04
Jan 18

New toy…

So my old power drill died. Or more accurately, its batteries. Six hours charging, twenty minutes of charge held with no load, or one 3.5mm hole in inch-thick poplar. That’s NiCad for you, just not great for occasional use. And last time this happened, it worked out cheaper to buy a new drill and use its batteries, which was exceptionally irritating. So I figured enough; I’ll get a new drill and move up to the new lithium ion batteries and maybe down in size to the newer smaller drills. I don’t use my drill that often, and when I do it’s for quick small holes or driving screws faster than the cordless screwdriver does – which basically means jigs and mounting stuff on the shed walls. So for stuff like that, the new 10.8v and 12v sized drills seem way more suited:

That’s the Bosch PS32, their brushless 10.8/12v drill. Except they’re pricey, and just before I bit the bullet, I came across a sale in Woodies where the larger 18v Bosch was on sale for €100, which was half what most places charge and frankly so low that I delayed for ages trying to figure out what was wrong with it. But in the end, even though it’s not exactly what I wanted, the price was too good, so I gave up looking for a better PS32 price and bought the GSB today.

And it’s not bad. Solidly built, well balanced, and while it has a larger collet size than the old PSR, it’s physically smaller (and lighter, if only by 40g when the batteries are in):

Plus, moving up a grade (from green to blue 😀 ). Which is nice.

 

Now, to actually use the sodding thing…