Thread: New innovative cordless drill

Originally Posted by Harry72

By the looks they are made by Demain for Coleman, Demain make trade quality grinders. All the boilermakers at work use demain grinders and swear by them.

Dean reckons its alright

http://www.onlinetoolreviews.com/rev...glegrinder.htm

Originally Posted by Porl

Hi All,
My name is Paul, I'm a power tool engineer/designer working for Demain International.

Paul sorry if i sound sceptical, but i have an idea.

Why dont you pop around and have a chat (and a beer) and give me a look at one.

As it turnes out your design center is a few blocks away from my workshop.

PM me if you are interested

Originally Posted by Lignum

So do you think they will alter the design based on our opinions

Probably not.

Originally Posted by Lignum

Or do you think they just might sell more gimicky drills to the un suspecting

They might, but anyone reading this thread gets to benefit from your opinion as well.

I reckon that the idea of a shroud protecting the work surface is alright, and if it locks tight to a drill bit without slipping, then it's an improvement on a lot of keyless chucks, although there are a lot of good locking keyless chucks out there already.

Sure it's a bit of a gimmick, and I wouldn't buy one unless it was cheap, or well proven.
The main features a tradie would look for is durability, battery life, charge time, power, value for money.
Bonus features would be; hammer, rotary hammer, rotary percussion screwdriving. I don't know why more manufacturers don't make decent rotary percussion screwdrivers.

Appreciate the debate guys. Negative and positive comments are all welcome.

Firstly, to answer some common queries and concerns:

- Yes, your ideas can make it into products. In fact the majority of ideas in Demain products come from guys just like you. At the begining of a project we usually conduct a focus group with experienced trades people and even people who have no power tool experience at all.

- The shroud on this model drill is not removeable. Your comments regarding this will be taken forward in our product development meetings.

- Coleman sell a range of power tools. Some of which are designed and developed by Demain. They are also selling the Demain angle grinder that was previously mentioned. It also has a You Tube promotional video, comments are welcome:

Coleman Air Thru™ Angle grinder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS5VyGoqmCg

mic-d - Unless I'm mistaken, the chucks you are refering to are a single sleeve keyless chuck with a spindle lock on the drive shaft. These chucks are essentially the same as a double sleeve keyless chuck, the difference being that the spindle lock holds the shaft still rather than you doing it with your second hand. The power-tite chuck is most similar to holding a keyless chuck (single or double sleeve) by hand and driving the jaws closed with the motor. The advantages are:

Safety: The drill can't spin in your hand like it does when you hold the chuck on a conventional drill. The chuck is shrouded to prevent moving parts causing injury or damage to your work piece
Consistency: A 70 year old with arthritus can achieve the same gripping strength as 25 year old body builder.
Higher gripping strength: The chuck will grip tighter than a conventional keyless chuck when done up by hand.

Pawnhead - Point well made. Yes, of course I want the product to be sucessful and make a buck. No offence but advertising on this forum is not going to make that happen, marketing a product is a lot more involved than that. The point of this exercise is to get feed back from the guys who know what they are talking about. Too many product developers try to tell the market what they want, I'd rather ask you what you want and attempt to deliver it.

Lignum - Would love to have you to our office for a beer, that way I can show you some of the other products we have and give you a demo. I'll get in touch.

Originally Posted by

Bleeding Thumb, your post was in general woodwork and that thread was deleted. Your and other following posts here have been deleted because it is a hijack.

Well Robo why did Wendy PM me and say she pulled the post because it was a bit rude.

And how can explaining my comment be considered a hijack? when even Porl acknowledged my post.

I may have been wrong and out of line ..I can accept that and I accept that my first post got pulled but to pull the latter ones whan I was explaining why I felt that was is a bit heavy handed don't you think?

Bleedin thumb - Your welcome to PM if you wish to make a point personally, I don't get offended very easily. I realise posting this will tread on some peoples toes a little but you must realise that people like myself are also an important part of the woodworking community and dialog between designers and users is fundamental for good design.

Originally Posted by Porl

Bleedin thumb - Your welcome to PM if you wish to make a point personally, I don't get offended very easily.

I was trying to make a public comment.

Originally Posted by Porl

I realise posting this will tread on some peoples toes a little..

Originally Posted by Porl

but you must realise that people like myself are also an important part of the woodworking community .

This has been a good thread. I don't care about the "hawking" aspect of it, because the product is interesting and at least gestures towards solving a couple of problems for woodworkers (and others of course).

But Porl, I think you may have been provided with a huge hint towards the future in this thread, when it was suggested that designers head towards a hex (see Pawnhead above) or maybe a splined system (as in rotary hammers) in DIY cordless drills. This would not only solve the slipping problem, but would make it easier still to change bits, and would allow that innovative shroud of yours to be more tapered and therefore aid visibility of the drill bit and so on (not to mention the additional problem of slipping drill bits obliterating the stamped drill bit size).

This would mean a general changeover from the current system, but doesn't a little birdie tell you that this is inevitable?

Rossluck - I completely agree that using hex or splined drill bits solve the issue of rotational slippage. I've certainly had the same thoughts before. However, there are very good reasons why these bits are currently not mainstream.

1. Cost. To make a hex shaft vs. a round shaft incurs a lot more cost on the manufacturer. The industry is highly competitive and when your pumping out 1000s of drill bits per day even a minor increase in the cost per bit has to be well justified.

2. Concentricity. Maintaining concentricity of a hex shaped shaft is harder for manufacturers. This can result in one two things, non concentric bits or more cost.

3. The Market. This tool is essentially marketed at the DIY or semi-professional user. This person is not likely to spend big dollars for reasonable quality hex bits. While various hex bits are becoming more common, the market still dictates that round shank bits are the most popular. To design a DIY tool that did not accept round shank bits would severely limit the tools market.

4. Cost

Having said that I think your point is very valid. From a user perspective it would be nice if there were more hex drive drills and bits. The market very well may move in that direction. It is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, what comes first? The hex drills or the hex bits of equal cost and quality to round bits?... At least that's what the little birdie told me.

Pawnhead - Spade bits generally have a hex shaft because their large diameter induces larger rotational forces on the jaws of the chuck, i.e. they would inevitably slip if the shank was round.

EDIT: Mick - Round shank spade bits certainly exist. Replace the word "inevitably" above with "more likely to". Cheers

Originally Posted by Porl

.............Pawnhead - Spade bits have a hex shaft because their large diameter induces larger rotational forces on the jaws of the chuck, i.e. they would inevitably slip if the shank was round.

Actually, it wasn't that long ago that they still had round shanks - I've still got some Stanley and Irwin bits with round shanks.

Mick

Fair enough Porl. But I am being heavily influenced here by the fact that GMC once had a deal where you could buy a rotary hammer (a big'un) and a bonus pack of about twenty splined masonry drill bits and other things. If the Chinese can make these for so cheap (i.e., almost giveaway) surely their production costs must be comparible.

I won't, however, argue the point with you beacuse you're in the industry and I'm not. But I do want to make a few more points that may help or hinder your progress as a designer.

1. The number one problem for me when I want to do some drilling is in finding all of the bits and pieces I need. The right drill bit, the hex drive bit, or maybe a phillips head (#1 or #2). This is because, like a lot of people, when I find the thing I'm looking for I place whatever was in the chuck in my pocket or on a window sill or somewhere. It is then lost until next time (or makes rattling noises in the washing machine).

2. For me at least, drill bits spinning in cordless drills is not a big problem. If you haven't the strength to tighten the chuck until the motor stops before the drill bit slips, you may well be a nancy (sorry in advance for the political incorrectness of this assertion). It is, however, a problem in 240v drills.

3. Damaging the work surface is a problem, but it is something I usually blame myself for rather than the drill.

Rossluck - I'm sure you'd agree that the quality of give away bits are not brilliant.

1. Sounds like an opportunity for a good product.

2. Some people are nancies and the quality of keyless chucks in the market differs, some are better than others. Although not a problem for you it is certainly a problem that exists for others and we have had people express this to us in the past. As most people on this forum are professional users I wouldn't expect many of you to suffer this problem.

3. Your obviously a professional! In my mind preventing the mistake can't be a bad thing and it helps a non professional achieve a better result.

How much will the drill retail for here in Australia. Thats the importand bit i think i have missed

Originally Posted by Lignum

How much will the drill retail for here in Australia. Thats the importand bit i think i have missed

Hiya Lignum, Im the Demain MD and checking out the thread

Retail of the 18V 2 sp with 2 batts will be $129.99 in GMC brand here in OZ.

Demain designs and develops the technology and we license to factories to make the products, then we license brands like GMC to buy from the factory and use our patented technology.

Thanks for your comments...really valuable...

"It is, however, a problem in 240v drills."
Amen to that, I snapped a 12mm P&N bit today with a Mak corded drill... luckily because I couldnt release the trigger otherwise it might have broken me!