Intrigued by these results, I set the timer for 3 minutes. So the H3 can sprint alongside the hammer drill, it just can't run the marathon. If you do the math to find out how long each tool took to drive a single screw (divide the minutes by the screw total), the results are nearly identical, with a slight edge going to the H3: 38.2 seconds for the Makita and 38.3 seconds for the H3. But I took a closer look at the results and discovered something else that's interesting. So, arm strain and hand pain aside, the Makita was the clear winner in the battery-life category. Thirty-six bit change-outs is a lot to take.
#HAMMER DRILL VS IMPACT DRILL VS DRILL SKIN#
Since I'm in the habit of loosening the chuck by gripping it and giving the tool some juice, by the time I was done, the skin on my palm was rosy red and felt like I had just grabbed a hot cattle brand.
#HAMMER DRILL VS IMPACT DRILL VS DRILL DRIVER#
Because the Makita has a standard three-jaw chuck, swapping the drill bit out for the driver was tedious and painful. In that time, I drilled and drove 36 concrete screws and was halfway through the hole for No. At 23:03, the battery finally went dead (as did the feeling in my right arm). Around minute 20, I began praying that it would. In fact, sometime during minute 15, I started to wonder if it would ever end. Not surprisingly, the 18-volt Makita outdistanced the H3. I also timed the test, and the H3 did all of this in exactly 7 minutes. Because the tool comes with a quick-change driver bit, switching from drilling to driving was easy. The mini-tool managed to sink 11 concrete screws and drilled out the hole for the twelfth before the battery went down. The screws that I used required a 5⁄32-inch pilot hole, so I outfitted each tool with a brand new Bosch bit.įirst up was the H3. To test battery life, I put a piece of 3⁄4-inch plywood on a few concrete blocks, then drilled and drove 13⁄4-inch concrete screws into the wood until the batteries on each tool died. The hammer drill I used in the tests was the 18-volt Makita BHP452, and the rotary hammer was a 1-inch Bosch Bulldog 11255VSR. So where does the H3 stand against the traditional hammer drill and rotary hammer? Can a junior-varsity-size tool compete with the pros? To find out, I simulated some real-world applications, comparing the tools for battery life and strength. In my experience, 12-volt drills are good enough for adjusting hinges and other light-duty tasks, none of which include drilling through concrete. (It is engineered as a rotary hammer, but for some reason Rockwell calls it a hammer drill). The H3 is a 12-volt rotary hammer that is about the size of a standard 18-volt drill.
Rockwell, makers of the JawHorse, announced its new H3 Hammer Drill at this January's International Builders' Show. For the occasional user, the large, bulky tools are often overkill-a powerful all-purpose drill driver with a hammer-drill setting makes more sense. Among tradesmen working daily, rotary hammers are preferred because of their superior strength and shock-absorbing qualities. In a hammer drill, two ribbed metal discs click in and out against one another, causing impact. In a rotary hammer, a cylinder of air is compressed by a piston, which in turn beats the bit. Both tools pound the bit while it spins, pulverizing concrete, but the two differ in the mechanisms that do the actual pounding.
Either you use a large rotary hammer or a drill driver with a hammer-drill function.
If you need to drive a screw into concrete, you've got two choices.