DRILL VS. DRIVER (What's The Difference?!! Cordless Drill Vs. Impact Driver--COMPARISON)

what's the difference between this tool and this one by this point virtually everybody has seen these stubby drill shaped tools in lowe's and home depot and yet while every trades person i know has one and uses one of these tools daily there still seems to be a lot of confusion amongst homeowners and diy-ers about how exactly this tool differs from a standard drill so in this video we're going to discuss what both of these tools do and how and when to use them that's coming up next on the honest carpenter show first off let's get the terminology straight this is a drill technically an 18 volt cordless drill this is an impact driver they're both rotary tools in a gun shape that are used for turning different types of bits but how they turn those bits can be extremely different see a cordless drill is basically just a spinning machine the drill uses a chuck and jaws to clamp down on the shaft of a drill bit the motor of the drill then applies constant torque to spin that bit this means that drills are great for boring out holes where a fast constant rate of spin is necessary to keep cutting through wood smoothly and they can be used with a huge variety of drill bits such as standard twist bits paddle bits forstner bits hole saws and many more but drills can also be used for turning driving bits as well by that i mean bits that are specifically used for driving fasteners those bits include phillips bits flat heads star bits square bits and even nut drivers for a long time this is pretty much the only tool that people reach for when they wanted to drive a fastener i mean there really weren't any other tools that could do the job effectively until these came along impact drivers impact drivers are almost exclusively used for just driving fasteners that's their primary function and the amazing thing is even though they're smaller they deliver way more force than a standard drill so how do they do it the real difference is in how the tool is engineered and how it transfers that force as i said before a drill just spins and the jaws rely on friction to hold the shaft of the drill bit in place but an impact driver is a far more complex tool it too spins but the tool can also sense resistance so as you begin driving a fastener the tool will turn the bit like a drill but when resistance increases it activates another mode sort of a super mode it sounds and looks like this what's happening is that the tool is basically disengaging the motor from the drill bit then re-engaging it over and over again in fractions of a second so instead of the tool applying constant torque it only applies it in little quick bursts the net effect of this is that it drastically reduces the amount of force that gets transferred into your arm but it amplifies the force that gets transferred into the drill bit so this makes the impact driver easier to hold and operate but it makes it far more effective at driving fasteners than a drill and it can drive really big fasteners that you would never even attempt to use a drill on certainly not without pre-drilling as i said before the problem with using a drill to drive fasteners is that the tool applies constant torque so the moment you pull the trigger the bit immediately starts spinning and the only thing keeping the drill bit in the head of that fastener is your hand and your wrist and your arm your muscles and joints have to counteract the force of the drill and if they fail to do so you'll get something that's called camming out it's a problem that every diy-er knows and hates it's when the drill bit slips out of the screw head spins around real fast and makes a mess of the bit slot when this happens you have a screw that can no longer be driven in or backed out it's like the most frustrating thing that can occur when you're driving fasteners but with the impact driver this problem basically never happens that disengagement feature prevents rapid binding and as a result the bit stays right in the screw slot where you want it i really can't overstate what a game changer this was for the construction industry before impact drivers came along if you wanted to send in a bigger fastener even say a three inch screw you had to pre-drill every hole then either switch bits and drive a screw or keep another drill on hand with a driver bit in it and even then it still might be difficult to drive the fastener if the wood was really hard or if the drill bit you used was too small but the power in this little tool made those problems obsolete impact drivers are so strong they can easily drive a three inch screw into many types of wood without even pre-drilling the internet is awash with videos of people using their impact drivers to drive really big fasteners and the crazy thing is it's still not that hard on your arm it's just hard on the tool but the tool is designed to handle that stress impact drivers have such an absurd power question for their size they're really nothing short of a miracle they're also very frequently used in the automotive trade for tightening bolts and nuts where they sort of act as a portable air wrench that's how much power they have but there are some things that you need to know about them since they differ from drills so much these things aren't necessarily drawbacks they're just sort of peculiarities of the tool so here's a few things to keep in mind number one impact drivers require their own special bits normal driving bits aren't meant to handle the torque stress that an impact driver delivers they'll break they'll just snap impact driver bits are specially engineered they will often have colorful bands around the neck and sometimes the neck will look really skinny they also have a hex shank and to load them you typically just push them into the driver collet then to unload them you'll pull a sleeve to disengage the collet and slide the bit out the other thing people ask is can i drill holes with my impact driver and the answer is yes you technically can but to be honest i'm not a very big fan of this first off you have to get drill bits that have a hex shank and are therefore made to go into an impact driver collet smooth shank drill bits and even slot shank drill bits won't go in there but more important i just don't think impact drivers are great for drilling if you watched my 11 drilling tips and tricks video you'll know that you really want a constant speed and torque for effective drilling your standard drill is way better suited for supplying that i don't like having to keep all sorts of crazy custom drill bits for my impact driver especially when it's not that great at drilling and i already have a drill i know people out there are going to disagree with me on this but for my money's worth after using both these tools in the field on a daily basis that's how i feel i like to use a drill for drilling and a driver for driving the good thing is that these two tools are very frequently packaged together now they'll come in 18 volt or 20 volt sets they're not that expensive and the new ones are way more efficient than my old dinosaurs here i'll link a number of these tools down below in the description please feel free to browse them and possibly shop them pretty much every major manufacturer is making these tools now so you can almost always find something in your price range that'll meet your needs and the last thing that i'll say is that i do still just prefer cordless drills for driving small or delicate fasteners drills are just more sensitive they have lower torque and they have clutches to prevent from overdriving impact drivers are so strong that it can be hard to keep them from burying a fastener it's like using a sledgehammer to swallow fly sometimes so when i'm driving little hobby screws or decorative screws i will typically switch back to a cordless drill with the driving bit in it in the future i'm going to expand on these topics a lot i'm going to talk about corded drills versus cordless drills another important discussion and i'm also going to talk about hammer drills which are something else i get asked about a lot but both those topics are so important they deserve their own videos i'll get to them soon for now i'll keep this video short and wrap it up if you have any input anything to add about drills and impact drivers please put it down in the comments below i'll also try to jump down there and answer questions as always thanks for watching check back in for our videos coming out weekly and please consider subscribing and hitting that little bell button beside the subscribe button to turn on notifications that way you'll know the moment we post something i'm ethan james with the onyxcarpenter.com i'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: The Honest Carpenter

Views: 2,540,317

Keywords: drill vs driver difference, drill vs impact driver, drill vs impact driver uses, brushless drill vs impact driver, impact driver vs drill, impact driver comparison, impact driver uses, impact driver bits, impact driver dewalt, cordless drill vs impact driver, cordless drill, impact driver, drill driver vs impact driver, drill driver how to use, dewalt 20v max impact driver how to use, what is an impact driver tool, what is an impact driver, the honest carpenter

Id: VQvDBmUtx6o

Length: 8min 18sec (498 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020