I mean, if you’re bringing anything else to the jobsite, it’s cuz you have the money for festool or Bosch. Makitas are tanks, and drive consistently through the battery cycle. The first few times I used one of their 18v impact drivers I was legitimately surprised when the battery kicked, because the last screw drove almost the same as the first.
Most LiON battery-driven cordless stuff will behave the same.
It’s simply very hard to beat Ryobi at their price point. Yes, your $200 versiontool damn well better outperform my $40 version! And the B&D offerings just don’t compare all that well. And Ryobi keeps grandfathering in their old battery/connector tech, unlike B&D (and many other brands, for that matter).
It doesn’t hurt that Ryobi multi-head power units can use Ridgid tool heads, as well as the Ryobi-branded stuff. I wish I’d seen that before I’d bought my “old school” hammer/drill/driver; it’s more expensive but also very flexible.
Would I use Ryobi stuff as a construction “pro”? Nah. But as a normal schmo, it’s fine and costs way less, while outclassing its immediate rivals. And I’ve actually been on jobsites where people HATED Makitas, because they kept burning up motors…+shrug+
In the past, I’d have gone Black & Decker without any qualms but not any more.
There was an adjective missing there.
Well, if you did, you’d get laughed off the job…
I mean, I mentioned jobsite specifically- as in pro. Pros literally do not use Ryobi. We do not use Rigid. For cordless systems, we use Dewalt, Makita, or Milwaukee, or as mentioned, if we have the money, Bosch or Festool. This isn’t really debatable, it’s MoF. I’ve been working trades for nearly two decades, those are the cordless tools pros use.
For home use, I personally can’t recommend Ryobi +1, because the few times I’ve bought them for around the house, I’ve had terrible results. Even the radio I bought died within 100 hours.
I will, however, recommend older Ryobi corded tools for home stuff. In my shop I have a 10" table saw, 1.5 hp router, and a corded drill. All are 10+ years old, and perform well enough to do what I need at home or for personal projects. I wouldn’t, with extremely limited exceptions, take these to work.
It all comes down to what you need to do. Do you just need to make occasional light repairs, reattach some cabinet doors or install curtain rods? Sure, buy whatever. Make birdhouses, or hang frames on your wall? Sure, buy whatever. Do you need to remodel your home? Buy real tools.
Nope. The sentence works fine, as-is; I merely left off “as the example given” as implied. LiON batteries will give all of their rated voltage until there’s no power left; it’s a trait of the battery tech, not the manufacturer.
Considering I specifically mentioned not doing so, your point is…? Furthermore, yes, Makitas “smoke” relatively easily; I’ve seen it often enough on job sites. And DeWalt happens to be made by Stanley Black & Decker; it’s just Black & Decker/Stanley stuff with nicer features and inflated cost, pretty much.
Point of fact, in my experience, on heavy-use jobs — concrete cutting, grinding high-alloy metal piping for welding, etc.— you’d have been laughed at for whipping out a pretty yellow DeWalt. They’ve gone wa-a-ay downhill, since their acquisition by Stanley Black & Decker. And Makitas were a sore point, as well, although they were still used a lot. The office got pretty damn tired of repairing/replacing Makita heavy tools =p .
For lighter-duty “pro” work, sure, a DeWalt or Makita will work fine. But pretending either brand is especially “premium” is a big stretch. What was the most well thought-of brand name on site for truly heavy-duty work? Milwaukee, by far, for power tools, and Snap-On for hand and air tools.
And Milwaukee is owned by an international conglomerate which also owns Ryobi and Rigid… Hmmmmm…
Almost all tool companies are owned by international conglomerates. This does not mean they are produced in the same factories with the same parts.
Milwaukee being owned by the same Corp as Ryobi (not the same as Ryobi Japan) does not mean that Milwaukee no longer produces professional grade tools, just as Dewalt being owned by the same conglomerate that owns Stanley and B+D (and MAC automotive, btw) does not mean that Dewalt no longer produces professional grade tools.
That said, all I can really speak of is my own experience. That experience includes working directly for over a dozen contractors, as well as working on my own, and with many subcontractors comprising all aspects of the building trades. I currently work as an assistant to an architect who operates his own design + build firm. Makita, Dewalt, and Milwaukee comprise the vast majority of cordless tools the folks I’ve worked with use. For corded tools, the bias is for Makita and Bosch, while almost all sawzalls are Milwaukee, and almost all circular saws are Skil mag 77 wormdrives. Fein makes excellent corded tools, and has recently branched off into cordless, which I’d imagine are also excellent. Festool makes the wet dream gearhead stuff. Bosch makes excellent large tools. Almost every plug-in hammer, from 11lb babies to 70lb booty shakers had been Makita (Hilti, long ago Nazi collaborators, also makes excellent hammers.)
So that’s what I’ve seen, from my experience. Now, mostly I’ve worked in remodeling, and I’ve only been on a handful of corporate jobsites. From what I know from friends and coworkers with more experience in that area, most if not all power tools are provided by the company, for numerous purposes- insurance, production methods/quality control, that kinda stuff. I personally have relied on Dewalt as my cordless ecosystem, and all my current tools within are 18v, and at least 3 years in my possession. I know that they are not the best, but they work well, and most importantly, have been worth the investment. I have well over 10k hours on my impact gun and driver, which I bought as a set 6 years ago. I have a 5" circular saw that’s saved my bacon on countless occasions. My cordless sawzall is about half the weight of my Milwaukee, so it’s significantly easier to make one handed overhead cuts, say, on a ladder.
I am a very inexperienced home hobbyist who uses cheap tools infrequently, but I did some brand work for Snap-On years ago, and learned about the deep level of respect for their tools in the industry as well as their unique distribution method. They’re definitely the most well thought of.
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