Cordless Drills are getting better

Have you ever stopped to think about how fast cordless drills have developed? Do you remember what cordless drills were like 20 years ago?

There's a page on cordless drills over at weebly that discusses this very thing.

Of course, almost all technological things have progressed quickly over the last several years. Computers are the most often cited example. And there are few things that have matched the pace of development with computers. They have gotten literally thousands of times better over the last 20 years. Cordless drills haven't progress anywhere near that rate. But that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the advances that we have seen, even if they've only gotten 5 or 10 times better over the last 20 years.

Voltages of Cordless Drills

Cordless drills come in various voltages. You can find an overview here at Wikipedia. The most common voltage is the 18v cordless drill. There are larger drills such as 24v, 28v, and 36v. There are also smaller drills such as 15.6v, 14.4v, 12v, 9v.

18v is generally the most common size because it is the largest voltage geared toward the most common uses of cordless drills, which is to drive screws and drill holes in wood and materials like it. In general an 18v cordless drill will have enough power to do this type of work all day.

The lesser voltage drills are also used for much the same type of work. But they have less power and will have less run time. But if you don't need to run your drill all day long, then a smaller drill may be the way to go. It will be lighter and will also cost less.

That brings us to the higher voltage drills. They are generally used for heavier duty tasks. Most commonly this involves drilling into rock, concrete, or brick. The larger batteries provide both more torque and more run time.