Investigating the Biggest Lie in Power Tools: DeWALT's Flexvolt Advantage v Power Detect

would you consider doing a DeWalt power detect versus flexible video would like to see how the DeWalt power detect compared against the flexible Advantage I can't prove this but I think the power is the same with the same battery I'd like to see Power detect DeWalt versus flexible Advantage flexible Advantage tools are just power to Tech tools but sold at Home Depot that's the entire reason they exist power detect and flexible Advantage is just a marketing gimmick would be interested to see Power detect feature would make any difference using an appropriate 60 volt battery people seem to be confused or at least want Clarity on what dewalts top of the range 20 volt tools are and how they perform or do they need any help with this question power detectives lows flexible Advantage is Home Depot that's it everyone knows they are the same tools sold in different stores the whole flexible Advantage thing is made up anyways No One Believes DeWalt specs all of my power detect tools outperform flexible Advantage not the real Flex volt I've seen it firsthand flexible Advantage versus Power detect is the biggest lie in power tools right now okay well you got our attention is the wall lying to are these even their top of the range 20 volt tools where the numbers folks so we're just gonna serve you a hot plate of facts and put this thing to bed by getting pretty much the full flexible Advantage line from Home Depot and the full power detect line from Lowe's and settling the score because while the wall advertises differentiating specs between most of these models a lot of it is hidden and they do a mighty poor job as is clarifying which tools are their top of the line and which aren't and we find their specs to be sometimes misleading at best let's settle this up first is drills the dcd-99 flexible advantage and the dcd-998 power detect like a game of Highlights magazine Spot the Difference for adults these tools look almost identical the power detect is rated at 1072 unit Watts out which is their measurement system and the flexible Advantage 1219 unit Watts out and it's supposed to prefer or take advantage of flex volt batteries somehow even though it's a 20 volt tool and can't use its 60 volt pickups but it's supposed to sense that it this one and Juice up the tool here's what torque it makes on our Dyno brake with the included 6 amp hour flexible battery 36 foot-pounds for your reference that's quite good among drills in general now for the 6 amp hour XR battery not flexible and uses 21 700 cells inside instead 38.2 foot-pounds and here's a 5 amp hour power stack 37.75 foot-pounds also higher so that flexing voltage Advantage seems to be a bit suspect so far but let's take a look at the power detect which is said to be on the order of making 12 less juice this is a tool that's supposed to detect when it has an 8 Amp Hour battery on and perform best though we've also found some verbiage that says it's supposed to do this for any 21700 cell XR battery here's what the included in the kit 80 amp hour XR battery 35 foot-pounds so less than the flexible Advantage is making with its included battery but this is just a median test and a one foot pound difference not a lot here's what the 6 amp hour XR battery [Music] 39.6 foot-pounds so both tools preferring a battery they don't come with at least one of those tools being one it shouldn't prefer at all but that's torque after all they rate these tools in Watts something more difficult to fool it's just straight up motor output at this point we'll focus on Tools in their High settings since you just saw torque and low but it's a similar story for both settings here with the included battery the power to Tech makes 850 Watts with the flexible Advantage again doing a little bit better with its included battery to the tune of 860 Watts or about the same using the battery neither of them should do best with but both of them seem to prefer the 6 amp hour XR with the Samsung 32 cells inside that becomes 910 and 950 for the power detect meaning what have we learned here if you had to pick one the power detect is more powerful and not 12 percent less but and this is across all batteries we tested low high torque averaging one close to two percent more beans and not 14 up but about one percent down for the flexible Advantage here so you can see why people are questioning the specs on these little exclusives the wall is handing out to stores these are insanely close and if anything backwards from what the brand is advertising it really calls in the question this entire scheme of tool class marketing but we bought more tools to help settle this debate we're Grinders first we got the dcg415 power detect and dcg416 flexible Advantage even the model numbering here trying to tell you who's on top which didn't so much work out up here this is supposed to provide 1350 max watts out not unit Watts out now for some reason and this one 1550 or 15 percent more we already had a flexible Advantage Grinder from a pass grinder head to head so we bought a new power detect for this episode to see what it can do these are more simple tools no multi-speed gearbox here or clutch or settings just a motor and a right angle output so we should be able to get real precise on the differences here the flexible Advantage with what DeWalt often includes in various kits these 6 amp hour flexible makes 780 Watts that's a lot of sauce for a grinder what's even more interesting to us is that unlike the drills the 6xr makes less on this tool 750 watts meaning it prefers an equivalent flexible battery so finally lending some legitimate see to this Advantage thing that we're reading about the power detect on the other hand it's supposed to be soul mates with the 8 Amp Hour XR and that's not in the cards this time with 670 Watts you're able to upgrade that output with two smaller capacity battery options the 6 amp hour XR again doing well with these powder Tech models 720 Watts but not matching the flexible Advantage yet the 5 amp hour power stack brings things up to 740 Watts just about matching it now but the battery that ultimately is going to bring this one up into that territory is the 9 amp R Flex volt not because it's flexible at all in my opinion but because it's built like an HD 12.0 M18 battery but better instead of three rows of Samsung 40ts it's got three rows of 30 T's that make it like a 6 amp hour XR but times 1.5 just a lot of discharge amps on tap that brings this power detect up to a full 790 watts of course you can put that same battery on the tool that advertises flexibility type things to the tune of 850 Watts now all around a more powerful tool and battery for battery we usually also saw a 100 RPM increase under load so what are we looking at here this tool is supposed to be 15 up on the other this is the range of power we got from the various battery packs and we saw about eight to twelve percent of that pretty good it enjoys flexible batteries best as advertised as well the power detect liked a 5 amp hour power stack and a 9 amp hour flexible best so even when they're right they're not all the way on the mark from what we've seen based on this battery preference detecting business all right and to settle the score because we're sort of one and one here the biggest most powerful examples of this odd matchup seven and a quarter inch Cirque sauce or according to DeWalt not the most powerful with 1300 and 1400 unit Watts out which varies a little bit depending on the source but no matter how you look at it both of these being rated under the Grinders despite a much larger and inline motor and while we've tested the power detect in our Cirque saw bracket playoffs and can confirm that's a bit bunk the DCF 574 makes more umph than a grinder with 740 Watts using the include included 8 Amp Hour and you guessed it more power with the 6xr in the form of 810 which hey maybe that qualifies for the detection going on based on what we've read but the 5 amp hour power stack this is something we've noticed with newer models of DeWalt as well it likes it even more up to 840 Watts a battery that's usually on par or around a 6 amp hour XR so not a lot of detection from what we can tell going on here just taking advantage of more discharge rate which even a dumb tool can do now the DCF 573 is a lower model number tool despite being flexible Advantage which is a change and not a tool we've tested before or range so let's see how it does here before it takes on the likes of flex with their Stacy lithium Milwaukee and DeWalt 60 volt for that matter in our upcoming high power saw finale with the kit type battery 6 amp hour flexible 3 rows to 18650s we get yeah it dunks on the power detect with 1030 Watts it's not close ladies and gentlemen this is definitely the most dramatic flexible Advantage tool difference as evidenced by how either a 6 amp hour XR or 5 amp hour power stack do which is to say well but not nearly as well as they would normally do on just a bog standard XR tool coming in less here than a 6 amp hour Flex tool with 930 and 970 Watts the flexible Advantage tool seen some concrete gains from flexible packs despite using them in their 20 volt architecture of course the 9 amp hour on the power detect sees gains as well though just because it's a better pack but not enough here to pass up its bigger brother 900 watts nice try and all said really quite a powerful combo for those of you with this but the flexible Advantage just doubles down on that with the 9 amp our flexible goodness with lots of Knob turning turning turning those screws to get this thing to quit 1120 Watts 1120 that's enough to likely put this in the top spot among Cirque saws tested so far and here 840 up to 1030 and 900 to 11 20. that's a roughly 24 Advantage three times what DeWalt is implying over here with the ratings on these tools detect that power detect it's not even detecting the correct battery to do best with here so let's answer those burning questions or correct some assumptions we found in the comments our flexible advantage in power to Tech DeWalt tools the same uh no is flexible Advantage better on average yes about 11 better with similar or less vibration as we saw too measuring the vibration on the power detect we noticed it was measurably higher than on the flexible advantage and that's interesting too on the drills it's about a wash or the flexible Advantage being slightly below the power detect does power detect prefer 8 Amp Hour batteries or at least 21 700s it does not prefer 8 Amp Hour batteries and in general prefers 5 amp hour power stacks and 9 amp hour Flex volts the most so no does flexible Advantage prefer flexible batteries yes 6 amp hour flexible and 9 amp hour flexible outperform other 21700 cell and power stack batteries overall except for the drill our DeWalt specs and features accurate not from what we can tell on power percentage difference or battery preference for the power detect and the drills may have just been finished before this entire line change so they didn't see much difference if any as their circuit boards even look pretty mirror-like what should I buy probably flexible Advantage dewalt's best battery is their 9 amp hour and it opens doors to you buying their 60 volt flexible tools too not just their XR tools so overall better choice for all your options now does this make powder Tech tools bad especially not in the drills case but by and large the tools are still at or near the top in either flavor it's no wonder people have called this stuff into question though we feel DeWalt is an industry leader at confusing their customers both their new crazy powerful mid and high torques look just like their decade old much weaker ones that they replaced and I still walk by them in stores and not know which is which they release a tiny but really Monumental impact driver in the dcf850 under Atomic but then the dcf845 lower number is the XR model which should be their top of the line but tests with lower torque and the 850 is branded XR overseas they also Rebrand older models as Craftsman v20 and they die Tools Red to make Mac Tools of course they have 60 volt flexible Tools in addition to this 120 volt flexible tools to boot and yet they still made a beast like this guy just 20 volt and a half inch drive when it could topple an xgt three-quarter inch they've really been making some impressive moves lately but the average consumer could get easily lost in the shuffle being suspicious of brand specs and marketing placement of these tools is unfortunately something you sort of have to do these days with tools and channels like ours and other great examples out there will remain doing what we do to help make sense of it so you can spend your dollars where they make the biggest difference we make episodes at least every Friday click buttons to see those and thanks for watching foreign foreign

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 164,471

Keywords:

Id: vJCjaMZR6PI

Length: 13min 30sec (810 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2023