Buying a SDS+ drill - how many joules needed?

[Sparrowhawk]

Getting blinded by the sales literature here. What kind of impact energy is enough for domestic/self-build SDS drilling? 1.7J? 1.9J? 2.4J? 2.8J?

 

The jobs I've got coming up are

• stitch drilling multiple openings through 1920s cinder block (hard), 1920s brick (soft), thermalite blocks (v soft), pebbledash and render
• coring a 32mm basin waste through the 1920s cavity wall
• cables through a couple of walls
• no doubt drilling concrete somewhere outside for fixings
• 10x chasing from floor to back box and cutting back boxes
• taking up floor tiles and breaking off bits of cement
• 90mm holes in timber (no impact force required)

 

Any future larger coring I will hire a proper core drill.

 

The lower enrgy drills are cheaper and lighter which are both a bonus. But so is my current hammer drill which struggles to drill a hole.

[Russell griffiths]

Do you have cordless battery tools as well. 
I have a large 240 volt sds drill and an 18 volt dewalt battery sds. 
I cannot remember the last time I used the 240. Battery sds for the last 5 years building an entire house. 

[G and J]

I use Makita 18v so when I needed one I bought a basic Makita 18v SDS.

 

I’ve just looked it up, it’s 2joules.  It’s a lot heavier than my other drills but it has a lot of up h so for DIY I feel it’s more than powerful enough.  It does eat batteries though.

 

I also bought a cheap 13mm chuck which means I can use all my drill bits and tank cutters in it, saved me no end of time over the last 5 years.

 

https://www.makitauk.com/product/dhr202.html

[Sparrowhawk]

2 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Do you have cordless battery tools as well. 
I have a large 240 volt sds drill and an 18 volt dewalt battery sds. 
I cannot remember the last time I used the 240. Battery sds for the last 5 years building an entire house. 

Only 12V Makita, a superb drill/driver and impact driver combo which is great for carpentry style jobs.

 

I like the look of the 18V ones with kickback control, so Bosch is the front runner. More expensive, but if I hurt my weedy desk-job wrists I can't earn money until they heal, so looks like good insurance.

[Conor]

I've a 2j Makita and a 5j Titan. The Titan is now never used. Very little the Makita can't do, unless hardcore demolition.

[Russell griffiths]

If you have a whole house to renovate then you are probably better of getting a battery system for everything. 
keep the 12 volt one for kitchen fitting and poofy stuff like that. 
get 4 18 volt batteries, get an impact driver, a drill driver, an sds drill, and a circular saw. 
this will more or less build a house until you come to delicate fitting out, then you can add a plane and router and sander, by then you will probably have added another couple of batteries. 

[saveasteading]

I don't know when I last saw a subby using mains tools, other than 110V heavy breaker.

 

As above. I have a suite of tools (Einhel) with the same batteries in 3 sizes for power v weight. 

They need changing a lot on the bigger tools.eg chop saw  / vacuum cleaner.

 

Plus some 240V for really heavy stuff, but seldom used:

Titan sds breaker used once and was worth having. 

A bosch drill, just for the pleasure of the smoothness, but it is good for deep holes in timber or mass production. 

 

I will build a charging gantry in the site office so that batteries just slot in whenever passing.

[joe90]

Like @Conor I have two, a de Walt (mains) which is brilliant and does almost anything and a cheap Titan 5j for the few big jobs. Both have seen a whole house build, will probably get rid of the Titan now I have no use for it. I also have a de Walt cordless for general use and again is brilliant 

https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-d25033k-gb-2-5kg-electric-sds-plus-hammer-drill-240v/564fu

[saveasteading]

38 minutes ago, joe90 said:

probably get rid of the Titan now 

Makes space rather than money.

I wouldn't buy a second hand Titan or equivalent  own brand as I've had some fail prematurely ( hardly used, guarantee passes, use again...falls apart)

[joe90]

6 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

I wouldn't buy a second hand Titan or equivalent 

I agree, will more than likely give it away (neighbour using it at the moment) it earnt its keep as was cheap.

[MikeGrahamT21]

I originally had a bosch PBH2000 which lasted me for many years, until it started spewing oil everywhere, was going to replace the oil but the main seal had a bit snap off, so decided to get a new one. On paper the new one (HiKoKi) is almost double the power of the old one, but in reality i still think the old bosch one was far more powerful, so just goes to show the specs don't always tell the full story.

[Thorfun]

my Erbauer SDS+ has done me very proud. cored multiple holes through concrete blocks too.

[twice round the block]

5 hours ago, Sparrowhawk said:

Getting blinded by the sales literature here. What kind of impact energy is enough for domestic/self-build SDS drilling? 1.7J? 1.9J? 2.4J? 2.8J?

 

The jobs I've got coming up are

• stitch drilling multiple openings through 1920s cinder block (hard), 1920s brick (soft), thermalite blocks (v soft), pebbledash and render
• coring a 32mm basin waste through the 1920s cavity wall
• cables through a couple of walls
• no doubt drilling concrete somewhere outside for fixings
• 10x chasing from floor to back box and cutting back boxes
• taking up floor tiles and breaking off bits of cement
• 90mm holes in timber (no impact force required)

 

Any future larger coring I will hire a proper core drill.

 

The lower enrgy drills are cheaper and lighter which are both a bonus. But so is my current hammer drill which struggles to drill a hole.

I'm going against the grain here.

 

With the list of job's you have above I would buy a 240v Makita HR2631F, 3 mode sds plus drill.

The extra action of (mini kango) chiselling out for conduit and back boxes and taking up floor tiles this will do it using an angled chisel.

Haven't looked to see if any of the manufacturers do a cordless 3 mode sds plus unit, if they do it will be twice the price of a mains power job and will burn through batteries.

[ProDave]

Over 20 years ago I bought a cheap 240V SDS drill from screweys for about £30

 

It is still going strong, on it's 3rd set of motor brushes, second trigger switch and second (sensible length this time) mains flex.

 

I think for serious work, a lot of the benefit comes from the sheer mass of the drill, something you don't get with even a good cordless.

 

It's done a lot of work and looks very tatty and battered, but it refused to break in an unrepairable way.

[joe90]

21 minutes ago, twice round the block said:

I'm going against the grain here.

 

With the list of job's you have above I would buy a 240v Makita HR2631F, 3 mode sds plus drill.

Not really, that’s Makita equivilant of my de Walt 

[Thorfun]

19 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Over 20 years ago I bought a cheap 240V SDS drill from screweys for about £30

 

It is still going strong, on it's 3rd set of motor brushes, second trigger switch and second (sensible length this time) mains flex.

 

I think for serious work, a lot of the benefit comes from the sheer mass of the drill, something you don't get with even a good cordless.

 

It's done a lot of work and looks very tatty and battered, but it refused to break in an unrepairable way.

 

[SteamyTea]

A joule is equal to the amount of work done when a force of one newton displaces a mass through a distance of one metre in the direction of that force.

 

A joule is not very large.

Are these drills really small, or have they missed a k (kilo) in the literature.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

Thanks all, sounds like whether I get a 1.9J or 2.4J rated SDS+ drill it doesn't make any difference for what I'll be doing