A few questions about cordless drills and batteries

[Claudisimo]

Hello everyone. I'm confused about some things. I'm short on budget (and I will be for the rest of the year) and tools are kind of expensive in my country. I want to buy a makita cordless drill, for wood working mostly. I was hoping to get a 18v drill and I found a place where they sell the tools with no batteries. The thing is that I also need a jigsaw, and I found one (JV183DWE) that comes with 2 Li-ion 1,3Ah 18v batteries (the model of the batteries is BL1813G) and a charger (one hour charging time, the model is DC18WA). As I told before, they also sell drills with no batteries so...

1) Can I buy a 18v drill alone (BDF458Z is what I have in mind) that, if you buy it with the complete pack, comes with 3Ah batteries and use those 1.3Ah ones with it? Will it work? Will it have less power or the battery will only last for less time?

2) Can I use that charger (I know there's more than one model) that comes with those 1.3Ah batteries, buy chinesse 18v 3.0Ah batteries and charge them with it? Will they work? Will it damage the charger or the batteries, or they will just charge slower? Maybe another model of charger is needed?

3) I already have a Makita corded hammer drill. I don't use it very much and I'm fine with it when i need it so... is there any difference between a cordless drill (i will work on wood) and another one that comes with hammer function? Because I don't need that and it's more expensive, so I want to know if there is another difference between them besides the hammer function, for example, Makita bhp458 and bdf458.

Thank you guys, and my apologies for the bad english.

[wine~o]

With regard to question 2, yes you can use aftermarket 3AH batts, and yes they will take longer to charge.

However, use of non original Makita batteries will invalidate the manufacturers guarantee on the tools and the charger..

Also some knock-off batteries (Chinese or not) are not the highest quality, some have been known to explode or catch fire..

[Job and Knock]

I'd caution against using a jigsaw on 1.3Ah batteries. My own Makita cordless jigsaw, a BJV180, is quite heavy on battery use and to be honset I doubt that you'd get sufficient run time on the smaller battery. You might also find that the jigsaw is overheating the battery quite seriously (something which damages or destroys Li-Ion batteries) because heavy usage tools sucgh as jigsaws, circular saws and SDS drills tend to draw near to the maximum output of a 3Ah battery at times (i.e. 54Wh). BTW I can flatten a 3Ah battery on the jigsaw in under 30 minutes in heavy use.......

The charger I've seen supplied with 1.3Ah batteries is very slow in comparison with the one normally supplierd with 3.0Ah and above batteries because the low-cost unit has no fan to cool the battery. To give you some idea, the DC18WA charges a 1.3Ah in 60 minutes whereas a DC18RA will charge A 3Ah battery in 22 minutes (or a 1.3Ah in about 10 minutes from experience) - the slower charger would, by extrapolation, take around 138 minutes (2 hours and 18 minutes). I believe that the DC18WA cannot charge the 4.0 or 5.0Ah batteries, either

In terms of use there is no reason why you can't use an impact (combi) drill on wood - the impact function does turn off - the main penalty is weight. Combis always weigh slightly more than equivalent drill drivers. Makita do sell drill drivers (DFR as opposed the DHP models), but they aren't the easiest of tools to find. I'm personally not too keen on combis - for masonry I almost universally use an SDS instead, although being trade it's the need for speed which drives that decision

In terms of aftermarket batteries I've had few problems with even cheap batteries (see Lenoge thread elsewhere) - although I always avoid batteries which won't charge on Makita fast chargers in contradiction to Wine-O's comments. maybe I'm just lucky? In fact the only 18 volt Li-Ion battery I've ever seen catch fire was an early Makita one - before they redesigned the charger.....

[Pat68]

I would stick to the makita batteries if i were you mate. You could burn out the charger with low quality batteries.
If you are determined to do it, try and get the best batteries you can get.

[Someone-Else]

Bit late really, the poster only asked 2 years ago and only made the ONE post

[Job and Knock]

To ad to the knowledge base, though, from experience (of a colleague):

A word of warning! "G"-series batteries (e.g. BL1813G) ARE NOT COMPATIBLE with the main range ofMaita 18 volt batteries (e.g. BL1815, BL1820, BL1830, etc). They use a different charger and have a completely different, incompatible connectors. AFAIK the only tools available in "G" series are a drill/driver, an impact and a jigsaw. Fine if that's all you need, but if you ever want anything else, look at the 18 volt main range or the 10.8 volt compact range. There is also only one battery size for "G" series tools - 1.3Ah