Makita LXT Lithium-Ion Cordless Power Tool Set

Purchase from: Home Depot, Poulsbo, Washington

Price: $399

Package Contents:

1 BSS610/BSS611 Cordless Circular Saw

1 BHP442/BHP452 Cordless Percussion-Driver Drill

1 BJR181/BJR182 Cordless Recipro Saw

1 BTD130F/BTD140/BTD141/BTD142 Cordless Impact Driver

1 BGA450/BGA452 Cordless Angle Grinder

1 DC18RA Fast Charger Ni-MH & Li-ion 7.2 - 18V

1 BML145/BML185 Rechargeable Flashlight

2 BL1830 Rechargeable Lithium Ion Battery 18V 54Wh 3.0 Ah

1 Makita Tool Bag with Carry-On style wheels, telescoping handle and a few handy external pockets

Pros:

Cool carrying bag, just like a carry-on for an air plane. It has lots of pockets, is build tough, and has a telescopic handle for rolling around on its wheels.

The Cordless Percussion-Driver Drill has a 1/2" ratcheting and locking chuck, which makes sinching down the chuck on a drill bit as easy as quarter turn twist with your hand. The drill actually locks from spinning while it is off so you can tighten the chuck with one hand. The ratchet action is great for minimal tightness and as well as staying tight. The little LED see light is awesome. I like seeing what I'm doing. I like knowing that I don't need a flashlight if I use this tool!

The Cordless Reciprocating/Sawzall Saw actually feels tough! The fence is easily adjusted by pressing a button and sliding the fence in or out to your desired setting. As well, the ease of use designed into the quick blade change mechanism.

I bought the whole set because of the Angle grinder. To have a battery operated angle grinder seemed like a time saver. Now though the 3.0 Ah batteries are preferrably made bigger for Angle grinder applications (as noted in the CONS section), the grinder does a great job otherwise. There's a handy electronic circuit built into the Angle grinder that tells you when you're straining the battery too hard by flashing a light. When the battery becomes too discharged, the grinder will halt itself, saving the battery from damage.

The cordless impact driver rocks! This driver puts the screws in and out with class. I'll never use a regular drill to put screws in again. Impacting them in is really the easiest on the tools and operator. The little LED see light is awesome. I like seeing what I'm doing. I like knowing that I don't need a flashlight if I use this tool!

The flashlight is like all others. However, Makita chose a Xenon bulb.. It's bright!

The charger works good.

Cons:

While the 3.0 Ah batteries work great for the drill, impact gun, flashlight, and sawzall, they are however undersized for the circular saw and angle grinder. Both these motors are high RPM and get a higher drain rate than the other tools. If perhaps Makita could make a 6.0 Ah battery pack for extended use, this con would simply go away.

Also, for a 6 piece tool set, it would have been nice of Makita to throw in at least one more battery, therefore totalling 3.

The circular saw trigger safety mechanism has a bit to be desired.

I'm not that picky about rechargeable tool flashlights, but if I had to say anything at all about the flashlight in this set, I'd request that more incriments be designed into the ratchetting head of the flashlight. Many times, where a person needs the head aimed, happens to be inbetween clicks.

I believe Makita is advertizing a 15 minute charge on the batteries, but that data is for the 1.5 Ah battery packs. 3 Ah is twice the size, meaning twice the time to charge. 30 minutes for a battery charge on the LXTtoolbag set.

I just noticed a couple days ago with the percussion drill driver, that the lever for shifting between first and second gears sometimes falls out of gear. I believe the lever could use better designed friction locks to keep it into gear.