Dewalt’s DCF885 cordless impact driver has been around as long as the 20V Max line has existed, being in the first wave of tools. It’s a decent impact driver, too.
It might come to you as a surprise, that, in light of the new budget brushless drill, there’s a new budget-friendly brushed motor impact driver kit, DCF885C1.
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Oh, there’s a new budget-friendly brushless impact driver too, but so far we’ve only seen it in a combo kit, DCK277C2. I’d bet we’ll see that brushless impact in a standalone kit, perhaps closer to the holiday season, as a DCF787C2 kit. But I wouldn’t bet all my chips on that.
The DCF885C1 has respectable specs:
- 1400 in-lbs max torque
- 0-2800 RPM
- 0-3200 IPM
- 5.55″ front-to-back length
- Weighs 2.8 lbs
- LED worklight
- 1/4″ hex chuck
It comes with a charger, a carrying bag, and single 1.5Ah 20V Max Li-ion battery pack.
Going by the logo on the carrying bag, it’s built in the USA using domestic and foreign parts.
Read More: Dewalt USA Factory Tour
This might not seem like a big deal to get excited about, but there are 3 reasons why it was post-worthy.
First, it’s a Dewalt 20V Max cordless impact driver at a good price point, and that pricing might get even better during the holiday season. Second, there are no compromises here. You get a regular line tool, and a standard capacity but regular line battery pack – not the 1.3Ah battery packs that usually come with the entry-level tools.
Lastly, there’s that built in the USA part, which separates it from the other low-priced impact drivers that are around during the holiday season.
It’ll be great if Dewalt can position this kit at $99 for the peak of the holiday season, which would make it competitive against other brands’ 1-battery impact driver kit offerings.
Price: $139
ETA: October 2016
BonPacific
Hmm. I’m comparing this to the XDT042 kit from Makita, since they hit the same price point, and that’s the kit I got started with when upgrading to Lithium-Ion tools.
The Driver stacks up well with the Makita kit. Nearly identical stats for the driver itself. Plus the DeWalt is assembled/made in America. I generally like DeWalt’s ergonomics, and I’ve adding some DeWalt equipment to my collection.
The battery and charger though, I was disappointed there. It’s only a 1.5ah, which is fine for an impact driver, but not great if you’re looking to start building a collection. You get a 3.0 in the Makita kit. If weight were a concern, Milwaukee’s 12v would probably be a better bet.
The real problem is with that charger. If you can find stats for the charger (DCB107) itself, it states “Charges batteries in 1 hour or less, minimizing downtime”. They call it a fast charger, but the only review/info I can find seems to counter that, indicating just over an hour to charge a 1.5ah battery. Now this is from a YouTube review, so not exactly gospel. For reference, the Makita kit comes with a fast charger that will fill a 3.0ah in 30m or less, and my DeWalt DCB115 (same size but older, and without the hot/cold safety indicator) can take an hour or more to charge a 3.0ah battery. I couldn’t find any information on DeWalt’s site about the DCB107.
I haven’t held the DCB107, but if it’s similar to the DCB115, it’s going to be flimsy plastic and easy to topple. I need two hands to connect a battery to the DCB115, while my Makita connects smoothly and solidly.
Seems like this kit is good if you want Made In America, which is noble in and of itself, or don’t plan to ever run down the battery. But as the start of a tool collection, it falls down.
Jon
Don’t get too excited about “made in America”, all that means is that someone in America slapped the Chinese made parts into the Chinese made plastic case and screwed the two halves together.
It takes literally less than one minute to perform this “assembly” of each unit, but by doing that one minute of work in America they can slap that on the packaging.
Also regarding the DCB107 charger – it has an output of 1.25 amps which is quite a bit less than the 4.0 amps output by the DCB101.
With that said, fast chargers are only needed for “production” work where you will use up the battery charge in less than a couple of hours. If that describes you then this would not be a tool you should purchase in the first place, so it’s OK that it comes with a slow charger.
BonPacific
Made in america means a little more here than that. As Stuart reported, the motors are wound in an American factory, balanced, wiring is done, fitting, assembly, and QC.
Most diy’ers and homeowners aren’t going to slot the battery back onto the charger when they put the tool away, they might be using the same charge for months, until they need the tool for something, the battery is dead, and they have to wait an hour.
My point was that it might be a fine driver, but the small battery and crappy charger make it a worse deal than the Makita equivalent, unless the american assembly pushes it over for you.
Jon
Even if that’s true, motor winding and balancing is all done by machines. The location of those machines is not making one bit of difference in the quality of the product.
Stuart attended a media event, so it’s not surprising that they wanted to make it look more involved than it really is. There are several red flags in his report and pictures of the american factory that anybody in the know can easily detect but I am not going to argue about that here.
Also a modern lithium battery should never be dead unless you ran it out last time you used the tool or it was close to dead and you left it sitting for YEARS not months.
Even if completely dead you could charge it for 15 minutes and get enough charge to easily complete most home owner or DIY projects.
Stuart
What red flags? I’d really like to know more.
Steve
I’d like to know what % of the tool is actually made in the USA. From globally sourced materials – this puts the image in my head of unskilled labour sticking a few parts together, maybe tightening a few screws, and thats it. Employing a couple unskilled labourers to assemble a tool is not something i would exactly be proud of.
BonPacific
Stuart provided a link to exactly what you are asking about.
https://toolguyd.com/dewalt-brushless-drill-building-and-factory-tour/
Nathan
so that charger came with my OMT I bought and since I already had one of the older/weaker 101 chargers. the 107 is indeed a tick bigger and 3 or 4 ticks faster.
it is not by any means the 1 hour fast charger that will do a 3AH battery in 1 hr.
but it is noticeably quicker that the previous standard charger. works well too. I hang mine vertically on a peg board lets the battery sort of hang on it – connects well.
Jon
I am not sure if you’ve made a mistake but the 107 charger is definitely smaller and slower than the 101 charger.
Bremon
I was as skeptical as many of you about the assembled in USA claims, and as a non-American I care more than it probably makes sense to, but even if this really was one person assembling two pieces of plastic around a motor, isn’t it still good that one extra person in a first world country has a job rather than 100% of the process being somewhere with a spotty human rights record?
Anyway, hopefully they have wildly aggressive pricing on this for the holidays. I have the 887 at home but the assemblers at work use a pile of 885s. You can burn them out but it takes some effort lol.
quebeker
There is some info about “made in america” here : http://americanpride.dewalt.com/tools
On this page :
Are there plans to open more factories in the USA?
This remains to be determined.
How many jobs will be created with this new initiative?
Production of DEWALT products that are made in the USA with global materials at the Charlotte manufacturing operations facility will help boost the local economy in the Carolinas and create more than 250 new jobs.
( not alot but better than nothing )
That’s why they bought the lenox division and all their manufacturing buildings in usa. They will be producing more stuff in usa and it will add more jobs in usa from this big stanley black and decker company.
And if they create more jobs and usa ( or make you belive so .. ) , all unions around the country will buy dewalt stuff ..
I don’t know maybe im saying crazy stuff .. oh and im from canada .. 😛 have a good day 🙂
Bruce Dong
I can only comment on my experience with this being my first impact driver. It saves me: labor and time. The torque power is more than adequate for this DIY senior citizen and the $99.00 sale price (vs $149 and up regular price) makes me happy.
Before, I only had a DeWALT DCD771, cordless, 1/2″ drill/driver. Often ran out of battery power even with two batteries along with taking a lot of time changing: screwdriver bits, sockets. drills and striping phillips screw heads.
Now, with a dedicated drill and impact driver with three interchangeable Lithium batteries and two chargers: time, energy, bit changing and power is not a problem.