Thread: Makita 18v drill & impact driver DF457D TD127D Li-ion BL1811G good deal or not?

Through my own experience, some of the Makita tools Bunnings sells are unique in Australia to them, however you may find that they are sold overseas. Two examples that I have, a Makita compound saw, sold here as Martec, in New Zealand as Makita weekender range. Bunnings Australia sell the Makita version. Last year I bought a kit from Bunnings, BDF453 drill, BTD140 impact driver and BML186 light. I found the light listed on a European site, possibly Makita UK. Case looks the same as your image.

Regret, I am unable to assist with your battery question.

Once you start using cordless tools, you will probably not regret it.

Thanks handyjack. Yeah I think you may be right. I'm looking forward to giving them a workout and maybe get hooked. The corded drills will go into hiding.

Regarding the batteries, local Bunnings say they don't keep em in stock but order them in as requested. Furthermore they said an engineering place I know well who deal Makita carry the said batteries. Sounds encouraging, so that's tomorrow's mission. I may have been worrying about nothing. It just seemed weird the lack of info on the net. I probably should've saved and went with the LXT gear but like I said, I wasn't really in the market to go cordless so this clearance combo seemed like a good way to start off.

I spotted ads in Melbourne papers a couple of weeks ago for the drill, 2 batts and charger at $99 and the combo kit you have at $199. Dropped in to try and get a drill set after the WW show on the Saturday arvo and was daggers because the 3 local stores were cleared out of the drill sets and only one had the combo set left. Didn't pay any attention to to the combo set as the numbers didn't stack up for me, but weren't aware that they weren't LXT series.

I have loads of 18V Mak gear, 1.5 and 3.0AH bats, and 4 110V chargers. The drill would effectively duplicate an existing tool, but I thought $99 for a pair of batts and a 240V charger seemed a reasonable deal, and the drill would get some use. Then I noticed that the batts were 1.1H instead of 1.5AH, but I was not aware that the batts in these kits were not compatible with the other Mak 18V gear. Starting to feel relieved now that the kit I was interested in was gone.

As for the 1815 and 1830 batteries being a newer system, the stuff they were clearing must be ancient, because the LXT gear I have mostly came from the States before Mak released LXT here, with the original purchases around 7 years ago and the most recent 5 years ago. At that stage, Mak were still doing a decent trade in the 14V Nicad/NiMH kits here. I'm thinking that Mak maybe were going for a downmarket series, but eventually opted to go with the 10.8V kit as the lower cost option instead.

I think I would be trying Mak AU ASAP to try and get some extra batts if you think wou will need them. I haven't had hassles with reliability with my gear, but figure 2 batts for 2 tools might not be enough if you have long projects planned and need to be able to drill and screw for more than a hour or so at a time. Much nicer to be have a couple off batts charging while another pair are working, so a quick changeover is possible.

Totally agree malb, I'll need at least a couple spares to keep them ready to go. With an hour charge time a spare at the ready for each tool should be enough for starters cos there will be constant use when I do shelving and similar projects, so lotsa screws. Plus the 1.1 cap has had me wondering just how long a charge will last.

I too was wondering how old these are. I mean when I started searching the other night I read that some blokes had bought LXT from the US back in 07 or 08 and mine are a previous generation. Then there's the odd story about shelf life of Li-ions and it makes you think that it's better to buy fresh ones as spares are needed rather than stockpile now. So I think an email to Mak is a must, I'll report back when I get a reply.

G'day do you have a battery world or sym. there if so take your kit & ask about after market batteries. There may be a better amp battery choice there. Just a thought.

Nah, no such places locally. Maybe down Wagga or Albury then Canberra most likely, a fair drive to each but we go to each throughout the year so I'll look into that before next trip.

The engineering place I mentioned where the bunnies bloke said would have them in stock, didn't. I took one in and it seemed promising at first until they noticed the 1.1ah rating. They only had BL1815 and BL1830s, the 1.5 and 3.0ah LXT batts. They hadn't seen the BL1811G before and we compared the two types to show the differences which are pretty obvious together. They stock a lot of good gear and know their stuff with fellas, some ex tradies, working there for years and these batteries have never been in stock. If these guys haven't got em no one else in town will have em. I'll go to bunnings tomorrow and will order a couple more. I also emailed Mak Au today about future battery availability. Just waiting for a reply.

Fwiw, I've got a Milwaukee 18v, 1.5ah kit similar to yours. I used it to drive screws into a deck I built, plus many other things. Because I was only using the impact driver, I had one battery in the tool and the other one being charged. When I ran out of charge, I simply swapped them over. Small batteries charge fast, so I was never without a battery. If your using both batteries at once, having two extras would be handy, but you will only be able to charge one at a time.

Also, look on eBay for batteries. I know others on here have used eBay to source batteries and they will post them out to you.

Trav

Thanks Trav. It's a good point about smaller batteries charging faster. Admittedly they've ramped up the output for lxt chargers to reduce the time for larger cap batteries but I doubt I'll be taxing the tools that much where it'll be an issue. To date I haven't really put the tools through a solid session where I've needed spare batteries on the fly so I haven't ordered any yet plus I've spent dollars on other things recently that I'll have to chase the batteries up at a later date through bunnings and I'll keep an eye out on eBay. A second charger might appeal later too. I've seen a few batteries advertised as new being sold cheaper than the $69 from bunnings. Disappointingly I've yet to receive word back from Makita.

In the meantime I have used them to drill wall studs for nailing and screwing gyprock. What can I say, I'm hooked. It's the first time I've used an impact driver and the control for countersinking plaster screws is fantastic. I'm not necessarily spruiking for Makita as any decent cordless combo would've suited me, plus I'm usually Bosch biased, but I'm loving the feel of these tools so far. So much lighter and great feel. They'll make overhead work a breeze, particularly when I hang more ceiling gyprock. My corded Bosch drills will be relegated to masonry and dirty jobs.

An update and a plug of sorts, particularly on the battery. A new battery arrived in the mail along with a few other parts from Tool Spare Parts which appears to be owned by Norwest Tool Centre. I went there to get a new dust bag plus cork and carbon plate for an old 9401 Makita belt sander and had a look though some of the other EPCs to find a drill that used the same BL1811G battery and ordered one. I got an email soon after that parts were on backorder and expected to get another that the battery couldn't be ordered, (due to me hearing it could only be bought through bunnings), but to my surprise my package arrived today including a new boxed BL1811G battery. I ordered late on Friday afternoon 31/01, it was shipped on the 6/02 and got here 2 business days later. Battery was $75. Pretty well stoked with the result.

As for the drill and driver, still going strong. It might not be the LXT stuff but they've had a good workout and I'm really happy with them. I still use the Bosch corded for concrete and had to use it for drilling 12mm holes in 4mm steel plate. The Mak did the pilot holes though.