Over at Home Depot, they have a selection of cordless power tool deals of the day, along with some accessory and personal lighting deals as well.
Basically, given the timing and nature of these deals, they are effectively last-call end of the year deals mainly on remaining holiday season special buys.
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The pricing on many of these deals and bundles are pretty good. There’s a Milwaukee M18 vacuum bundle, for example, where the tool plus filter is now $10 less than in the previous deal of the day.
The Milwaukee M12 stapler, at $85 for the tool and a battery, also seems like a very good deal.
Unfortunately, the Ryobi RC truck only makes an appearance as a bare tool. It’s a very fun Ryobi product (I bought one a few years ago), but it doesn’t come with a Ryobi starter set, and so you’ll need to supply your own battery and charger.
Shop These Deals via Home Depot
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Shop These Deals via Home Depot
Shop These Deals via Home Depot
Deals end at 3am ET 12/29/2020 unless supplies sell out sooner.
Tom
If you had to buy into DeWalt right now, what line would you go for? It seems overly complicated with 20v, 20vXR, and Flexvolt?
MFC
All of them.
20v is the main line for all of their tools.
Flexvolt (60v) is their line for tools with more power.
XR just means it’s brushless, not whether it’s flexvolt or 20v.
I prefer DeWalt over Milwaukee, although their flexvolt batteries seem to have more issues than 18v batteries. The problem with Milwaukee’s attempt at higher draw 18v tools (to compete with flexvolt) is that their higher draw tools cook the 18v batteries with any “extended” use. Not an issue for small projects, but on a job site, doesn’t cut it, because you constantly have to swap out batteries and let them cool.
So, dewalt 20v is what you’ll want to start with, and as you need flexvolt tools you can pick and choose which ones to add.
Kent
That’s an observation about “cooking” M18 batteries.
I had my house framed this summer, and it was almost entirely built with M18 tools. Mostly the fuel worm drive saw, framing nailer, 10″ sliding miter saw and impact gun. There was never a mention of “constant battery swapping”.
The *only* tradesman who has touched my house who didn’t use Milwaulkee was the electricial who has a DeWalt drill. However, he busts out a corded Hole Hawg for heavy work.
I have the M18 chainsaw, and so do my brother and father. None of us has ever had an issue with batteries on it. We only use 9ah+ batteries in it.
Buy the color of tool that makes you happy, but I’m not really buying the “overcooked battery” theory.
OldDominionDIYer
If I had to buy into Dewalt right now I would buy Milwaukee! Go Red!!
Louie Orama
Tom, I have 70+ DeWalt Tools, including 19 of the 23 FlexVolt Tools they have released thus far, so I’m gonna go ahead and give it a try. First off, I can tell you that FlexVolt batteries fit all of the 20 volt lineup. Albeit some think that they are only good for their FlexVolt 60 volt tools, the “Flex” in FlexVolt tells you that they will work on their 20 volt lineup. If you look at a FlexVolt 9 amp battery, what that is really telling you is that it has 9 amp hours when on a 20 volt DeWalt tool, yet 3 amp hours on a 60 volt DeWalt Tool.
As far as “XR”, which stands for e(X)treme (R)untime (and other variances, depending on who you ask), these are all of your 20 volt DeWalt Brushless tools. If you were to take a non-brushless tool-let’s say a drill-and press the trigger, the moment you let go of the trigger you will see a spark in the back housing of the drill. These are the brushes producing power, which was how tools were run before brushless technology came out. It isn’t an efficient way to transfer power. Not only that, but over time the brushes will wear out and potentially need to be replaced.
I am going to quote something I just read:
“If you’re using a brushless drill to drive screws into Styrofoam, it more readily senses the lack of resistance (compared with a brushed motor) and begins to pull only what little charge it needs from the battery. If the tool then starts putting 3-inch screws into mahogany, it will adjust accordingly and draw more current. By contrast, a brushed motor will always run as fast as it can while in use.”
(I always just tell people that it’s like comparing an incandescent light bulb to an LED bulb; the LED wins drastically across the board.)
Tom, this all comes down to what type of applications you are going to use your tools for. If it’s DIY stuff, go ahead and save the money and buy brushed (albeit brushless tools have come down in price over the years). If you are going to use them for work or you are a contractor, get the XR/FlexVolt tools. When DeWalt came out with FlexVolt about 5 years ago, their motto was “corded power without the cord.” Incredulous as it sounded, I went for it. And having most of the FlexVolt lineup, I can tell you that I’m sold, ESPECIALLY when it comes to their Worm Drive Circ, Rotary Hammers, Construction (Concrete) Saw and Alligator Saw. The only FlexVolt tool I have that don’t find myself using is the Reciprocating Saw because the 20 Volt XR is a little monster and you really don’t need more power than that.
Lastly, you mentioned the confusion with all of the options that DeWalt has. They recently have come out with both a “FlexVolt Advantage” line (which are NOT FlexVolt/60 Volt) and a “Power Detect” line. They are both lines professing to be able to provide more power with a larger battery. I’m sure this holds true for both lines, but I can tell you from experience that my XR tools have never made me feel like I was lacking power in any way. And both of these new lines made by DeWalt are at times more expensive than buying their FlexVolt tools to begin with. Just not worth it in my opinion. If purchasing online from sites like OfferUp and Mercari, even eBay, many of these people tend to put “FlexVolt” in the description when it’s really a FlexVolt Advantage (20 Volt) tool.
Hope this helps.
Louie Orama
Also Tom, if money is an issue and you aren’t going to need anything near 60 volts-and you don’t need the variety that DeWalt offers (200+tools and counting), you can always save money and buy Ridgid. I have about 25 of their tools-all brushless besides the flashlights-and they never let me down either. You might even want to consider Kobalt. They continue to grow and have about 30 tools in their 24V lineup and almost every one is Brushless. They don’t get their respect for some reason and I believe a lot of that is because people fear that with Lowe’s selling Craftsman tools, that Kobalt is going to be discontinued. But it seems like they release one or two new tools per month on their 24V lineup. In my opinion, they are the best bang for your buck, which is something I always said about Ridgid until Kobalt started growing.
Tom
Thank you for all of the advice. Here’s a little more info for you. I am a DIYer who doesn’t really use his tools hard. I finished my basement and have built lots and lots of cabinets over the last few years.
Since I don’t use my tools all that often, I am comfortable with good quality corded tools for the most part. I am perfectly happy with my Bosch corded jig saw and have begun buying into Festool for sanders and a track saw.
I’ve been getting along very well with my Craftsman Nextec for the last decade. Due to insane sales at Sears, I have probably 20 batteries that I purchased for very little. My little Nextec set has always been enough for me and I have sold off some of the more sought-after tools on Ebay (rotary tool and circular saw). I am down to just the drill, impact driver, right angle impact and oscillating tool. But my drill is starting to make a burning smell, so I think that it is going to be time to retire the rest of these tools pretty soon.
So I need to pick a new system. I would like a drill, impact, right angle impact and possibly oscillating tool (may just buy a corded Fein). Price really doesn’t matter because I can wait for a sale and if I amortize the price over the next decade that I would be using them, $50 more out of pocket now doesn’t really matter to me. What’s more important is that I get good quality and don’t buy into a dying platform like I did with Craftsman.
Clay
One nice thing with Dewalt 20v is that you can get them at either of the big box stores (but not necessarily the same exact models).
I really dig the Dewalt 12v drill and screwdriver. I bought these so the kids could use them when we did projects together since they are so light but I absolutely love them. The downside is they don’t have a very extensive line of 12v tools.
Don’t forget about Ryobi. They have been slowly getting better and better. I have and love their nailguns and have had many of their other tools as well.
I would recommend brushless if for no other reason, there is less wear and tear on the internal parts, so it will hold up longer (theoretically).
Josh Anderson
A different topic than the current discussion: the Ryobi truck…has anyone bought it? Did you like it? While it’s certainly no Traxxas, how was the power? Is there enough room to be able to use a battery adapter and a DEWALT 20V?
Stuart
Fun? YES!
I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth.
I can’t say whether there’s room for a 3rd party adapter in there. I use it with a Ryobi 4Ah pack, but the 1.5Ah it came with would be better, or maybe 2.0Ah. The 4Ah provides too much runtime. The ESC (speed controller) gets really hot and can’t/shouldn’t be run continuously for as long as a 4Ah battery could go for.
MichaelHammer
It was really fun for about 5 minutes. Then I accidentally drove it into slush, on Christmas morning, before the little girl got a chance to dive it. 🙁 Riddled with guilt I immediately went on Amazon and ordered a much more expensive waterproof, super fast car. As for the Ryobi, keep it dry and it is worth every penny. Having an 18 volt platform with a bunch of batteries is pretty killer.
King duck
I have been thinking of getting another small drill for pilot holes anyone have experience with the little m12 3/8l model? Part of me wants brushless for durability but I at most this drill will be doing 3/8 pilot hole in wood for a hole saws but mostly 1/8” holes in steel.
Stuart
I think it should handle such tasks just fine.
The M12 Fuel drill is another option: there’s still an ongoing M12 Fuel drill kit $99 special buy.
MichaelHammer
I like where your mind is at on this one. I use two M12 tools during kitchen installations for speed and efficiency. I use the 3/8 drill for pilot holes and then the hex driver for screwing. The trade off for M12 over M18 is size over speed. The M12 is certainly powerful enough to drill 3/8” holes in maple, but you certainly notice the difference in speed and power. The smaller the bit the more negligible the difference. With cabinet installs. Most holes are between 1/8 and 3/16 of an inch, so maybe I lose 100 or 200 seconds on an average install, but I don’t have a big clunky drill banging around $45,000 worth of cabinetry.
Just an FYI, I sprung for the hammer feature with the thought it would be great for doing a couple of 3/16” anchor holes. Wrong! Takes for ever. Complete waste of money.