www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

I bought the Makita DHP453rm drill with a spare 4ah battery. This cost me £239. Now I was hoping to get a decent impact driver to drive in the screws because the makita is pretty crap at doing that.but makita doesn't do a separate impact driver that takes the 4ah battery.i have noticed in screwfix the item below

http://m.screwfix.com/p/hitachi-kc18dfl ... tered=true

Should this be a better option at £169? It comes with drill, impact driver and 2 batteries but the batteries are 1.5ah.

What I want to know is what is the difference between a 4ah and a 1.5ah? Is it just charging times? Will the 1.5ah last as long as the 4ah?

I'm by no means a tradesman just home DIY but I do need a good drill that can drive in screws.
Do you think I should take the makita back and swap it for the hitachi kit and save myself £70?

Steveohim wrote:I bought the Makita DHP453rm drill with a spare 4ah battery. This cost me £239. Now I was hoping to get a decent impact driver to drive in the screws because the makita is pretty crap at doing that.but makita doesn't do a separate impact driver that takes the 4ah battery.

Really? My BTD145 is 2 years old and takes the 4Ah batteries......... As to the DHP453 being crap at driving screws, I have to ask what size of screws, into what material because I know of several guys who were using BHP453s on a job recently to assemble hotel furniture and they must be driving 400 to 500 screws a day (mainly into chipboard and MDF)...... Could be that you are trying to drive 5.0 x 100s (#10 x 4in) screws into teak, I wonder? Or that you are using the wrong settings (i.e torque set too low)?

Steveohim wrote:http://m.screwfix.com/p/hitachi-kc18dfl ... tered=true
Should this be a better option at £169? It comes with drill, impact driver and 2 batteries but the batteries are 1.5ah.

1.5Ah batteries are OK for DIY use but they don't have enough for driving large screws with an impact driver IMHO

Steveohim wrote:What I want to know is what is the difference between a 4ah and a 1.5ah? Is it just charging times? Will the 1.5ah last as long as the 4ah?

A 4Ah will allow you to drive screws for about 3 times as long as a 1.5Ah. More importantly, from my perspective, a 4Ah battery allows me to use tyools such as a jigsaw, a circular saw and an SDS drill which simply won't work on a 1.5Ah battery because the current draw is just too great

Think of a cordless drill as a vehicle, the voltage is the size of the engine, the Ah is the fuel tank.

If you have an 18volt drill which won't drive screws to your satisfaction there is either something wrong with your expectations, or your technique or the drill.

I've used both 12 and 14 volt drills for a very long time until recently changing to 18 volt, both the 12 and 14 volt did just fine.

Good way of putting it