This week, we’re going to take a look at a brand new battery technology that promises to charge your tools in only a few seconds, plus, we’ll see a Sawsquatch sent to a farm, and finally, learn the difference between Milwaukee Sawzalls. This is your power tool week in review.
Project Farm – Shop Vac Review
Our first stop is back on Project Farm, where cordless shop vacs are being subjected to some seriously inhumane testing… for our entertainment.
Not too long ago, the thought of a competent, cordless wet dry vac was a thing of fairy tales. But thanks to new, bigger and more powerful lithium ion batteries and brushless motors, we have more options than ever. The brands tested include Ridgid, Milwaukee, Bosch, Makita, DeWALT, Ryobi, and HART. They all go through trials including sucking up water and sand, and their airspeed and sound are tested too. As always, the tool reviews over at Project Farm are creative, thorough, and entirely unsponsored, so if you’re looking to buy a cordless vac, it’s definitely worth the watch.
VCG Construction – Sawzall Review
I think The New Milwaukee M18 FUEL Sawzall is the best Recip saw you can buy. Vince over at VCG disagrees. He thinks the Milwaukee M18 FUEL Sawzall is the best you can buy. Let me explain.
In his typical enthusiastic presentation, Vince decided to tackle a common misconception about the NEW M18 FUEL Sawzall, that started after it’s reveal in Pipeline episode 3, when Milwaukee claimed that this new Sawzall is the fastest cutting ever. But, as Vince so eloquently points out, it’s not. For one, there are two different M18 Sawzall. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but one of them is Super. And when you understand the roles they’re meant to play, it all makes more sense. As Vince puts it, if you’re a framer, one will be best for you. A plumber? Maybe the other. An electrician? No matter what your trade is, Vince can help you pick the BEST Milwaukee M18 Sawzall, over at VCG Construction.
Pro Tool Reviews – Sawsquatch Review
The worlds first 10 ¼” CORDLESS worm drive saw has been out a couple months now, and unlike our garage queen over here. The example sent to our friends over at Pro Tool Reviews, has been just about worked to death, now including a trip to the farm.
Specifically, the PTR crew sent their saw to a farm in Georgia, where it was tasked with replacing a corded version, often used to top off fence posts in one pass, which is an amazing thing to do with a hand held circular saw. As we’ve mentioned before, this saw is huge, powerful, and consequently, heavy at 19.3lbs with a battery, but as Kenny points out, their farm hands didn’t seem to mind the extra weight, because it meant they could leave the generator back at the barn. Not everyone needs 10 ¼” inches on their saw but apparently if you’re topping fence posts on a farm, or hosting a tool video. For the full story, head over to Pro Tool Reviews on YouTube.
Tool Talk
Alright it’s time for some Tool Talk guys. Last week we dove into the OX CoffeeBoxx, talked about why it disappeared, and asked you guys who should step up and fill that space.
There was a strong call for a Milwaukee Coffee maker. Caleb Busscher said “I don’t even like Coffey but I’d buy a Milwaukee coffee maker.”
Alan Smith said “I brew a pot of coffee before I leave the house and put it in my Stanley thermos. If you preheat your thermos then your coffee with stay burning hot for 12 hours easy.” Heh…. Looks like we found someone who can function on only a thermos of coffee every day.
This week we’re turning to battery tech, as an Israeli startup called StoreDot, announced the first production versions of their super fast-charging lithium-ion batteries.
Their new battery tech is based on the replacement of graphite in a battery’s anode, with something called metalloid nano-particles. The results are lithium-ion batteries that can be safely charged at much higher speeds. Their goal, is to fully charge an electric vehicle in 5 minutes. Something that takes and hour on current EVs. This technology is still in it’s infancy, with the company aiming to land in actual cars in 2025.
To learn more, We’re joined by a small panel of battery experts from Chervon. This is Joe Turoff, Chief Marking Officer, Tim Baker, Director of Product Management and Brady Groth Director of Engineering. You can find their interview in the episode above!
For today’s tool talk, I want you to imagine these new cells in your power tools. Think about how this could affect your workflow on the jobsite. If you could set a drill on a mobile charging pad for 30 seconds, and top off its battery, would we even need to have separate batteries anymore? It would be faster to just “set it down on a charger for a moment” versus going to look for a full battery and swapping them out.
Or maybe quick charging would mean we only need tiny 1ah batteries on our tools making them lighter and easier to use. let me know in the comments what you think. If a battery can charge that fast, how could that change cordless power tools? I’ll be responding to your questions and ideas after the show.
Last week we talked about the death of OXX Coffee, and who we thought would be it’s successor, which you can watch right here.
Special thanks to EGO and Ohio Power Tool for sponsoring this episode! We couldn’t do this without you.