I Have a Dumb Question About Power Tools
 

I am looking at a Makita Drill/Impact Driver kit.

Q: Do I need both? What does an impact driver do that a drill cannot?

Impact driver will drive harder with less torque on your hand and wrist.

What is your intended application?

I own both, and use the impact almost exclusively if I am driving screws or lag bolts, or if I am using it wrenching on a car.
Drill is not even comparable when putting in something long like a landscape lag, or breaking loose a nut on the car.

Not as useful for drilling holes though...;

My impact driver (DeWalt) does not have a standard chuck, rather a 6 point receiver.

Think of it this way....

The drill takes the turning motion of the electric motor and transfers it to the end of the drill bit. If you are going through wood or metal you will get through it; it is just a matter of time and the quality of your bit.

The impact is just that. It makes a hard impact that transfers all of its' energy into one point and that point is turning in one direction. Then it stops, backs up, and hits it again. It is just done very quickly.

But if you were trying to remove a tight bolt the drill would bog down and start to overheat. If you were trying to drill a hole the impact would makes a hole, but it would tear its' way through the material while it is doing it since it is really just making a series of very hard hits on the bit and turning it ever so slightly.

You don't have to buy a power impact driver. There are hand held ones you hit with a small sledge out there for less than $10. Use it to knock a bolt loose and then use a wrench to take the bolt out the rest of the way.

The impact driver is great for small bolts but it can be hard on screw heads because it basically depends on your finger to control how hard it hits.

The drill has a clutch and it great for rapidly removing or installing screws with a set torque because you can set the torque and hold the trigger down and still get fairly consistent torque on the fastener.

As an example, I have to rack up equipment at work and the torque spec is 5 lb/ft. I can set the torque on the drill and install all day without thinking about it. The impact puts far too much torque on stuff like that. On the other hand, the impact is great for un-racking equipment because invariably, some gorilla has put about 800 lb/ft on the #10 screws and removing them by hand will wear out the old palms...

The impact driver is a screw gun. The drill can drive screws but is mostly for drilling.

I have like half a dozen drills and impact drivers depending on the application.:D

What you owns depends largely on what your trying to do. For a homeowner a single good drill set will just about do it all. DeWalt 20V is there latest.

The impact driver will give you maximum torque when needed and maximum speed when it isn't. It's great for taking screws out. It will do the impact thing til they get sorta loose and will then speed them the rest of the way out in a heartbeat. With a cordless drill/screw gun, you often need slow speed to break the long screws loose then you sit there while the slowly come the rest of the way out. Changing speed is an option but it's an awkward way to go.

There's a small learning curve with the impacts, they tend to jump out and off the screw til you get the touch. But after you get the feel they drive screws much better than the drill/drivers. I have an older 14.4 volt NiMH and you have to press pretty hard to keep the bit from jumping out of the screw, not off the screw but bouncing over the Phillips head. Wears out the screw and driver tip.

The impact guns are also much lighter. The chuck and gears add a lot of weight to a drill/driver. The hex shank bits make for good drilling with an impact - you can change the bits much quicker than with a drill. Pop them in and out. They're a bit more spendy than the regular drill bits but it's close.

I like to keep a drill/screw gun around for when I need to drive some screws outside later in the evening. An impact driver can be a noisy sum b!tch, especially screwing plywood down. The drill is also useful to keep a countersink chucked into for fast going. When I want to make time, I've got a 6 inch 1/8 bit in my corded drill, a cordless drill with the countersink, and the impact for driving.

Makitas are still the best. Wouldn't use anything else. Cordless that is. I have the 18 volt lithium drivers in the blue and white models. Both are 18 volt but the blue has more amp hours, I forget the numbers. The white is lighter but feels about as strong as the blue. Makes sense as they are both 18 volt. The white charges way fast, about 20 minutes. The combo kit with the white drill and impact for $199 at Home Despot is a steal. I paid $200 for my impact alone about 2 years ago.

Like some others here I own multiple cordless drills, hammerdrills, impact drivers, etc, both at home and in the shop at work.

I like Makita tools very much, particularly their hand & mitre saws. Their drills are very nice as well, I currently have a 18V 6343D. Very well balanced, nice keyless chuck, but no hammer drilling option.

I've long been loyal to Milwaukees. The M12 line are very compact & light weight and the 1/4 driver:
M12
has to be about the handiest little brute I've ever used.
You can drill with it if you buy 1/4" hex shanked bits, but I almost always have a dedicated drill at hand on any project.

My current favorite is the Milwaukee 2604 m18 1/2" hammer drill. More power than I ever need, good battery life, excellent chuck.

Recently bought a Dewalt 1/2" hammer drill for the shop. It is an OK consumer/homeowner drill, but nowhere near the quality of either Makita or Milwaukee, IMO.

I have the 18V Dewalt 1/2" impact driver. Seen them recently at Lowes or the other (Orange) Lowes as a bare tool for a really reasonable price. It is a very handy tool but I am very old school and use it with a breaker bar. It will break loose lug nuts and head bolts, etc, I prefer the breaker bar for that. Get the impact, you won't regret it.

I use the fluorescent work light more than any of the other rechargeable tools and I have almost all of them. Definitely get one, gotta have.

Truth is I have become very lazy about mechanical work and prefer to avoid it these days. Lucky for me, modern vehicles require very little work and I am very good at preventive maintenance.

As expected, I got great feedback. :-)

Ironically, the potential value of impact drivers was driven home (haha, get it: "driven") a few hours after posting when I had to assemble a steel aquarium stand, which came with long allen bolts and a ridiculously short wrench.

I am looking to assemble a comprehensive, yet compact tool kit suitable for a condo/apartment dweller such as myself who does not have workshop space, other than a small corner of a room. My projects will include light metal, wood and plastic fabrication -- small furniture, a bird cage, custom aquarium piping, etc. Basically creating small projects, and modifying big ones.

Sounds like you may often work on projects where you don't have a lot of room. I recently had to relocate an electrical out for a new wall oven. I had to move the 50 amp junction box across one stud, and up 18". Required securely mounting a new metal box, securing the existing box that was just kind of laying loose, drilling through studs for wire, etc. All while working in the back of a 30" wide cabinet.
I bought this cool drill to help me out. Never had a Rt angle drill before. Very cool tool!
M12TM Cordless Lithium-Ion 3/8

Hitachi 1/4-inch Hex Cordless Impact Driver (Reconditioned) | Overstock.com

If your looking for just a driver to put furniture together something like my Hitachi is hard to beat. Its light, compact, and its 12v so it still has the balls to drive in a 4in deck screws if you need it.

My vote is for Milwaukee across the board. I absolutely hate that they are made in China now, but they have a good five year warranty and do stand behind their products.
Dewalts are below garbage to me, I have set many of their products on fire during what should have been normal use, and the use I put my Milwaukee stuff through.
Makitas are ok, they basically created the cordless drill, but do seem to lag behind a bit now especially when it comes to battery life. I have had some experience with the Ridgid brand, but they are heavy, lower top rpm, and again short battery life. They are sturdy for working all day, but you'll need three batteries and a two place charger to make it work right.

x2 i own the milwaukee m18 kit, and a whole handfull of 12v pieces. almost oll of my corded tools are milwaukee as well. dewalt and ridgid are both equally junk imo.

impact drivers are awesome for driving self tappers as they spin them so fast. you see alot of tin knockers using them. also awesome for driving long screws into wood. if you do buy one, buy a set of milwaukee shockwave bits. they stand up a whole lot better.

I like Milwaukee sawsalls and their corded drills are good. Never been exposed to their cordless drills. Seems to be a regional thing. Out here one sees Bosch drills (corded) on jobs all the time so you get exposed to them, borrow them now and then and get a feel for the quality. Likewise Makita seems to the choice for cordless.

I really like DeWalt chopsaws and a few of their other tools but I agree, their cordless drills are to be avoided. Rigid makes a nice 10" table saw and their bench planer is pretty good but other than those and shop vacs, I don't have much use for them.

Whatever you buy don't spend too much money on it! Those batteries are crap - that's where the value is - and the cost of replacement often outstrips the cost of a new machine...

...if the machine lasts more than 3 years you are doing well. For most people - gone are the days when you had to save up for your power tools and they would then last you 20 years; they are cheaper but they don't last as long. Even the really good stuff is getting shoddy (in my opinion).