This week, we’re gonna fix Milwaukee, as a company, with $12, plus, we get more hands on info with the new Bosch Line of misfits, and watch a robot steel all the drywall jobs at once. THIS is your power tool week in review.
Belts and Boxes | Inverter Head 2 Head
In case you missed it, this week Rob finally got his hands on ALL the inverters and put them to the test, only to make a mess of it all.
The long awaited Milwaukee MX FUEL Carry-ON finally arrived here at our studios and Rob saw this as an opportunity to heat all the outdoors. He decided to test the Carry-On against the DeWALT Power Station, and the EGO Nexus, and found some interesting results. As it turns out, all three have similar specs but they’re clearly made for different people. To find out which one is made for you, be sure to watch his Inverter Head 2 Head after the show. Oh and you had some news from EGO you couldn’t tell us about yet.
That’s right, until today, we had a press embargo on this. That’s the EGO Solar Charger, an add on for your Nexus that allows you to hook up just about any solar panel, or a group of them, to harness the very power of the sun. I don’t have a release date or final price yet, but rumors have it around $150. This is something people have been asking for, for a very long time, and I’m anxious to get it and try it out.
OZ Tool Talk | Bosch Bi Turbo Grinder
Speaking of cool, the coolest Aussies we know are back showing off their new Bosch Bi-Turbo Tools that we still can’t get here in the States. Bosch held an awesome media even this week that pretty much confirmed everything we’ve guessed so far, but until I can get them in our hands, we’ll have to trust Mike and Dwayne.
This time they’re sharing their experience with the all new Bosch 18V Bi-Turbo Grinder. They don’t seem to know that Bosch calls this thing the Spitfire, but that’s probably because we don’t tell the Australians everything. Mike and Dwayne put the grinder through their usual run of challenges, and in the end, they had this to say: “I guess the question people are going to ask is, is it worth upgrading from the previous brushless m18v models? They were already good tools, but this is a big power step up. You will definitely notice the difference.” … “No it’s not the most powerful 5in that you can buy, but it’s a big stepping stone” Bosch keeps telling us that these new line of PROFACTOR tools will be something really special, and so far, I think they may be right. For the full review, hit up our buddies at OZ Tool Talk.
Shop Tool Reviews | Makita XWT 17 Mid Torque Wrench
Makita has been sending out some of their long awaited additions to their 18V line, and this week, Tim from Shop Tool Reviews took a swing at their new Mid-Torque Impact Wrench.
That, is the all new Makita XWT 17 Mid-Torque Impact Wrench, which claims to have 740 foot pounds of force on tap. That’s a pretty big claim. Tim takes his time walking us through the stats, and even teaches us to manage all of the complex settings. Then he puts the thing to work on some seriously torqued down bolts. Tim says that he could only test it up to 700 foot pounds, but it handled 3 in a row without a problem. He’s clearly impressed. For the full review, head over to Shop Tool Reviews.
Tool Talk | Hacking our Tools
For today’s tool talk, we’re going to talk about hacking our tools. Today’s example, is this guy. As we mentioned before, I reviewed this new MX monster in a video this week, and we briefly tapped into a growing complaint about a problem, that Milwaukee says is a feature. As it turns out, the Carry-On will shut off automatically after 60 minutes, if you’re pulling less than 80w of power.
Milwaukee insists that this is the best way to preserve power on the jobsite. And I believe them. But some of you still want to take this thing camping, or use it to charge your laptop, or running lights which don’t pull 80w. So we thought we’d look for the easiest way to hack the Carry-On to fix, this feature. I called my buddy Evan, who is at least 3 podcasts smarter than I am, and he suggested this. This is a $12 Heavy Duty Digital Plug-In Timer. We bought this on Amazon and programmed it to turn on and off for 1 minute, every hour, all day.
Next we used my Kill-A-Watt to test a bunch of things we thought most trades people would have in their truck, and discovered that the Milwaukee Rapid Charger, with an M18 battery plugged in, pulls 120w. Perfect. So we hooked this up, plugged it in, and used the other socket to power our less than 80w m12 charger, and… it worked. As long as this comes on once an hour, it keeps the MX Carry On turned on. Is this a perfect solution? No, but sometimes you have to hack a tool to get it to do what you want.
So for today’s Tool Talk, I want you to tell me in the comments about a great tool hack that’s helped you get the most out of your favorite tool.
Construction Junkie | Construction Industry News
We’ve done our best to let you know when robots will be taking your jobs! And this time it’s a robot named canvas, who will spray drywall compound on walls and ceilings, and do all the sanding completely dust free.
Best of all, this thing only need two pee breaks a day! Canvas is a semi-autonomous robot, meaning a low tech human leads him through the jobsite, and points out the work to be done. At which point Canvas will acknowledge the direction, by rolling its eyes and saying “Thanks meat bag”.
Currently Canvas is only working in San Francisco Bay Area, because he’s that much better than you, but plans to spread out across the country very soon. So if you currently sling mud for a living, you might want to learn how to steer robots on the side.
For the full story, and the rest of your construction industry news, head over to Construction Junkie.com.
Last week we took a look at personal transportation on the jobsite, which you can watch right here. Special thanks to SKIL and Ohio Power Tool, we couldn’t do this without you.