Top 10 Cordless Drills

Whether you’re looking for a cordless drill that’s straightforward or a drill that’s intricately-designed, the good news is that there is a wide variety of choice on the market. Several of these drills come with built-in features for handling one-of-a-kind jobs.

Assuming, for example, that you do a lot of drilling in hard-to-reach places, you’ll want a cordless drill that is relatively lightweight (five to ten pounds) so you can wield it at wide angles. In addition, you’ll want a drill that features a one-touch work light, so you can see what you’re doing even if you’re in a poorly-lit area or a space that is completely dark.

If you’re drilling into resistant surfaces, you’ll want a cordless drill that features a detachable side handle for stability along with several gears for maximizing torque. If you’re dealing with really difficult surfaces, you may want to seek out a drill that comes with a hammer setting for pumping into the bit as a means of driving deep screws home.

Anyone who operates a cordless drill on a day-to-day basis should pursue a model that comes with two or more batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are the industry standard because they are durable, long-lasting, and because they possess twice the energy of many similarly-sized batteries made from nickel cadmium.

Let’s start with some basics. Owning a cordless drill means not having to plug in, which enables you to drill anywhere at any time. In addition, the majority of cordless drills are light enough that you can holster them along a tool belt. This allows you to handle simple jobs, like tightening a loose screw on the fly.

Cordless drills conserve electricity by allowing you to drill outdoors or in hard-to-reach places without trailing a chain of extension cords behind them. They are ideal for any workplace in that they eliminate the risk of employees tripping over wires.

Cordless drills have a higher power rating (on average) than their plugged-in counterparts. Most of these drills come with multiple batteries, which means that you can carry a spare and still keep a battery on the charger.

Obviously, a cordless drill is portable enough that you can store it in a trunk or carry it with you on a bike. This might come in handy if you’re a municipal worker or if you happen to be canvassing an area with signs.

Cordless drills are the future, which means that manufacturers tend to place a lot more emphasis on adding features to a cordless drill than they would to a traditional one. A lot of today’s cordless drills are built with progressive features, whereas traditional drills tend to be a lot less advanced.

The earliest, most rudimentary drills go back 40,000 years and were based upon the same principle of applying pressure via a rotating point that a modern drill is based on today.

Bow drills (featuring a mechanical bow and a shaft) were invented around 8,000 BCE. Core drills were invented five centuries later by the Ancient Egyptians, and pump drills were invented around 1,000 BCE by the Chinese.

The Ancient Romans are credited with inventing the auger, a crossbar drill that grew to feature a hip-length shaft for boring major holes into a surface. Certain augers were designed with a crossbar wide enough that two men could wind the handle, thereby rendering it easier to penetrate a blunt exterior or solid ground.

An auger eventually evolved to feature the world’s first brace-and-bit system. The brace (in brace-and-bit) referred to a U-shaped handle that made it easier for Roman artisans to crank while boring an attached drill bit down.

Electric motors revolutionized the drill when they were introduced during the 1880’s. The first handheld motorized drill was patented in 1895. It was self-sufficient and capable of completing an extremely taxing job at the touch of a button. Motorized drills opened the door for several other innovations, including the ability to remove an embedded screw via a reverse mode.

Cordless drills were introduced during the 1960’s, with early models being powered via nickel cadmium batteries. Nickel cadmium remained the most efficient power source until lithium-ion batteries came along during the 1980’s.

Three decades forward, and cordless drills continue to evolve. A lot of today’s models come with innovative features including hammer action, high-powered torque, and an auto-fitting barrel for securing bits inside the jaw.