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Comment by noneeeed | Hacker News Reader

"best long-lasting & cheap" is spot on. Often, getting the very best is not worth it, no matter how long they might last.

We had a lot of work done on our house a few years back, and every one of tradesmen used Makita. I asked our carpenter if they were really good, and he said no, but they we pretty good, lasted quite well, but didn't cost the earth.

I think the ubiquity of Makita also made it easy to swap batteries and chargers between kit, and between people.

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Electrician here: Last place I worked was almost exclusively Makita (and they were big, thousands of employees), and being able to swap chargers and batteries was both a blessing and a curse. I took good care of my batteries (and everything else), and I had to be careful not to end up with some other guys battery that he'd used to drive nails with.

Please tell me that people were not using the batteries as hammers.

Driving any fastener can put put of wear on batteries fast, the current requirements are high and peaky. Nails are particularity bad because unlike say, driving a screw or bolt you often don't even give they battery a second or two of break time to cool slightly while you line up your bit to the next fastener, just "BAM BAM BAM" down the line of wood as fast as you can until you drain the battery back to nil.

This is one of the the best ways to kill li-ion cells fast.

The usual method of driving a nail with a battery isn't by turning on a tool.

By far the safest though, but still very hard on the batteries.

https://www.makitatools.com/products/details/XNB02Z

lol, pretty standard on site mate, especially during demo - some screws are just a bit too captive, quick whack with your battery (in the impact driver) does the trick.

It is so common that tool manufacturers have it as a load case in their design.

Think of a soldier to use the butt of his rifle in close quarters. This spares a bullet too. Not sure if savings are comparable in case of the battery, but you get the idea.

Some times you need to do a bit of percussive problem solving, and battery powered tools are heavy, so you do what you gotta do.

The converse of Maslow's hammer is such a common scenario that Wera actually sells a ratchet designed to be used as a hammer (think mechanic working under a car): https://www-us.wera.de/en/great-tools/koloss/

They're kind of a dud because the extra bulk on the head gets in the way so often. I have one I never use.

The vise grip crescent wrench on the other hand...

You can also get an adjustable crescent wrench with a hammer on the opposite side of the head. It's known colloquially to viewers of the AvE YouTube channel as the "thumb detecting nut fucker"

Every tool has a hammer end.

This is remedied with Bluetooth batteries that only work when paired to the owner's phone.

Makita worm-drive saws were nice because they were about half a pound lighter than even the Skilsaw with the magnesium case(HD77). This makes a difference when leaning out over the second floor of a house cutting rafter tails.

Have you tried the cordless mag 77s? I'm curious to know if going cordless in those situations would make the weight less important, the same way AirPods sort of magically stay in my ear better without a cord tugging on them.

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