[JThiessen]

I'm currently in the middle of my Christmas vacation project - about 7 years ago I completely gutted a portion of our house, which included both upstairs bathrooms. Well, I managed to complete the first bathroom way back then, and the master bath has sat since. Up until a week ago it was bare studs and open to the attic. I decided to refinance, and the bank wanted the bathroom complete to do the refi. Soooo, with the bad weather, I decided it was a good time to stay home and finally get it done (and scored major points with the DW).
Tonight, I was using a 2" forsner bit to bore holes through my studs for vent pipes and drain pipes. I was using a crappy GMC 18V brand cordless to do the drilling. I had picked this up at Lowes for about 30 bucks a couple years ago, in addition to a 14V that I keep in our fifth wheel.

I put a fresh battery in the drill, and managed to get about a hole and 3/4 of another hole drilled before the battery died. My other one had been on the charger for about 3 hours, and it still didnt show that it was complete (I ran it down yesterday). So, I remembered that when I was at Home Depot earlier, they had a RIGID 18V Lithium combo pack for $199. Darn good price for a lithium combo set up, and with a lifetime warranty, how bad could it be? It came with an impact driver, a drill, a radio, and flashlight. I also hadn't yet purchased my "DIY payback tool" - everytime you do a project yourself, you buy a tool to compensate yourself since you didnt pay someone else!!
Well, after getting it home, I stuck one of the 2.5AH packs on the charger, and proceeded to risk my limbs boring a couple holes using my Dewalt 1/2" chorded drill. That thing will twist an arm in half if your not careful - and it doesnt stop turning right away when you let off the trigger. Try that with a 2" bit in soft fir....not fun.
When the battery was finally charged, I plugged in the battery, and ran it couple times. The first thing I noticed was a lot of sparks from the motor vents, and that brushed motor smell...so I ran it at low speed for a few minutes, and the sparking and the smell seemed to go away.
So off I went to drill some holes with my new toy. I made it through one hole, and started the second. Made it about 1/4 the way through, and the LVC kicked in. THe whole thing was very warm..I could keep my hand on it for about 10 seconds before it became very uncomfortable - including the battery.
So far, I'm definitly not impressed. It's not lighter than my other one, althoug a little more compact. The battery is lighter, but the drill itself is quite a bit heavier, and not balanced all that well. The RIGID also have these LED lights that are directed at the point you are drilling, but no way to turn them off. THey actually got irritating after a bit. We'll have to see if the batteried take a better charge after a use or two.