Check out my post to 4lorn1 36039.32.
I compared my 3yr old panasonic to a brand new ridgid cordless drill. The panasonic drilled 155 1/2″ holes vs the Ridgid drilling 75 1/2″holes.
Panasonic is 179 at amazon, Ridgid is 159 at home depot
Panasonic is much lighter and smaller (I wish I had a scale to compare)
Ridgid batteries claim 30 min charge time but need to sit in evaluate mode for 30 minutes after a nonstop drilling before they begin charging. Presumably to cool down. The fan in the charger is surprisingly noisy and it runs until you eject the batteries.
The lifetime warranty seemed enticing but why burden yourself with a heavy low performance tool in an attempt to save a few bucks? I am returning the Ridgid and doubt I will ever consider them a viable contender again.
I have been using panasonic for 7 years now and haven’t seen anything come close in performance in similar size and weight.
karl
Replies
How many charging cycles has the ridgid batt pack been through? You know they get better after a few charges.
Exactly, my milwaukee cordless sawzall was junk until the batteries had been cycled a few dozen times.
That's true, but as far as batteries are concerned it's all about amp hours. Most of DeWalt's batteries are around 1.7 ah. Panasonic is at 3.5ah with it's new batteries and has been over 2.5ah for some time. That means the battery charge lasts twice as long, and the batteries should last twice as long too, because you only have to charge them half as often. Not sure if that makes sense, but I wouldn't buy anything but a Panasonic cordless drill.
Woody
I was thinking that myself, but i wasnt sure what the ah on the ridgid tools were, i guess I could go look, i have the 18v set here. Im assuming 2 ah. Im hearing lots of good things about these panasonic tools, i havent seen any here in canada though im not a big tool freak, so....maybe they are common, I just havent seen them anywhere.
I've been looking at this too. The Ridgid batteries are only 2 amp hour NiCads.
Just one charge cycle. Thanks for pointing out the flaw in my attempt at comparing the performance of the two.
Karl