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Comment by matthewfcarlson | Hacker News Reader

Just my personal experience. Had corded tools for years and I think from a power perspective they have battery beat. But I was gifted a cordless drill and impact driver and they last forever. Battery management hasn’t been an issue. I use them almost every weekend (hanging drywall for example, which involves a lot of screws) or in my pocket hole jig. I charge the batteries every few months over night.

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This has been my experience as well. I resisted cordless for far longer than I could really justify, and have been very, very, very pleasantly surprised with how well the cordless stuff works.

I have all corded tools, but with all the hype and excitement around cordless, I thought I'd give cordless a try and got a 18V Bosch cordless drill. It chews through its battery in probably 2-3 hours of work, and so I ended up getting three batteries and two charging stations just to be able to sustain the damn thing through a day's worth of work. I'd expect much better.

Cordless battery powered is probably fine for light duty hobbyist work, but for constant use, it's annoying to have to keep juggling batteries among chargers.

And that's just one tool. I couldn't imagine having to juggle multiple incompatible batteries among multiple incompatible chargers. Good grief. I'll just keep my cords thank you.

It's for builders mainly. On a construction site you might not have a wall outlet near every place where you do work and running extension cords is dangerous both due to tripping and to the shock hazard when a cord gets damaged. Many crews used pneumatic tools, which eliminated shock hazard, but cordless is taking care of tripping too. They use multi-port fast chargers and whole bunch of batteries though. Also in automotive, again, even though the workshop has the power (and they traditionally used pneumatic tools), running hoses everywhere is dangerous and annoying, I see a lot of mechanics using cordless impacts and grinders.

Interesting, I have a DeWalt 24v (I think) set. In the week I spent building a playhouse (soft wood) for my son, the drill and impact driver were in constant use for a week, and I'd charge every day or two. For my "normal" usage, it's weeks to months between charges. Seriously. The last time I charged a battery was September, and I use the drill for a few minutes every month, and it's still showing 3 out of 3 bars. That set, the set was very pricey!

Interesting, I have a DeWalt 24v (I think) set. In the week I spent building a playhouse for my son, the drill and impact driver were in constant use for a week, and I'd charge every day or two. For my "normal" usage, it's weeks to months between charges. Seriously. The last time I charged a battery was September, and I use the drill for a few minutes every month, and it's still showing 3 out of 3 bars. That set, the set was very pricey!

Ditto. I only have one corded tool left (a sawzall) and I can’t wait to replace it.

If you hang drywall even once, I highly recommend the silly-looking drywall gun: https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Power-Tools/Fastening... + https://www.milwaukeetool.com/Products/Power-Tools/Fastening... goes brrrrrr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjLt99gnhgA

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