet on the right. Now that magnet is what sets this drill aside from the Makita or Bosch. It’s such a small thing, but it is perfect for carrying your pilot bits or PZ1 bits. And my favourite part about these drills is the battery. Mine came with 2 18v XR 1.5aH Li-ion batteries and they go all day long. They charge in an hour and they if you’re in the workshop they can probably do you a couple of days. If you’re drilling into walls they’ll last a good couple of hours, but if you’re doing that much wall stuff you should get an SDS anyway. And the size/weight of it is perfect. It fits into most tight corners you’ll need it to.
Really there is only one downside to this drill and that’s the light on it. It’s in completely the wrong position, so if you are doing anything with this drill the light doesn’t have direct line of sight with what you are actually doing. Giant shadow right where you need there to be light. I work in theatre, so it’s always dark where I’m working and this is quite a big downside, but at least it has a light. And the fact that it has a brushed motor means it has a shorter life expectancy than I’d like. Still 6 years is a really good innings for a drill I use daily I think.
Basically I can’t fault this drill. It’s perfect. It’s a dream to use and has never let me down in 6 years. There’s no downside to it other than the brushed motor which is why I’ve got new ones today. It is also even smaller than the driver so it can reach into even smaller gaps.
So I’ve gone for the Dewalt Straight out the box they look exactly the same which is exactly what I want. These have brushless motors now so in 6 years time I’ll come back and let you know how well they’re lasting. Apparently longer. They still have the belt clip and magnet, result! And they have added a battery charge reader which is gonna be a god send.
And best of all, they’ve moved the light!!
So now we’ve gone from this:
The driver now has a metal chuck handle on it as opposed to the plastic one before and the rattle gun now has 3 settings which I assume is for torque. I’m gonna be playing with that in the next few weeks to get to grips with it.
I bought both these kits for £249.99 6 years apart and if the new ones are anywhere near as good I’ll be very very happy. Dewalt have dealt with the most annoying part of the drill driver and because of the brushless motors I should be sitting pretty in the next 6 years.
So all in all I couldn’t be happier with my new purchase because they’re the same drills as before only improved.
