Which Is Better A Drill Or Hammer Drill

How to choose an impact drill for stone work

Most drills have a three-jaw chuck that can be used with standard drills for metal, plastics, woodworking (conventional, non-hammer drilling). Working with a stone requires special tools.

The stone drill features recessed notches, a hardened tip and solid inserts connected to the cutting ends. Such drills are usually 15 cm in length, however, there are instances and shorter than 8 and 10 cm.The presence of a flat, pointed tip makes it possible to clearly identify this type of drill at a glance.

When to use an impact drill?

This type of power tool usually has a switch that allows you to choose between drilling mode and hammer drilling mode. When you work in conventional drilling mode, the hammer drill can be used for any task that would normally be done with a simple drill. In hammer drilling mode, such a tool is used when working with stone surfaces. So, if the mode is selected correctly, an impact drill can punch a hole in just about any material. If during the repair it is planned to drill stone surfaces, you should have a hammer drilling tool.

This type of power tool is constantly used by professionals to install switchboards and other pieces of equipment on brick and concrete walls. Craftsmen use them for many jobs, mainly when hanging shelves and cabinets on stone walls.

Cordless hammer drill works cordless

Cordless 18-volt impact drills are widespread and provide enough power for concrete applications. In terms of functionality, this type of tool is extremely close to standard 18 volt drills, but it has an impact mode. It can also be switched to normal drilling mode for non-stone tasks. Cordless tools are usually much bulkier and heavier than conventional tools, making them less convenient to use.

Impact drill or hammer drill?

If you suddenly need to drill a hole with a diameter of more than 1.5 cm, or you are working with a material that is much harder than concrete, then the power of the above device may not be enough. In such cases, a puncher will help you.

While the hammer drill works by rotating the ribbed engaging plates, the hammer drill works on the principle of a real hammer piston. Therefore, the rock drill is easier to hold in the hand while still providing more power output. However, this tool is not without its drawbacks, it is much more cumbersome than the first and at the same time can only be used for stone materials.

The rotary hammer drills have a special SDS chuck into which only special SDS drills and other accessories can be inserted. However, they also have switches that allow you to turn off the rotation mode for crushing stone material and other similar tasks.

Impact drill for working with various materials

Many people these days are moving away from traditional corded drills and prefer modern, cordless ones. However, this approach does not always justify itself. First, the cordless tool has a stable electrical supply and will never stop in the middle of a workflow. Also, it usually has a large, compared to cordless drills, power and, accordingly, the area of ​​its application is wider.

The hammer drill typically runs at higher rpm (1100-3000 rpm) than conventional corded options (up to 850 rpm). The extra speed makes it more suitable for special jobs. While the technician may have many cordless drills, most of them set the hammer drill to conventional drilling and use grinding drums, wire brushes and polishers as a drive.

The hammer drill can also be used with hole saws in this mode. And when performing such tasks (drilling holes), compared to cordless or compact corded drills, the large size makes it more stable, easier to control, which ensures better performance.

Instruction: impact drill or hammer drill

Added by: Andrey on November 16

There are many different tools to be found on the market today, so it can be difficult to choose the right tool for a particular job. Every master knows what an impact drill is. This is a special kind of tool for punching any building materials.

Impact drills look like ordinary drills that everyone who does their own repairs, but their design includes a special mechanism that causes the drill to make pushing, hammer-like movements during operation. This effect is simply necessary for working with bricks, concrete and other stone materials.

Impact drill functions

Thanks to a variety of drills, holes can be made in various materials:

  • For drilling wood, they take drills for metal or wood, in some cases feather;
  • If necessary, make a hole in the metal, use durable drills of a special design;
  • Lance-shaped, designed for working with glass and ceramics, help to drill neat holes in the tile without damaging them;
  • Castellated help in cases where it is required to make holes of large diameter;
  • Drills with a victorious tip allow you to work with hard materials (brick and concrete).

Hammer drill

In addition to the usual ones, you can use additional attachments. They allow you to significantly expand the functionality of the device.

With the help of a grinding wheel attachment, you can quickly and efficiently grind the surface. A steel wire brush attachment will help clean any metal surface. For roughing, use a twisted wire nozzle, and a better one is made with a corrugated brush.

If you purchase a special nozzle, the drill can act as a mixer: it is able to quickly and thoroughly mix the solution.

In addition, a drill with the hammer cut off replaces the screwdriver. With its help, you can screw in and unscrew screws, self-tapping screws or screws, assemble furniture, hang shelves at home and carry out other operations.

Impact drill or hammer drill what to choose for home?

People who are far from construction believe that a drill and a hammer drill are tools designed for drilling holes that can easily replace each other. However, each of them has its own unique functions that allow you to perform operations that are not available to the other. What differences do they have? What’s more useful at home?

Punch functions

Unlike a drill, a hammer drill can operate in three modes: impact, rotation and a combination of these actions. Therefore, the hammer drill can be used not only for drilling, but also for chipping the wall, creating holes and grooves of the desired size. It is indispensable when performing work on replacing wiring at home. An impact drill, even comparable in power to a hammer drill, will not cope with such a load.

Punch device

With a puncher you can:

  1. Make holes in hard materials (brick, artificial and natural stone, blocks, concrete). Core drill is used when large diameter holes are required.
  2. Remove plaster, brick or tile from walls. To do this, you need to choose a chisel from the nozzles.
  3. Perform chipping of the walls of the house. Need a lance nozzle.

The disadvantage of the tool is that for some operations, adapters for nozzles may be required, this increases the already considerable weight of the device and makes it less convenient, lengthening the entire structure.

The hammer drill is a professional tool with a well thought-out and reliable design. It allows you to do heavy work at high speed. When self-repairing a house, the presence of such a powerful device is most often not required, therefore, for household purposes, an impact drill is often used.

Impact drill device

This tool has a less complex hammer mechanism, which consists of a pair of ratchets. One of the parts is connected to the tool body, the other to the chuck. If it is necessary to turn off the impact mechanism, a stopper is activated that prevents contact of the ratchets. When the impact function is on, the stopper moves so as not to interfere with the ratchets. Contacting, they set the chuck with the drill in motion.

Impact drill device

Even a person without special construction skills can handle a drill. For domestic use, for most home renovations and without the need to make many holes in hard materials, a drill is more suitable, since it has a wide range of applications and is much cheaper than a hammer drill. The cost of consumables for her is also lower.

This tool is used when you need to drill holes of various diameters and exact sizes in various materials (wood, metal, plastic, and others). A hammer drill can punch concrete, but the process will take longer than with a hammer drill.

The main differences are:

  1. Performance. According to this indicator, the perforator is many times superior to an impact drill, since the device has a powerful impact force and a weight greater than that of a drill, which contributes to its increase. If you take 2 devices with the same power, then the hole made with a drill will be 1.5 times smaller than the hole made with a puncher. The difference will be even more noticeable if you choose a crown bit instead of a conventional drill.
  2. Bore mount. The drill has a chuck with a cam chuck, which does not provide a good retention of the drill, which can prevent it from turning. A new type of cartridge is used to mount the drill in the hammer drill. It holds the drill better and provides free movement. The drill change process takes a few seconds.
  3. Appointment of the device. The main characteristic of a drill is the amount of torque, while the work of a hammer drill is assessed by its impact power. Therefore, it is incorrect to compare these tools; they initially have different purposes.
  4. Processing precision. The hammer drill is designed for working with hard materials, and drilling metal or wood with this tool can be undesirable, the result may be of poor quality and, most likely, the hole will not exactly match the intended diameter. If a thin hole of a certain size is required, a drill should be chosen.
  5. Life time. In the hammer drill, the internal parts are pneumatically protected from shock loads and vibrations during tool operation. In addition, a protective sleeve is installed in the device, which protects it from damage if the drill gets stuck in a hole or comes across a reinforcing mesh in concrete.

Tool and fastening

The hammer drill tool used for drilling concrete walls is most often a winnowed drill bit.

In a hammer drill and a drill, drills and drills are mounted in chucks, however, their design is very different for a hammer drill and a drill. For a quick tool change, the rock drills use the SDS-plus, SDS-max and SDS-top tool clamping system (depending on the shank diameter, for more information about hammer drill chucks, see the article Punch). Fixation in the chuck takes place using specially shaped grooves.

In a hammer drill, the tool has a certain degree of freedom in relation to the chuck in the axial direction, which makes it possible to reduce the load on the hammer during impacts.

In order to use a conventional drill in a hammer drill, you must either use a special adapter, or change the chuck to a cam one. In a number of models, thanks to a special mounting system, the change of chucks is quick and easy, while the chuck for a conventional drill must be included in the perforator kit. When using an adapter, a design is obtained from two series-connected cartridges. SDS and three-cam. The disadvantage of this option is the lack of sufficient rigidity of the drill attachment and its runout during rotation.

Working conditions. Functionality

The hammer drill is used only for drilling holes and works in two modes: drilling without impact and drilling with impact.

What is the difference between an impact drill and a hammer drill

Performance

At the same power of the tools, the hole diameter that can be obtained with a hammer drill is approximately 1.5 times the diameter that can be obtained with an impact drill. The difference increases even more if a crown is used for drilling.

Impact mechanism

The rotational motion of the electric motor is converted by means of a crank mechanism or a special swinging spherical bearing into a reciprocating piston motion. Under the action of compression in the cavity between the piston and the ram, the latter accelerates and transfers its energy to the tool through the hammer. Drill, chisel, drill, crown, etc. For more information about the punch device, see the article Punch device.

The impact mechanism of the drill is much simpler. It consists of two ratchets, one of which is connected to the drill body, the other. With a rotating chuck. When the impact function is disabled, the ratchets do not contact each other due to the stopper located between them. When the drill is switched to the impact position, the stopper is removed and when the drill is pressed against the material, the ratchets begin to contact, slipping over each other. In this case, an axial reciprocating movement is given to the chuck and drill.

The difference in the design of the percussion mechanisms determines a significant difference in the technical and operational characteristics of the hammer drill and the hammer drill.

What to choose: hammer drill or impact drill?

What to choose: an impact drill or hammer drill, what characteristics should you pay attention to?

Let’s talk first about main technical characteristics:

But most hammer drills and hammer drills produced today have and other interesting features:

How the hammer drill and hammer drill works.

The principle of punching holes with an impact drill is that the rotation and impact action on the drills is transmitted from two ratchets in contact, while the impact amplitude is small, which significantly reduces its effectiveness, the force with which you need to press on the tool and vibration.

There are two-speed impact drills, according to the principle of operation, their mechanism can be compared with an automatic transmission of a car, due to this, they use the power of the tool more rationally.

Inside the punch, there is an electromechanical or electro-pneumatic percussion mechanism, which itself produces a blow, you just have to press a button. When working with a hammer drill, you do not need to exert effort. The rock drill is more durable when working with hard materials.

Consider, for a start, an impact drill from all sides.

Everyone has a long familiar shape in the form of a pistol, a collet metal cartridge. Power ranges from 400 to 1200W. Possibility to regulate the rotation speed up to 3500 rpm, the “drilling” / “chiseling” operating mode switch, the trigger fixing button in the working position. Here is the “gentleman’s set” that you will find in all the famous brands of hammer drills.

What can be squeezed out of the above?

Of course, the higher the power of the hammer drill, the easier it is to punch the hole of the largest diameter, but at the same time the mass of the tool increases. For example, from the same manufacturer, with a power of 400W, an impact drill can weigh 1.4kg, and at 900W. Already 2.5kg.

In terms of reliability, the quality of the tools of the above companies is beyond doubt. With proper operation (constant short-term work up to 40 s, high-quality sharp drills, both for wood and metal, and for concrete and brick, taking into account weather conditions, for example, work with a tool brought from frost, start no earlier than 1.5-2 hours) will serve you for a long time.

Now let’s turn our eyes to more powerful from 800 to 1500 W, heavy from 2 to 11 kg perforators. In contrast to impact drills, they are more overall, the motor of perforators can be located both horizontally (shape in the form of a pistol) and vertically (in more powerful models). They have an SDS chuck (to change the drill, just pull the chuck towards you) and the corresponding tooling.

You will appreciate a hammer drill if you need to drill holes in hard materials: for example, reinforced concrete or stone, it can drill large holes, with a hammer drill you can easily make a small hole in a solid wall or floor. Professional rotary hammers can also replace a jackhammer.

The technical characteristics of perforators indicate the force (energy) of the blow and the frequency of blows per minute. The first varies from 2.2 to 3J, and in professional hammer drills, for example, from 2 to 10J or from 5 to 18J. The second depends on the power and can be 4 4.5 thousand beats / min for less powerful and 2 3 thousand beats per minute for more powerful ones. There are usually two modes for drilling and chiselling, but sometimes there is also a combined mode. On perforators of low power there is a possibility of speed regulation, and, therefore, it is possible to use it as a screwdriver. But in view of the larger dimensions than that of an impact drill, this becomes more laborious.

It should be noted that due to the construction of the perforator, the passage of one centimeter deep into the concrete wall is several times faster than that of an impact drill. During work, it is not recommended to press on the tool, put it on the mark, press the button, and it will do everything by itself. In the case of a hammer drill, the expression like a hot knife in butter is very suitable.

So what should you choose? This largely depends on your desire and upcoming work. But, for example, if you yourself assemble and hang a kitchen and a couple of paintings at home, then, of course, we choose an impact drill. If you just moved into a new apartment, and you have to: chisel the walls, cut the jambs, hammer the floor, you definitely need a puncher.

The economic factor is also important, because a hammer drill is about one and a half times more expensive than an impact drill of the same company. Rotary hammer drills are also more expensive than hammer drills.

As for the choice of a professional or household tool, the main difference between them is that a professional tool is designed for constant serious loads, and a household tool for periodic use.

Which is better: hammer drill or hammer drill?

This question is often asked by inexperienced people who purchase a tool for the home. In principle, professionals do not have such doubts, since they certainly know that behind the external similarity there is a great difference that predetermines the capabilities of these two tools.

The drill is originally intended for drilling holes in materials of low density. In wood, plastic, soft metals. The addition of the percussion function has significantly expanded the capabilities of this tool, allowing, among other things, to easily drill into brickwork and structures made of low-grade concrete. At the same time, like hammerless drills, with the proper equipment, they are able to work with fasteners. For all their versatility, drills have rather modest dimensions and are much cheaper than perforators. Thus, the main reasons for the popularity of impact drills among domestic consumers include their versatility, compactness and affordability.

Accordingly, rock drills are heavier and more expensive. When comparing tools with identical power, the weight and price advantage of the hammer drills will be obvious. For example, a thousand-watt two-speed drill Makita HP 2071 weighs 2.4 kg and costs about 5000 rubles. It can be used to drill holes with a diameter of up to 40 mm in wood, up to 16 mm in steel, and by connecting the impact function, drill into concrete with a 20 mm drill.

For a perforator similar in power Makita HR 4010 C will have to lay out three times more and it weighs 6.3 kg. In terms of functionality, a hammer drill is significantly inferior to a drill, since it only hammers or drills with a blow, and these two modes are unacceptable for making holes in wood and metals. But in terms of drilling concrete, the designated perforator is out of competition, since it will pull not only a large-diameter drill (up to 40 mm), but also a drill bit (up to 105 mm). In addition, this tool can easily replace a jackhammer and greatly facilitate the work of installing niches and openings, laying communications, chipping off old ceramic tiles, etc. Of course, such a hammer drill is intended exclusively for professionals and is unlikely to be useful in everyday life.

However, among the hammer drills there are light weights: for example, the Makita HR 1830 weighs only 1.7 kg, and is inferior in price to the Makita HP 2071 hammer drill. Both of these tools work in the drilling and hammer drilling modes. over, with the help of a drill, you can arrange technical holes of a much larger diameter in concrete (without taking into account hardness), and in wood, and in steel.

A natural question arises: what is the difference then? First of all, the difference in power consumption: for the compared hammer drill, the power consumption is 440 W, and for the drill 1010 W. And this is the corresponding load on the network and the cost of paying for electricity on the one hand and an indicator of performance. With another.

But the main difference lies in the purpose, in particular in the main object of the application of efforts. For a drill, drilling in concrete is an additional option, and in the hammer drilling mode, the tool works for self-destruction (more on this below). A hammer drill that easily breaks a monolith will not provide high precision drilling holes in steel, wood and plastic. The reason for this is the design features of the percussion mechanisms of drills and perforators and the used cartridges for fixing the equipment.

In impact drills, the impact is generated mechanically. Everything is extremely simple there. Two toothed ratchets rotate interlocking teeth as a single unit in drilling mode without impact. When the impact function is turned on, the inner ratchet (located closer to the engine) moves back, and the outer one begins to count its teeth with its own. As a result, impact energy is not generated as such: the impact force is predetermined by the height of the teeth and the pressure exerted on the tool by the user, and the frequency of impacts by the number of teeth and rotation speed.

This is where the self-destruction mentioned above comes from. No matter how strong and wear-resistant the material used for the manufacture of ratchets is, sooner or later the teeth will merge and the impact mechanism will finally fail.

The nature of the impact in rock drills is completely different. The crank mechanism converts the rotation from the engine into reciprocating movements imparted to the piston. That, in turn, activates the striker, but not directly, but through an air gap, which reduces the load on the piston, thereby contributing to the durability of the tool as a whole, and reduces recoil. Such an impact mechanism is three times more effective and, of course, more reliable than a drill ratchet. In the presented model range of Makita rotary hammers, the impact energy ranges from 1.3 to 19.7 J (models HR 1830 and HR 5210 C, respectively).

Some conclusions can already be drawn from the above. For example, that if intensive work is coming up on drilling concrete, then the impact drill will die pretty soon, and the heavy one will not overcome at all. And it is true. But do not be fascinated also by the versatility of three-mode rotary hammers, which are declared by manufacturers as a jack of all trades. As a rule, these are instruments of light (up to 4 kg) and medium (5-8 kg) class. These rock drills, and heavy ones too, are equipped with SDS keyless chucks. Plus and SDS. Max, designed exclusively for special drill bits, blades, etc. Whose shanks have a well-defined shape (the presence of grooves and their number). Consumables for rotary hammers are much more expensive than conventional drills, and the use of the latter is not possible due to the specifics of the cartridges. To expand the capabilities of rotary hammers, manufacturers quite often complete their models with additional cam chucks, which are mounted in standard SDS holders using special adapters. At the same time, the tool becomes more cumbersome, and the runout of the chuck increases significantly, which does not benefit the quality. Interchangeable chucks are an alternative for more precise drilling. In this case, the main SDS chuck can be easily dismantled, and in its place, thanks to the adapted tip, a conventional cam chuck is installed. For cylindrical drills. An example puncher Makita HR 2811 FT with removable SDS chuck. Plus. It should be noted that such a layout is not so common so far and significantly affects the price of the instrument.

So, answering the first question, we have already noted its incorrectness. Both drills and rotary hammers are equally good, but only in the area for which they are intended. The hammer drill is ideal for drilling holes in wood, metal, plastic, brick and lightweight concrete. In addition, it can be used to work with fasteners, and at low speeds as a mixer. A hammer drill is preferable where you often have to drill and hammer concrete (and reinforced concrete) of varying degrees of density, but it will not provide precision drilling in metals and wood. Rock drills, which are equivalent in power to impact drills, are significantly superior in weight and cost. When working with concrete, rock drills are much more reliable, practical and durable than impact drills. The versatility of impact drills will come in handy in a domestic environment, and hammer drills are more professional. But if you live in a building made of glass and concrete, then in addition to an impact drill, it will be useful to have at hand, if not the most expensive and powerful, but a perforator.