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Ridgid Cordless tool Kit Review

1464 Views 11 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  DesertRatTom, 
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Posted 19 minutes ago

I love that 5 piece set of Ridgid Cordless tools. My cousin Paul was thinking about ordering the set and came over this morning to see how they perform.

We ran them through their paces on a piece of 4/4 dry maple, which was fairly hard.

1. Drilled a 1 1/2" hole through the board,no problem. cut like butter.



2. Drilled a 2 1/4" hole , cut real good,caught one time and about twisted off my wrist. Made it all the way til the pilot was through and stopped, my wrist wouldn't take another grab.



3. Crosscut with circular saw, couldn't even tell it was cutting so smooth. very smooth,no tear out cut.



4. Did a rip full depth blade, free hand, didn't phase it one bit, cut smooth no bogging down or stopping, cut straight as an arrow. I did not notice any sawdust in my face either.



5. Cross cut end with the Reciprocating saw , cut nice and square, cut better at slow speed with this particular blade, than at high speed.

6. Drove some some exterior screws with star driver bit. Went in like butter, no resistance at all, the driver would have walked them through the board if I wanted to.



I am a happy camper with this set, it will do any thing I want to do, my cousin just called and said that they are now $100. more than what I paid for them.

Herb

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Duane Bledsoe
What size blade is on that circular saw? I don’t know why I’m asking because I don’t currently have a need. I’m just a tool junkie.
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JOAT
All in all, just not into cordless tools for me. Don't have to worry about charging batteries, buying replacement batteries, et al. I work in the shop, have electric available, so it's corded tools for me all the way. I can pick up a power tool that may have never been used for a year or two, plug it in, and use it, and I like that.

However, I may have access to some free usable sizes of plywood, of several varying thicknesses. If so I will have to be cutting down the wood, to allow it to be loaded, by me. So, it boils down to cutting with a cordless saw, or no free wood. If I do have the opportunity, you can bet the ranch I will be buying a cordless saw of one type or another.

Before anyone jumps on my case, I did say "for me" - if you want cordless tools, I don't care, buy all you want.
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RainMan 2.0
Nice looking set Herb . We’ve had terrible luck with battery powered skil saws ,as they don’t seem to cut very far before they go dead . Reciprocating saws are extremely handy for us when you need to cut pvc duct in the field .
Ours is that Mastercraft brand though , garbage compared to yours imo
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Duane Bledsoe said:
What size blade is on that circular saw? I don’t know why I’m asking because I don’t currently have a need. I’m just a tool junkie.
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Duane, it uses a standard 7 1/2" X 5/8" arbor blade. The blade that came with it is a decent carbide blade it gave a nice clean cut with no effort in that 4/4 maple both cross cut and rip.

The first time I used it right out of the box it quit halfway thru the cross cut on a 4/4 ,1X8, but it had a very small charge on the battery. This time the battery was charged to the top and I used the same battery for all the different tools and cuts and when I got thru it showed no discharge on the battery indicator. See pictures below.
Herb

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RainMan 2.0 said:
Nice looking set Herb . We’ve had terrible luck with battery powered skil saws ,as they don’t seem to cut very far before they go dead . Reciprocating saws are extremely handy for us when you need to cut pvc duct in the field .
Ours is that Mastercraft brand though , garbage compared to yours imo
Click to expand...
Rick, I wouldn't use it to frame a house, probably, I am a worm drive guy, but for what I want for casual use it is perfect
I hate fighting a cord on a sawzall, and this one has as much power as the Milwaukees we used to use. The blade can be inserted up or down and used straight cut or orbital cut.

The drill will take up to 1/2" shank, and has more power than you can hold with one hand if it gets stuck. It came with a handle I forgot to put it on and about twisted my hand off at the wrist. It feature hammer drill, screw driving with a clutch,or straight drill, it has a VS trigger, plus a hi-low gearshift. Also features a LED light around the rim of the chuck.
Herb
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M
Is Ridgid the company that has a lifetime warranty on its batteries?
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Knot working said:
Is Ridgid the company that has a lifetime warranty on its batteries?
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Yes, they have to be registered and confirmed, which I did on line and got a confirmation back which I printed out and filed.
Herb
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DesertRatTom
So far as I know, only DeWalt cordless tools have an upgrade path from 18v to 20v lithium batteries. So I'm going to pop for the adapter and stick with them. If anyone knows any other tool maker with a similar upgrade path. I have a perfectly good Makita drill and three dead Makita batteries. Had one rebuilt, but the result was poor. Don't want to do that again.
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DesertRatTom said:
So far as I know, only DeWalt cordless tools have an upgrade path from 18v to 20v lithium batteries. So I'm going to pop for the adapter and stick with them. If anyone knows any other tool maker with a similar upgrade path. I have a perfectly good Makita drill and three dead Makita batteries. Had one rebuilt, but the result was poor. Don't want to do that again.
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You are right ,Tom, I had 3 of the Makita blue/green long 9.5 v. and 12v. that were great drills,then I couldn't get batteries
finally threw them in the electronic recyle bin. At the time I was thinking that it is a big rip off to come out with a cordless tool, then the next year upgrade the batteries,sell new tools do it again, and so on. I would not mind it if they kept making replacement batteries.

Wonder if it would be a good bussiness plan for a company could recycle those old tools and adapt them to the new batteries.
Back in the 60's when the housing boom was in full swing, there was this wood flooring company, South Seattle Flooring. they did saw sharpening and tool repair too. They had it set up where you could bring in a dead saw and trade it in on a reconditioned wormdrive saw for $30. off the recondition price of $65. So you got a reconditioned saw for $35. They took any wormdrive trade in any condition for $35. the new price for one was $125. I had 5 saws on my crew and always one down, I would take it in on the way home and trade it and $35. for another.

Might be able to do that with these out of date cordless tools.

Just saying,
Herb
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Duane Bledsoe
Herb Stoops said:
Duane Bledsoe said:
What size blade is on that circular saw? I don’t know why I’m asking because I don’t currently have a need. I’m just a tool junkie.
Click to expand...
Duane, it uses a standard 7 1/2" X 5/8" arbor blade. The blade that came with it is a decent carbide blade it gave a nice clean cut with no effort in that 4/4 maple both cross cut and rip.

The first time I used it right out of the box it quit halfway thru the cross cut on a 4/4 ,1X8, but it had a very small charge on the battery. This time the battery was charged to the top and I used the same battery for all the different tools and cuts and when I got thru it showed no discharge on the battery indicator. See pictures below.
Herb
Click to expand...
Aw yeah! I love that it’s a standard sized circ saw AND cordless. I was thinking DeWalt would be the way I go when I need some new tools again but I’ll have to keep Ridgid in mind. I have a Ridgid table saw and love it. Love my DeWalt routers too. Guess it’ll come down to who has the best deal in terms of tool quality and features when the time comes.
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DesertRatTom
Back to the DeWalt for a moment. After comparing all prices, it turns out that the HD kit with adapter, 2 small batteries and a charger is about the best deal. The adapter is $35, the charger is about $99, so the batteries are about five bucks for the pair. Buying batteries by the pair they're MUCH cheaper. So my two drills and impact driver, reciprocating saw, jig saw and 6.5 inch circular saw can keep working fine. I might buy a couple of higher capacity batteries at some point, particularly since I use the reciprocating saw out in the yard for tree trimming. All my 18v batteries are working great, so I can wait on the bigger 20v batteries. I'm sorry, I kind of hijacked this string, but it got me thinking...
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