[Shop-talk] A quick comparison of cordless tools

[BJNoSHOV8]

When Home Depot was selling off some of their cordless sets last year I 
bought a set by Ridgid that includes drill, impact driver, 
recriprocating saw, flashlight and 2 18V Lion batteries.  I haven't had 
much occasion to use them until recently.  Friday I bought a 2x4 at 
HomeDepot for a little project, and actually needed it in 2 pieces so I 
took the cordless saw with me thinking I could cut off the one piece and 
then the remainder would fit in my car easier.  I noticed that after 
cutting about 1/2" through the board the saw stopped.  It would restart 
but only about 1/8" before stopping again.  I did this for awhile until 
I got all the way through the board- cut, stop, cut, stop, ....  I 
thought maybe something was wrong with the saw.  Today I was assembling 
things and had to put in some long 1/4" lag bolts, so I thought I would 
use the impact driver.  It basically worked the same way- start, stop, 
start, stop.  I did quite a bit with the drill and it worked fine until 
I decided I would screw in the long lag bolts with it instead.  It 
eventually got to the same point- drill, stop, drill, stop, etc.  Now 
I'm beginning to wonder if there is something wrong with the batteries.  
I know that Lithium batteries have builtin circuitry to keep them from 
over-charging or over-discharging.  I wonder if this protection circuit 
is limiting the current that the batteries put out to keep them from 
overheating.

As a test I pulled out my old DeWalt 14.4V NiCad drill.  It would 
actually out-torque the 18V Lithium drill on these long lag bolts.