Harbor Freight's New Hercules Impact Driver Beats... Everything?

foreign [Music] welcome back to the Torq test Channel we got a good one for you today the new Hercules brushless impact driver up against Milwaukee gen 3 and Gen 4 up against the Cobalt next-gen the Bauer brushless that's from the same store and heck anything it can get close to the monster XTR impact driver and the toasty Flex quick eject while we're at it we're gonna see just how many brand dominoes this little guy can chain together and knock down in little it is this is the all-new HCB 81b Hercules we bought from the harbor freight and it's just 4.7 4.75 inches long we went in to buy the new drill driver as well to show you guys but our store didn't have any yet we gotta wait until they're selling them in person just like the rest of you do on the topic of size again there are Bauer brushless that we have thanks to Max a viewer of ours who wanted to see it tested as well this one is a full inch longer at 5.75 inches in fact most cordless from Harbor Freight is usually noticeably bigger than other top brands it seems but in this case this one's only only 0.1 inches longer than a trusty Milwaukee gen 3 2853-20 though a bit more bulbous too sort of like the newest Gen 4 Milwaukee which is even a tiny bit shorter but where this Blue Boy comes out way ahead by being behind in compared to really everyone else's price it's 70 not like on sale for 70 it's just seventy dollars the Gen 3 can be found for 110 to 120 these days and each N4 is still 130 to 150 bucks that's literally twice the price and that's with the five-year over-the-counter warranty Hercules brushless tools now have the bower is even cheaper at just 50 bucks but no warranty outside of the 90 days unless you want to purchase one like usual at the store but the real reason we're gathered here today is torque not because it should be the number one reason you consider an impact driver screws don't always need 167 foot-pounds but 167 foot-pounds is what this tool is rated at and this tool and this tool all 2000 inch pounds or 167 foot-pounds the new Hercules 2200 inch pounds or 183 foot-pounds or so they say impact drivers often hit their numbers on this channel so it's not the particular number we're after but this side by side saying it beats Milwaukee well should be both of these Milwaukee's by the numbers that's what we're going to suss out to help with that we're going to rope in the Cobalt next-gen impact driver kid 2024a-03 because value for performance Cobalt is often a good yardstick for most new Harbor Freight introductions I feel this is also rated for yeah you guessed it 167 foot-pounds 2 000 inch pounds every tool you see tested today will be using a 5 amp hour battery to keep things even the Cobalts will use the XTR style 4 amp hour ultimate output because it seems to match closest to a 5 amp hour based on our testing up first is our five second working torque test this test is great because impact drivers often make what they say on the Box in this very test who would have thunk we're going to have the Cobalt taking on the Gen 3 that's on screen here which just made 167 foot-pounds the same 167 advertises like this Cobalt let's see this one 134 not exactly weak but also not Milwaukee gen 3 levels at this point more tests we'll see up next is the Bauer and light right on screen also rated 167. and 167 foot-pounds is what it made can't make this stuff up took a less rapid approach to get there but she got there all the same that's incredibly good for a 50 impact driver though not exactly compact this one now for the Hercules which is Compact and boy have we been waiting to see what this one can do considering how their half inch impact wrenches have done on the channel [Music] 179 foot-pounds that is insane frankly and no fluke either here's another run of it making exactly the same 179. for some context that's more than a DeWalt dcf850 mix in any length of test with just five seconds to work with so yeah it's powerful and fast to be hitting those numbers this early okay on to reverse we're going to throw in the Gen 4 now in a test you've not seen until today as the last time the Gen 4 stopped by it stopped working right about here our replacement has been doing amazingly in durability testing where it was abused until smoking in order to earn its place back to being shown on the channel here's how it does in our 10 second Max torque test and yeah that's the battery on this year and a half old XC 5.0 splitting in half the screws on the top pulled out of the bottom half and won't go back together it's stripped I swear this Gen 4 is like bad luck for us it is powerful though snaps impact adapters with the best of them and by our metrics is overall a performance increase over the Gen 3 even if Milwaukee doesn't advertise one so in fact it's not just a smidge shorter gen 3 this one and you'll get to see its power curve on screen now with the Cobalt next-gen being thrown into the mix let's take a look at what that one can do in reverse foreign oddly whipping things out in the end in the Cobalt continuing to make good power considering all impact drivers but not a standout in this group as of yet here's the brushless power which matched the Gen 3 in its first test 177 foot-pounds and a bit lazier to get there again the Gen 3 with similar Peak Performance should drive most things quicker for sure still impressive though and lastly the new Hercules from Harbor Freight so the Hercules doesn't enjoy reverse as much as forward and makes the same Peak as a gen 3 here with some disadvantage on the curve which given the choice most people would choose forward for impact drivers specifically 10 seconds and forward is our last test so we're gonna settle that score we're gonna jump forward a bit with the bower and Cobalt on screen now versus those Milwaukee's foreign the Cobalt making as much as 152 and the bower is clearly tapped out we don't see a flat line like this that often considering how much it makes in a forward five second test this isn't much higher we did get one run up to 182 on the bower but this isn't a best case test it's a median of three as usual so the Milwaukee's are still at the top time for the Hercules to try and change that in his Lasko foreign s even this thing is an animal we'd need the two most powerful impact drivers we've ever tested to compare to this the Cobalt XTR and the flex quick eject both 24 volt and both made by shervon the XTR being a clear neck size up in things footprint wise though but even in this group it's not looking bad and consider the price difference let's consider all the factors on our ranking then we'll touch on the shortcomings this Hercules does have that you'll need to consider starting out below the Gen 3 and 4 here their power runs are divided by five for points on our impact driver ranking as 27 31 and 30 for the next gen Cobalt 34 35 and 34 for the bower which gets up to its Max in a hurry and then sort of just sits there and 36 36 and 40 for the Hercules which just goes to town and forward looking at foot pounds per inch of length that's 30 for both the Cobalt and the bower so the bower is sort of similar Tech here just using more room to achieve more then 42.2 points for the Hercules which is really a mark of a modern top tier sort of driver here with these sort of points the Cobalt was a bit shy of its rating here in the harbor freight models get their Max of 100 here good stuff performance per dollar this is where you'd hope this category of tools would Shine That's 14.1 for for the Cobalt only available in a kit so adjusted here with a node as usual and 27.7 and 22.9 for the Harbor Freight models which is a lot on this ranking that totals 226.1 to 60.7 and 277.1 putting the Cobalt about equal to the latest Bosch freak sort of expected a little more given how hard the XTR goes the bower flies up right below the two Milwaukee's similar performance a tad bit down here maybe but longer though around one-third the price is pretty good and the Hercules get your unsubscribe clicking fingers ready because this guy's and the new number one spot and why shouldn't it be the XTR makes more Peak but on the curve not as cut and dry so isn't going to be driving smaller stuff any faster the flex yeah it's it's a Powerhouse you can't deny that and this aggressive curve earns the flex a number one spot on our average power ranking we've not shown before but you'll find in your catalog now if you have our online charts this ranking shows tools regardless of their price size whatever just the beans torque per second average the Hercules comes in third here with 164. but this Flex it also gets super hot to the point where we had to give it some breaks and is a full one pound heavier to Lug around all day and you feel that and it's more than twice the price so similar performance similar length lighter more modest torque claims and you'd need to go down another 10 places on this list to find anything the same price or less assuming these don't all just grenade themselves I think you'd have a hard time objectively not calling this the top impact driver to beat on the market right now I'm saying that about a Harbor Freight Tool and it's not the first of April we're definitely living on one of the weirder timelines in this Multiverse but unlike impact wrenches which are a power forward type of tool I think impact drivers have a lot more intangibles such as trigger feel which on this one is not great but not far off the Milwaukee so sort of who cares and smoothness vibration well thanks to the new 10 000 some odd dollar high speed camera we bought to learn stuff like this we can show you that because this Hercules definitely dances the Cha-Cha it's obvious to feel but not obvious to show on camera until you slow things down here's the Milwaukee having a good time on a stuck bolt at 2 500 frames per second it Jiggles around and even further into its effort you can see this call It Slam forward a lot more than we expected to see but check out the body of the tool and the hand holding it how much it's moving around now compare that to the series of Clips we're going to show you on the Hercules here everything's jiggling around this forward reverse switch your hand even the aluminum Hammer housing jiggling away from the tool body oh and this is this is just mode two here's mode three yeah you thought I was being nitpicky at first right check the shock wave that starts here then travels through the gun into the handle then ripples through your hand and you can even see it travel back through the hand and into the tool again if you pay attention all around 70 times per second ouch not that it hurt per se to use but fatigue can add up throughout a day they would do better to locate and secure this Hammer housing within the tools injection molding so that this doesn't amplify this effect but really you could consider this Harbor Freight's first real effort okay maybe second if you include the recent Bower at making a top class of impact driver these small difficult to quantify things are details that Brands chase after for many years decades without getting there where I feel Makita has been for a while with its quality of life details so you have to hand it to the store for swinging to the fences this hard no doubt you yellow and red and teal guys aren't swayed by this sort of introduction but people who buy based on performance per Buck like Ryobi Cobalt skill even Ridge and Metabo HPT this thing is a big come at me bro sort of move so look out Hercules is coming for your lunch appreciate you joining us we make episodes like these at least every Friday click subscribe to join us for that and thanks for watching foreign

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 459,169

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Id: qkiQEcxEe18

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2023