CXS12 noise levels

[mino]

Question to CXS12 owners:
When you set the lower torque levels, does the drill limit its top speed?

Example:
At a torque setting of 1, my C12 Li top speed (on gear 2) is well under 500 rpm.

This drives me nuts to such an extent I avoid the torque limiter when it should be useful the most - soft use cases. When driving long-screw-but-low-torque-needed into pilot holes I have to either choose a suitable 1000-ish speed (torque disabled) or being able to use the torque-limiter at the end point. The CXS (original) mechanical torque limiter does not exhibit this limitation and my DRC 18/4 does not either. So it is firmware decision not a limitation of an electronic clutch per se.

EDIT: Of course, meant CXS ... but wrote C12 .. Eh!

 

[Coen]

I’d like to add from my experience with the CXS 18 that it is most pronounced at the highest rpm’s. So when fastening at normal lower speed the noise is much lower, and has a lower pitch too. So in practice for me, it is bearable. Drilling at high speed is a situation we usually have the tool farthest from our ears.. Inside a cabinet, maybe not..

You drive screws in the lower gear? I only do that when the required torque isn't there in the higher gear.

Yes Coen, almost always with the exception of small screws when working with none fine material and fastening, and if fast progression is wanted. Mostly when speed is needed, I use one of my impacts..

Of that is faster depends on the screw. With long thin screws they will just twist more when using an impact driver, resulting in slower driving them in. But it might still be nicer for the wrist.

Benefits:
Drill doesn’t get hot, or burnt brushes..

Yes, because the heat is spread over time.

Minimal chance of cam out

No problem with Torx

Better driving control to set the screw properly

That is where the trigger is for; variable speed.

Battery life - lasts longer

Doubt it. Wood will just grip slow-moving screws better.

And I rarely fiddle with clutch settings..

On low-torque drills using it on full torque might not ever be a problem yeah.

Its similar to pulling a heavy boat up on a boat ramp… with either; a manually shifted 2wd car with high gearing or a 4x4 with low range gear box. It’s panic with overheated clutch and spinning tires ripping the trailer and bumping the boat up to a safe level vs pulling slowly with absolutely no drama, smilingly crawling to the top..

Creeping uphill ultimately costs more energy than doing it fast, as you have to compensate gravity for a lot longer time while at such low speeds air resistance won't make the difference go away yet.

 

[squall_line]

Question to C12 owners:
When you set the lower torque levels, does the drill limit its top speed?

Example:
At a torque setting of 1, my C12 Li top speed (on gear 2) is well under 500 rpm.

This drives me nuts to such an extent I avoid the torque limiter when it should be useful the most - soft use cases. When driving long-screw-but-low-torque-needed into pilot holes I have to either choose a suitable 1000-ish speed (torque disabled) or being able to use the torque-limiter at the end point. The CXS (original) mechanical torque limiter does not exhibit this limitation and my DRC 18/4 does not either. So it is firmware decision not a limitation of an electronic clutch per se.

My C12, C18, T18, and T18-E all do the same thing.

The fastest drive speed on those drills is in Speed 2 in drill mode.  Speed 1 in drive mode and clutch setting 1 will allow you to feather the trigger to an insanely low rotation.  Turning the clutch dial while holding the trigger will speed up or slow down the rotation.

I thought it was an intended feature, since they all did that, but it sounds like it may be intentional but undesirable.

That reminds me, I have too many drills...

 

[mino]

Better driving control to set the screw properly

That is where the trigger is for; variable speed.

This.

When I use my DRC 18/4, I invariably "screw stuff up" at the 4th gear (3800 rpm). Do I drive the screws at 3800 rpm ? NO! I drive them at about 1000 rpm, so at 1/4 of the motor speed and control it with the wonderful trigger it has.

Using the drill at 2 (850) or, God forbid! the 1st gear (400), would not only be slower, and rob me of the possibility to go faster, be harder on my fingers (trigger resistance increases), but it would *also* be harder on the drill's most sensitive component - the gearbox while not really affecting the motor in any way.

Sure, when one has some junky drills that have their motors overdriven beyond their mechanical capabilities (Hey Makita!) ... what FestitaM said would hold some ground. But even with those it is much easier on the drill when it is operated at the highest gear as the ratios in the gearbox are way easier mechanicaly with less torque and friction involved. These days any competently designed motor should not overheat. If it does it is just a bad design.

...
With my C12 Li, I drive screws at about the same 1000 rpm ... just that it is about 70% of its top speed so it needs to work harder .. and my finger holding the trigger needs to work harder along with it ..

My C12, C18, T18, and T18-E all do the same thing.
snip
I thought it was an intended feature, since they all did that, but it sounds like it may be intentional but undesirable.
snip

I am an idiot ... did not proof-read and left C12 there instead of the original point being about CXS 12 ...

Yes, all the C/T 12/18 series work like this by design. It is likely to avoid "over-driving" the screw by the drill momentum and maintain a semi-consistent torque break behavior.
The thing is, my DRC18/4 does not have this feature and, being the heaviest with the biggest momentum of the rotating parts, it kinda still works reliably-enough. Within a reasonable working range of the clutch. Hoping the CXS12, being a light assembly, is not as aggressive in "down-clocking" the top speed, or does not do it at all.
EDIT2: I cross-checked today and have to kick myself for mystification here. The DRC 18/4 does limit the top speed as well, it is just that 1/3 of 3800rpom ois high-enough that I did not perceive it apparently before. Either way, this is one more for the CXS (the original) in the driver role.
[embarassed]

Lack of this "feature" is what makes the original CXS actually faster than the C/T 12/18 series when screwing stuff up, despite its lower top speed.

...
That reminds me, I have too many drills...

Makita 2010 (corded light 4k rpm one)
Narex EVP 13 H2 CA (corded 1100W one ..)
DR 20 FF (corded 1100W 100 Nm monster, in a drill stand)
C12 Li
DRC 18/4
BHC 18
Parkside 1 Joule hammer (for the sensitive stuff)

missing:
CXS 2.6
T18+3 to go along my C12
a 120+ Nm cordless monster-drill with percussion (no cordless percussion ATM)
a Bosch 12V set with the hammer module option and all the chucks (replace the Parkside + for mobile use)

That would be 11 once the *basic* set of essentials is completed. The only one I am thinking to part with is the Narex 1100/2800 rpm corded one. But most likely I will dedicate it to a drill stand and use the DR 20 only for those special tasks where its 200-650 rpm range with high torque is needed. The DR 20 gearbox is just too loud for my tastes.

 

[Coen]

These days any competently designed motor should not overheat.

Maybe he is talking about Makita  [tongue]

Either way; lots of stuff has cooling underdesigned; to allow for short-term bursts while not needing a heavy / noisy / costly bigger cooling system. That applies to power tools, machine guns, heavy artillery and laptops alike. The user either needs to take that into account or the tool / ... needs to have sensors to that can notify the user or just temporarily block (burstrate) use.

Even to living creatures; they will overheat before the muscles get sore. Humans are somewhat unique in that we can sweat across our entire body.

That reminds me, I have too many drills...

Really? What is too many? What do you count? The drywall gun and hammer drill too?

 

[FestitaMakool]

[member=8955]Coen[/member]
You just needed didn’t you [big grin]

Well, I’ll argue that you probably haven’t driven a 4x4 with a reduction gearbox.. It’ll pull at idle with almost no throttle input, with massive pulling power.

And absolutely, the trigger control and feel of Festool drills is what drew me to buy them in the first place, it certainly wasn’t the looks.

You know, there’s still a huge amount of Philips head screws around, and they are ridiculously cheap sometimes compared to Torx - cheap Torx is no good, 1 of 3 screws have a messed up head that won’t fit the bit - so my first choice is Pozidrive going cheap, second Philips. Torx for quality along with Pozidrive, which I like very well.

 

[FestitaMakool]

You could also argue that brushless drills generate little heat, but if you continue to push its limits with torque- they will heat up eventually.
Any drill manufacturer will advise you to use 1. gear for fasteners and 2. gear for drilling applications, including Festool - as a default advice.

To anyone interested, all my Makita’s from 2007 brushed till todays brushless are still running as they where new. The only drill that has gone up in smoke was an old 7,4v Metabo compact drill, I replaced the motor myself, and it’s still in use for my hobby work.

 

[FestitaMakool]

Back to noise level..
I don’t know if there’s anyone else here that are into RC hobby?
Reason is, not long ago a Chinese manufacturer, Hobbywing, released an incredible brushless motor..
A 2300kv with integrated ESC (Electronic Speed Control) and FOC (Field Oriented Control) with insane low speed control, torque unmatched and is near dead silent when running. Coupled to a crawler with some gear reduction - at the lowest speed the car barely visibly moves, but it maintains propulsion at the same speed no matter resistance..
it’s much like the motor in the T18 and C18 - but almost completely quiet and narrower in design.. now that would be a great drill motor.. Alone it’s $200 though..

Edit: So, it’s not only the motor itself that generates heat, the ESC does too.. and in a drill it’s placed inside the handle - far away from the fan of the motor. It needs to be very well designed with effective heat sinks in order to not overheat.

 

[mino]

You could also argue that brushless drills generate little heat, but if you continue to push its limits with torque- they will heat up eventually.
Any drill manufacturer will advise you to use 1. gear for fasteners and 2. gear for drilling applications, including Festool - as a default advice.

To anyone interested, all my Makita’s from 2007 brushed till todays brushless are still running as they where new. The only drill that has gone up in smoke was an old 7,4v Metabo compact drill, I replaced the motor myself, and it’s still in use for my hobby work.

The point of Coen is it that the time when drills were under-powered on the motor is past us by about two decades.

Someone who is at this for decades (like you, all respects!) might not have noticed this. For me this "changed" when I got my DRC18/4 with its fine-control trigger. Without that trigger, it would be impossible to use the high speed for anything but drilling indeed.

Now, as for the "advice" of the manufacturers:
-----------------------

The first thing I say to new team members: *)
DO read The Manual.
DO NOT (blindly) trust The Manual.

One only needs to understand the motivations of the writers of any manual to know why that is.

The primary motivation of a manual is not the best/optimal use of the tool/system/device. Nope! It is the safest, most idiot-proof use of their tools/systems/devices, the one which has the least *probability* of misuse by the unqualified personel with the highest *probability* of the unqualified person achieving the task objective.

Practically, Festool cannot advise the 4th gear for screwing (for those 90+% cases) where that is optimal. Why ? Well, some moron would inevitably come around and sue them/bash them/etc. for the drill "not meeting their stated max drill capacity when used as advised". Etc. Etc. Etc.

*) In complex work we see several classes of people:

IF - Ignore/"Follow" - Ignore the manual (by default), but fall-back on it (blindly) "if it goes bad"
  => the most useless people (and the most prevalent .. sadly)

RF - Read/Follow - Read the manual, follow the manual
  => the most "dangerous" people on a project (capable of continuing into the abyss even after being notified, only because "the vendor advises so", the force to screw up is generally strong there), I call them "Hands & Eyes Plus" folks as brain use is being consciously blocked

II - Ignore/Ignore - Ignore the manual, develop an own know-how from scratch
  => a bit better, as the brain is added to their hands and eyes, but still not great as this approach of learn-by-try is inefficient so the folks waste a lot of time re-inventing the wheel, most folks grow up into this from the IF category and many get stuck at this point

RI - Read/"Ignore" - Read the manuals/documentation, but puts qualifiers on any statements in it
  => the top guys, they read the documentation by default but are not (blindly) trusting it, thus can dynamically compensate for the bias/manipulation/error/etc. in it, these are the folks which "make projects happen"

Sure, this comes from the IT world which is waay more dynamic. But the concept is universal in nature. Hopefuly can help someone here think about as well.

 

[Coen]

Any drill manufacturer will advise you to use 1. gear for fasteners and 2. gear for drilling applications, including Festool - as a default advice.

I have yet to come across any such advise from any manufacturer.

 

[semenza]

Not that it is any sort of hard and fast rule.  And I do drive pocket hole screws in particular, on high with clutch setting at 5 ( LiOn C12) but many ,include at least some Festool, have a graphic of a screw on the low setting and a graphic of a drill bit on the high setting.  No, clutch on / off.

Seth

 

[Mr Speaker]

Any drill manufacturer will advise you to use 1. gear for fasteners and 2. gear for drilling applications, including Festool - as a default advice.

I have yet to come across any such advise from any manufacturer.

I am pretty sure all manufacturers give a version of that advice. I have read it so often that I see that as a given. Let's say you have a drill that has the torque to do this in high and low gear. And my further assumption is that while static friction (friction without motion) is higher that dynamic friction (friction with movement), Once you have motion, the speed will not affect the friction force (i.e. the friction will be roughly the same at low or high speeds). Wood is a complex material so this may not be 100% true. But assuming this; If you do it faster at a higher gear, you will use more power, battery current will be higher and heat buildup will be higher in the screw and in the motor. wear on the equipment will be higher. The PWM of the motor will be slightly more effective but total transported power is higher so let's disregard this. High battery current means more wear. Now, if you keep the same speed by using the trigger. roughly the same amount of power is drawn from the battery, PWMs are great at current vs voltage conversion so you are good there. But the motor delivers the same amount of energy with a lower rotational speed. lower rotational speed means lower cooling. so the motor heats up more in higher gears versus lower gears. I screw at lower speeds, less wear and more control.

 

[mino]

...
Let's say you have a drill that has the torque to do this in high and low gear. And my further assumption is that while static friction (friction without motion) is higher that dynamic friction (friction with movement), Once you have motion, the speed will not affect the friction force (i.e. the friction will be roughly the same at low or high speeds). Wood is a complex material so this may not be 100% true. But assuming this; If you do it faster at a higher gear, you will use more power, battery current will be higher and heat buildup will be higher in the screw and in the motor. wear on the equipment will be higher. The PWM of the motor will be slightly more effective but total transported power is higher so let's disregard this. High battery current means more wear. Now, if you keep the same speed by using the trigger. roughly the same amount of power is drawn from the battery, PWMs are great at current vs voltage conversion so you are good there. But the motor delivers the same amount of energy with a lower rotational speed. lower rotational speed means lower cooling. so the motor heats up more in higher gears versus lower gears. I screw at lower speeds, less wear and more control.

The talk is about which gear to use ... and there it works the opposite of your friction/heat analysis.

In case of the C12 Li or CXS 12 the motor needs to do about 3x the rotations when operating at the lower speed. This is like someone going on the 2 nd gear on the highway to "save" the motor. Umm. Nope. Up a 12-degree gradient, sure! But not when the motor is well below its operating limits.
Also, your assumption about the friction is not entirely correct, dynamic friction, generally, gets lower the higher the speed. The bolt is heated "more" simply from the (higher) heat build-up speed relative to the (kinda constant) heat dissipation rate to the surrounding material.

Yes, if I do 20 screws in 5 minutes instead of 10 in 5 minutes, it is normal for the drill to be hotter as well - I did more work in a shorter period so the cooling - which is motor-speed derived - had less time to remove it. But that does NOT mean I "used up" more life from the motor. The motor did 1/3 the rotations in the process as well!
Besides all that, these days the motor heat is not the limiter as there is active cooling there. The gearbox is what gets the most heated in heavy use as it has no (active) cooling. And there a higher gear means less friction in the gearbox, so it actually helps for cases where heat is an issue.

 

[Coen]

Not that it is any sort of hard and fast rule.  And I do drive pocket hole screws in particular, on high with clutch setting at 5 ( LiOn C12) but many ,include at least some Festool, have a graphic of a screw on the low setting and a graphic of a drill bit on the high setting. 

Seth

Yes, for the clutch, not for the gears. And I still drill a lot on lower clutch settings. Cause why not... let's save my wrist (in case of 12V drill; the 18V stops as soon as the machine starts to rotate).

Any drill manufacturer will advise you to use 1. gear for fasteners and 2. gear for drilling applications, including Festool - as a default advice.

I have yet to come across any such advise from any manufacturer.

I am pretty sure all manufacturers give a version of that advice. I have read it so often that I see that as a given. Let's say you have a drill that has the torque to do this in high and low gear. And my further assumption is that while static friction (friction without motion) is higher that dynamic friction (friction with movement), Once you have motion, the speed will not affect the friction force (i.e. the friction will be roughly the same at low or high speeds). Wood is a complex material so this may not be 100% true. But assuming this; If you do it faster at a higher gear, you will use more power, battery current will be higher and heat buildup will be higher in the screw and in the motor. wear on the equipment will be higher. The PWM of the motor will be slightly more effective but total transported power is higher so let's disregard this. High battery current means more wear. Now, if you keep the same speed by using the trigger. roughly the same amount of power is drawn from the battery, PWMs are great at current vs voltage conversion so you are good there. But the motor delivers the same amount of energy with a lower rotational speed. lower rotational speed means lower cooling. so the motor heats up more in higher gears versus lower gears. I screw at lower speeds, less wear and more control.

Ok, I read the manual of the GSR 18v-60 (battery powered drill) and after a long list of bs like "use the correct extension cord if working outside" (mind you; it is a battery drill) it indeed says;

First gear:
Low speed range; for working with a large drilling diameter
or for screwdriving.
Second gear:
High speed range; for working with a small drilling diameter

Now tell me... why would I follow that and drive screws at 600 rpm while they sell 4500 rpm machines for ... screwdriving? It makes zero sense except for those with slow response time and/or poor trigger control.

Driving at low speed gives the wood more opportunity to 'grip' the screw, so I'm pretty sure it takes more energy. Just like cycling super slowly uphill takes more total energy for the same distance as with double the power. Or heating water with a 1 kW electric kettle vs a 2 kW or even better yet; 3 kW kettle.

As for battery wear; well, if you drive the screws so slowly... the time component in battery wear might overtake the actual 'use wear'

 

[slavi.yordanov]

Lol, are you really concerned with the wear on the drill motor/gears instead what’s most efficient time-wise for the task at hand?

All I ever use is the highest gear possible on which the drill will not bog down. No matter drilling or screwing. If I want to be super precise and I’m working with a delicate material/screw, I’ll use a screwdriver and do it by hand.

I never use the clutch on my drills either. I can use the trigger for more precise results, rather relying on the clutch to stop exactly where I need it to.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mr Speaker]

I didn't know who to quote as there are suck good quotes available above. One of the things I agree with is that when comparing tool wear vs time spent, it's maybe best to just use the tool effectively and accept a slightly higher wear. It's like the brushed vs brushless discussion. I have yet to replace brushes on any hand tool. I have replaced them on my CNC spindle and the dust extraction on my CNC, but never on any handheld tool. So brush wear does not interest me. And maybe heat or battery wear should not either.

But... i'd still like to respond. Any comparison with an internal combustion engine of manual labor like cycling is incorrect. Internal combustion engines have a lot of internal friction and like 5-20% efficiency. The efficiency of a car engine can be higher, but only at a specific rpm and max power and there is the rest of the power train. Now I am not talking about 1st gear vs 6th (first gear in a car transmission is designed to last about 100 hours). If you can haul that trailer up a hill in 3rd and in 4th gear the 3rd gear will give better cooling. That is offset by higher friction losses. Brushless motors have 85 - 90 percent efficiency.  With human power it's even worse. Holding up a object will cost you energy, it will tire you out and you can only do it a finite time, while no energy is needed for that (a table does not need to be plugged in). 

As a product manager with Bosch (10 years) the discussions on what gears, steps, ratios, features vs use cases and what needed to be offered where very interesting. Many users just use the highest gear that does not stall and engineers have strong opinions about that. It was not my field, I was in a different division, and Festool may handle this totally different but I tend to tighten screws in lower gears.

 

[six-point socket II]

I haven't been to any dealer or show in what feels like ages, so I have not yet played with any of the new Festool offerings.

But, I recently got a couple of what I will call "current generation" brushless 18V tools from another manufacturer/supplier and they do make a very different sound than any of my (brushless) tools dating back way, way longer.

They sound downright "aggressive"/"angry", definitely not pleasant to my ears. For what I use/need them it doesn't matter, wearing PPE almost all the time.

What I noticed is, it's mostly the start-up that makes the worst sound, once they are running at speed it's not that bad anymore.

I also haven't played with current generation Bosch, Makita, Milwaukee, DeWalt, (...) brushless tools - so I have absolutely no idea what they sound like.

My initial thoughts on the tools that I got was, that they have probably "cheaped out" on (some of) the internals.

I definitely wouldn't be using them in a "quiet" assembly area/shop scenario, if they had been intended for such use, I would have returned them already.

If the CXS sounds anything like that and it bothers you, I'd suggest to return it. I don't believe it's a "faulty unit" or "one off".

My thoughts in a nutshell.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[usernumber1]

Guys be careful when evaluating noise loudness using your ears. There's a perceived loudness and equal loudness curves depending on the frequencies.

These mistakes are from the generations past, we should be more educated than before
https://pressbooks.pub/sound/chapter/frequency-and-loudness-perception/#:~:text=Loudness%20perception%20(and%20frequency)&text=However%2C%20frequency%20also%20plays%20a,version%20will%20seem%20much%20louder).

 

[mino]

They sound downright "aggressive"/"angry", definitely not pleasant to my ears. For what I use/need them it doesn't matter, wearing PPE almost all the time.
...

Well ... most makers have "youtubed" their top-output tools for max raw power /within a form factor/ a couple years ago. Some a decade ago.

This carnage the social networks caused was just not affecting Festool till lately. Guess thanks to their tool refresh cycles and them being conservative. But, it is here.

All we can do is moan enough so that when a next gen is designed, someone will think of the fish (in the barrel) an average installer is when inside a cabinet .. and that PPEs are just impractical in many scenarios.

 

[six-point socket II]

I didn't wanna go there, but yeah, I'm 100% with you on that one! Seems you're pretty good at reading between the lines.

Kind regards,
Oliver