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Battery hand circular saw

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Battery hand circular saw

Postby meccarroll » 15 Sep 2017, 22:27

Hi all, been thinking about buying a new cordless saw (job I am doing sort of dictates I need one).


I'm working on a site with no power (new house builds) and could do with a battery operated saw for first fix work as there is no power supply in the houses or surrounding site. I have read a few reviews and it seems that the brushless battery powered tools will give much better battery life than one with brushes.

The saw that I have read about and has been reviewed as probably one of the best is the Milwaukee. I've seen one at SGS Engineering for sale with charger and 5Ah battery for £232.79 which is the best price I can find The link : https://www.sgs-engineering.com/m18ccs5 ... r-saw-7052 Before I go out and buy one can anyone offer any other alternatives that are as good if not better.

Cheers Mark Before I go out and buy one can anyone offer any other alternatives that are as good if not better.

Cheers Mark
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby kirkpoore1 » 16 Sep 2017, 00:27

I just bought a Milwaukee a week ago, and used it to saw up some torn down fence pieces into small enough chunks to go out in the trash. It's a good saw, with adequate power. But you're going to need another battery if you want to use it for a long time (like steadily for more than half an hour). I went through two 3 Ah batteries in about 45 minutes of on and off work. The good part was that the first was charging after I switched to the second. I bought it because I have two Milwaukee drills and it used the same batteries.

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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby meccarroll » 16 Sep 2017, 06:51

kirkpoore1 wrote:I just bought a Milwaukee a week ago, and used it to saw up some torn down fence pieces into small enough chunks to go out in the trash. It's a good saw, with adequate power. But you're going to need another battery if you want to use it for a long time (like steadily for more than half an hour). I went through two 3 Ah batteries in about 45 minutes of on and off work. The good part was that the first was charging after I switched to the second. I bought it because I have two Milwaukee drills and it used the same batteries.

Kirk


Cheers Kirk,

The review I looked at was here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk8eiPmR8Vw they tested quite a lineup incuding dewalt, makita, Hilti, etc

I think they used 9Ah batteries for the test on the Milwaukee. [url]the work is on a price for unit and[/url]
For fitting out on house building estates I would need a battery to last at least one or two hours. It's not practical to keep changing out batteries because there is not usually a charging facility near to the houses. Charging of batteries is normally done in the tea room which is often the other side of the site 10 minutes walk away. For diy use small Ah batteries are fine but I'd probably be using a combination of 9Ah and 5Ah to get through.

The 9Ah battery is another £135 ea but may be worth it, 5Ah are £58 ea so I may even buy One 9Ah and One 5Ah or Three 5Ah, not sure yet but looking at the pricing Three 5Ah batteries might be cheaper and do the same amount of work.

Cheers Mark
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby RogerS » 16 Sep 2017, 07:29

I bought the Milwaukee impact driver and drill with 5Ah batteries. Brilliant bit of kit. Kirk makes a good point re charge capacity/duration. Could you run a mains converter from your car/van to charge up the batteries ? Dunno how practical that would be....the Milwaukee batteries do charge up very quickly. Maybe run the engine during your lunch break ?

Don't forget that these batteries don't like being run down to zero. As soon as you get one bar on the gauge, it's time to charge up.
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby meccarroll » 16 Sep 2017, 07:48

RogerS wrote:I bought the Milwaukee impact driver and drill with 5Ah batteries. Brilliant bit of kit. Kirk makes a good point re charge capacity/duration. Could you run a mains converter from your car/van to charge up the batteries ? Dunno how practical that would be....the Milwaukee batteries do charge up very quickly. Maybe run the engine during your lunch break ?

Don't forget that these batteries don't like being run down to zero. As soon as you get one bar on the gauge, it's time to charge up.


Cheers Roger,

Nice tip about re-charging when battery is down to one bar. Some cars/Vans have a 240V socket, not mine :-( so not sure how the converter would work Roger but it is something to consider looking into.
I am thinking about buying a small generator for site use but space is my problem as I use a Freelander for work and it's often full to the brim with tools already. I'm going to have to think about making a sliding rack system for all the tools (that way I could make use of the free space above the tools on the deck.

Cheers for the battery indicator tip :-)

Mark
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby RogerS » 16 Sep 2017, 10:55

Mark


One of these is what you need.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BESTEK-200W-P ... Sw03lY66kI

I've got one that I don't use. That's the good news. The bad news is that I haven't a clue where it is packed away !

But...and big but.. and Bob will probably swing by and confirm/recommend. First, you need to know what wattage is needed to drive the Milwaukee charger.

Second...these inverters fall into two categories....one (cheaper) provides a very choppy switched 240v output and that may upset the battery charger. The other (better but bit more expensive) is a pure sine wave inverter.

Think the generator is the best idea. Always tuck in away underneath your knees !
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby Harv-53 » 16 Sep 2017, 19:55

Hi Mark
I use Milwaukee 12v and 18v for site work, over the last couple of years I've managed to buy 6 of the 5ah 18v battery's and I've also got 10 of the 12v batterys in different Ah, I've not got the circular saw though, for first fix I got the 18v scms which I can't rate highly enough it's absolutely brilliant, one fully charged battery will last easily untill lunch time and it's chops 4 x 2 with ease. With a decent blade on it you can do 2nd fix if there's still no power on site.
I was contemplating the Milwaukee circular saw when my makita saw packed up, my local Milwaukee dealer let me have a 18v chop saw on demo for a weekend it never went back, I rang on the Monday and did a deal to buy the demo model, I paid £320 for it 2 years ago
I'm fortunate enough to have the HKC 55 battery circular saw which I'll reluctantly take on site if I have sheet material to cut, but usually I'll use a Milwaukee 12v jigsaw for flooring sheets.
Milwaukee do make a charger which plugs into a 12v cigarette socket but it's a bit pricey.
It's food for thought regarding the 18v chop saw, I really don't miss having a battery circular saw on site on a daily basis, I do have to be desperate to take the HKC on site.
Harvey
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I don't know where your based but if your near to Milton Keynes your welcome to come and have a try of the battery chop saw.
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby meccarroll » 16 Sep 2017, 20:13

RogerS wrote:Mark


One of these is what you need.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BESTEK-200W-P ... Sw03lY66kI

I've got one that I don't use. That's the good news. The bad news is that I haven't a clue where it is packed away !

But...and big but.. and Bob will probably swing by and confirm/recommend. First, you need to know what wattage is needed to drive the Milwaukee charger.

Second...these inverters fall into two categories....one (cheaper) provides a very choppy switched 240v output and that may upset the battery charger. The other (better but bit more expensive) is a pure sine wave inverter.

Think the generator is the best idea. Always tuck in away underneath your knees !


Wow Roger you know something about everything (that's a compliment), I had no idea you could buy an inverter to use 240V in a 12V car socket, I'm going to look into it a bit more, Cheers Roger.

You mention a generator might be a better solution and yes I thought about it a bit more and decided that even if I bought a battery Circular saw I'd still need my other tools running on site for second fixing etc. So I went out today and bought a Defender DP3400 Generator which is continuously rated at 2.7 KW.

The generator will be a bit bulky to lug around so I think I will still buy a battery circular saw but I'm not in such a rush now.

Cheers for the advice it's much appreciated.

Mark
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby meccarroll » 16 Sep 2017, 20:39

Harv-53 wrote:Hi Mark
I use Milwaukee 12v and 18v for site work, over the last couple of years I've managed to buy 6 of the 5ah 18v battery's and I've also got 10 of the 12v batterys in different Ah, I've not got the circular saw though, for first fix I got the 18v scms which I can't rate highly enough it's absolutely brilliant, one fully charged battery will last easily untill lunch time and it's chops 4 x 2 with ease. With a decent blade on it you can do 2nd fix if there's still no power on site.
I was contemplating the Milwaukee circular saw when my makita saw packed up, my local Milwaukee dealer let me have a 18v chop saw on demo for a weekend it never went back, I rang on the Monday and did a deal to buy the demo model, I paid £320 for it 2 years ago
I'm fortunate enough to have the HKC 55 battery circular saw which I'll reluctantly take on site if I have sheet material to cut, but usually I'll use a Milwaukee 12v jigsaw for flooring sheets.
Milwaukee do make a charger which plugs into a 12v cigarette socket but it's a bit pricey.
It's food for thought regarding the 18v chop saw, I really don't miss having a battery circular saw on site on a daily basis, I do have to be desperate to take the HKC on site.
Harvey
PS
I don't know where your based but if your near to Milton Keynes your welcome to come and have a try of the battery chop saw.


Thank you Harvey for the detailed reply, £320 for a Milwaukee 18v Chop saw was a very good deal. I usually do contract work on one off house builds, barn conversions and similar work where a transformer is usually set up from the mains on the job. More recently I have been working on new build housing projects and the equipment needs to have power at source as there is usually none around. I've been doing first fix roofing for the past 5 months but am now moving inside and need to use more tools to do the job. A battery circular saw would have been handy on the roofing but I got by using a hand saw. Now I'm inside I definitely need more tools with power so have started with a Generator but will probably find battery powered tools more convenient. I'll probably start off with a battery circular saw and gradually build up from there (if I stay on new build housing).

Thank you for the offer to try your Chop saw but I live too far away and it's probably not too bad that I do as I could end up as you did and be parted with another wedge of my hard earned cash LoL.

Thank you for your reply.

Mark
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby meccarroll » 25 Sep 2017, 21:22

Just an update to this, my old 110v circular saw seems to be giving up on life so I have now ordered a new Milwaukee battery saw with two 5Ah batteries which should arrive tomorrow. Think I'll start looking at other battery tools now :?

Cheers for all the advice.

Mark
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby stevetravis01 » 30 Nov 2017, 18:06

So happy I came across this thread. I'd be needing a circular saw in a few months and I'm deciding if I'd get a cordless on like Mark. But since I might always use it indoors anyway, models that can be plugged (from here) are on top of my list.

How was your experience with the cordless Milwaukee, Mark? If I end up choosing a battery powered one, it'll definitely be on my list.
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Re: Battery hand circular saw

Postby Mark A » 03 Dec 2017, 21:58

Steve - most of the saws on the webpage you linked to are only available in the US.

I have no experience of the Milwaukee cordless saw, though I do own a Makita DHS680 and rate it highly. I was in the market for a cordless set 18 months ago and eventually chose Makita solely on the lower cost of their body-only cordless tools compared to other brands. I reckon above a certain price point all of the main manufacturers' offerings are similar in everyday performance and it's really down to preference. Some claim to have torquier motors and better batteries than the competition, but for 99% of work there's not much between them.
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