After my previous experiences with Ryobi build quality I swore to never again buy their rubbish tools but a member of the public was kind enough to steal my Makita cordless drill a few months back and I can get one of these Ryobi 18V LI-ION CLD-180 Cordless drills virtually brand new for R500.
They sell for around R1k new. I gave it a spin/look and I can honestly say its the best constructed Ryobi product I have ever seen, the plastic mouldings are just about perfect, everything is well put together, its smooth/fast/well balanced and incredibly powerful(even more so than the Makita I previously had). It has the perfect form factor, ie not too big/heavy and has a built in LED light, a feature which I have found in other tools to be ridiculously handy.
All seems good, just wondering how durable it will be, Ryobi must have cut costs somehwere??
Plastic gears/fong kong motor casting etc?
I'm assuming the keyless chuck will be superbly crap and frustrating to tighten?
The only redeeming feature I have found with previous Ryobi cordless Li-ion cordless tools is the battery packs are not chipped like Makita etc does, it's very easy to rebuild the battery pack with 18650 cells as there is no master balance chip that permanently disables the battery pack if it becomes unbalanced/over discharged.
R1k at Loot with free shipping:
http://www.loot.co.za/product/ryobi-li-ion-cordless-driver-drill-18v-battery-inclu/dccn-3763-g420
The drill looks like this:
They sell for around R1k new. I gave it a spin/look and I can honestly say its the best constructed Ryobi product I have ever seen, the plastic mouldings are just about perfect, everything is well put together, its smooth/fast/well balanced and incredibly powerful(even more so than the Makita I previously had). It has the perfect form factor, ie not too big/heavy and has a built in LED light, a feature which I have found in other tools to be ridiculously handy.
All seems good, just wondering how durable it will be, Ryobi must have cut costs somehwere??
Plastic gears/fong kong motor casting etc?
I'm assuming the keyless chuck will be superbly crap and frustrating to tighten?
The only redeeming feature I have found with previous Ryobi cordless Li-ion cordless tools is the battery packs are not chipped like Makita etc does, it's very easy to rebuild the battery pack with 18650 cells as there is no master balance chip that permanently disables the battery pack if it becomes unbalanced/over discharged.
R1k at Loot with free shipping:
http://www.loot.co.za/product/ryobi-li-ion-cordless-driver-drill-18v-battery-inclu/dccn-3763-g420
The drill looks like this:
