Review of the 8 Volt Dewalt Screwdriver

[Miguel!]

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Yeah, you read that right, Gyroscopic Screwdriver. You'll understand what gyroscopic means in a bit.



Background: I recently did a horn upgrade to my R1100RT. To do that I had to remove about fifty(50) 3 mm x 25 mm aluminum hex-head screws that hold the fairing in place. I could have used a T-handle hex-head wrench or my 18V Makita screwdriver with a hex head bit. I knew the T-handle would be hard on my hands with that many screws. I also knew using a large drill has the potential to slip and really destroy the fairing finish, strip a screw (they are almost $3 each!!) or strip a threaded insert. I recently had a tire put on BMW by my independent BMW mechanic and he was using a small electric screwdriver. It got me to thinking about my horn project and the fairing screws. 

I decided to evaluate a few small electric screw screwdrivers. Some were available from the local Home Depot, others I purchased from Amazon. I took them all for a spin one afternoon. I had two criteria: It needed to be light. The small electric screwdrivers weigh about a pound (0.5 kg). Second, they needed to have a very light torque setting since the aluminum screws are easily cross-threaded and/or strip the threaded inserts - something I wanted to be very careful to avoid, hence the low torque requirement. 

Evaluation: I got five screwdrivers to evaluate. The screwdrivers were of two styles: a straight-handled screwdriver like that shown above and a pistol-grip screwdriver that cleverly morphs into straight-handled screwdrivers. The pistol-grip screwdrivers I evaluated were from Dewalt, Metalbo/Hitachi (now called Metalbo), Milwaukee and Ryobi, the first three being highly-regarded professional handtool suppliers. These screwdrivers were all pretty similar in function and ergonomics tho each had strengths and weaknesses. When folded out straight, they were about 12"-13" long, longer than I thought I'd want because its easy to lose control of long screwdrivers, something that would definitely destroy the fairing finish. Most of the screwdrivers did not have a variable speed control so the torque control was via the chuck torque setting alone. I tested the torque by chucking in a screwdriver bit and trying to hold the bit stationary with my hand on the lowest torque setting. They were all pretty similar and had just a bit too much torque to risk stripping screw/inserts in my opinion so I rejected them all. (Sorry the images below are so large!)









The only straight-handled-only screwdriver I evaluated was the Dewalt shown at the top of this post. This Dewalt screwdriver is about 8-9" long so I am less likely to lose control of it. I was a bit dubious about the Dewalt straight-handled gyroscopic control tho. 

The gyroscopic control is really different. The screwdriver doesn't have a trigger or directional switch.  You basically insert the screwdriver bit into the screw head and rotate the screwdriver in the direction you want it to go and it turns in that direction. The screwdriver torque and speed increases and decreases with the amount of rotation from the resting position. The torque and speed when just engaged is very light and slow so there's not much chance of stripping a screw or insert. It seems odd but it really worked well. I'll mention here that the Dewalt pistol-gripped screwdriver also had this gyroscopic control.

Because of the low speed and low torque, I was confident that the Dewalt straight-handled screwdriver was going to work for me. It did and I returned all the other screwdrivers. 

Here's a pretty good and short YouTube review tho he is using the pistol-gripped version. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OFOZlD43bM

Somewhat unrelated to the screwdriver choice was my workflow. I loosened all the screws with a T-handle hex-head wrench, then took out the screws with the Dewalt electric straight-handle screwdriver. When I put them back, I started them by hand and made sure they weren't cross-threaded and then drove them mostly home with the Dewalt screwdriver. I hand-torqued them with the T-handle wrench to avoid stripping the threads. This process probably took me about the same time as doing the whole thing with a T-handle hex-head wrench but it was WAAAY easier on my hands, one of my key criteria. 

I hope this was useful to someone!!

Best
Miguel

[szurszewski]

Thanks for sharing. I picked up the Ryobi one you show above this spring. I had agreed to do some work on a friend's LT sidecar rig and then injured my right hand/thumb. The electric driver allowed me to get into the bike work much earlier in my recovery. 

 

I'd initially selected the gyroscopic Dewalt you settled on, but then put off ordering it because I wasn't sure I'd like the gyro feature...and eventually got the Ryobi because I could get it locally and it was pretty cheap. 

 

I have since found I use it much more often than I'd expected, and to avoid stripping anything I simply start/end with a twist of the tool instead of using the power feature (it holds enough tension that you can use it somewhat like a manual driver - so to loosen, I engage the fastener with the bit, and twist my wrist a fraction of turn before pressing the trigger switch; similarly, just before a screw is tight I release the trigger and set the final torque by hand by twisting the tool - so far so good!).

 

 

[Miguel!]

Thanks for the great comments. Miguel