Parkside Cordless Drill PABS 18 A1 > Reviews (1)

Does the word ‘drill’ send shivers down your spine because of its association with dentistry?

You will be relieved to know then, that this review is about a DIY power drill for drilling holes in anything but teeth.

I must be the only person for miles around; lazy enough to use three separate power drills whilst building the framework for my shed. Two corded drills, one with the drill bit for drilling holes, a second, with the counter-sink, and a third, a cordless drill with a posi-drive bit in it to screw the wood together.

Believe me it saved a tremendous amount of time and energy. I could have used one drill for the whole project, but changing the bits for each task was time consuming.

Two of the drills mentioned above were already in my possession. Just a few days after I had started constructing the frameworks for my shed, I noticed that Lidls had an 18V cordless drill in stock, until then I had been using one drill for drilling and countersinking, cussing every time I had to change the bits, begrudging the time wasted in doing so, and the second drill as a screwdriver. So off I went to purchase for £29.99 one Parkside cordless drill. It is this drill I shall review here.

The Parkside Cordless Drill details

Cost: £29.99

The price included an 18Volt cordless drill and battery pack.
A fast charger, which fully recharges the battery in 60 minutes.
One double bit for posi-drive screws. This is held, securely clipped to the casing above the battery.
A very sturdy black, moulded plastic, carry case.
A comprehensive booklet of instructions in English and three other languages, DE, AT and CH.
A three-year warranty.

Total weight of case, drill, battery and charger: 4kg (9lb)
Weight of drill plus battery: 1.8kg (4lb)
Case measurements: 28cm x 30cm x 11cm (11” x 12” x 4.25”)
Height of drill and battery: 25.5cm (10”)
Length of drill head: 23cm (9”)

Description

When I was much younger, corded power drills always put me in mind of the large unwieldy, gun-like weapons featuring in Sci-Fi films. The cordless versions, however, have a large battery attached to the base of the handgrip.
The Parkside cordless drill is very much the same, in shape as most cordless drills.

The motor, powered by battery, is housed in the elongated head, which for the purpose of this review I will call the barrel, just above the handgrip. The handgrip, which features a rubberised coating on one side, extends at right angles from the barrel to the battery casing at the bottom.

This drill has two functions, the first as a drill and the second, as a screwdriver. Therefore it has two gears one for each function. The gear selector, a red plastic lever, is positioned on top of the barrel.

Behind the gear selector, at the rear end of the barrel, are three small LED displays; by pressing a small red button behind these, the battery condition will be indicated.

At the far end of the barrel is the keyless chuck, where the drill bits are secured. Behind that, a torque pre-selector which I believe has something to do with the force produced to rotate the chuck, so for small screws a low setting is selected but for larger screws and inserting screws into hard wood, a higher torque is required.

For drilling, there is a special symbol for the torque setting.

Below the barrel are two red switches, one is the rotation direction switch which allows the user to change the rotation of the chuck, to either drive the screw into the wood or remove one from the wood. The second, positioned on the front of the handle, is the On/Off trigger which has two functions, the first, obviously starts the chuck rotating, and the second is to regulate the speed of the drill, the harder the trigger is pulled towards the handle, the faster the chuck will spin. I found it best to start slowly and gently increase the speed.

At the bottom of the handle is a casing into which the hefty 18Volt battery is attached. A large red battery release button sits in front of the casing.

When the battery requires recharging, it can be slipped into the supplied charging unit and plugged into the mains. A red indicator light shows that the battery is charging, which takes about 60 minutes, and the green indicator light comes on when charging is complete.

Opinion

I found the whole unit perfectly balanced in that it did not tip to one side or the other of its own volition. It felt comfortable in the hand and very easy to use. I liked the fact that when placing on the ground or bench, the battery acted as a stand, so there was no scraping of knuckles when picking it up.

The battery held its charge very well and I had no need to charge it even after using it on about 200 screws, and drilling numerous holes in wood a few weeks later. The charge indicator shows how much charge remains in the battery, and before it depletes completely, warns to recharge.

This drill, unlike corded drills, does not have the hammer drill feature, used to make drilling into concrete or brick much easier and quicker. Yet with the correct masonry drill-bit it is possible to drill into stone or concrete. With a special drill bit for metals, it will also drill with ease through metal.

It might be worth noting here that the less expensive 9V cordless screwdrivers and 12V cordless drills are less powerful than the 18V ones, so take note of the battery voltage before choosing, especially if it is for prolonged use.

A monitor I have to indicate the cost of electricity in current use indicated that the cost of recharging the battery is 4p per day, which works out at less than a penny per recharge.

Adding this relatively inexpensive yet efficient and durable tool to my collection of drills certainly helped save me time and effort in my quest to construct the framework for my shed.

Summary

The only things this will not drill into are your teeth or a big hole in your wallet