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i bought the small case for fly fishing. It comes with 1" layers of cubed foam. It is pretty great for the price, but not a pelican. Much flexier and basic latches. I would buy it again.

I bought this drill a few months ago and for $20 it handled driving wood screws into decking pretty well, although the battery dies in about 20 minutes.

https://www.harborfreight.com/power-...ngs-62873.html

More recently, I was installing some shelving in my unfinished basement and needed to anchor the shelf rails into a concrete wall. I used a Tapcon kit that has a bit and concrete screws. You first drill a hole with a hammer drill and then use a regular drill to drive the blue Tapcon screw. First attempt with this drill and it completely blew up inside, destroyed by its own torque driving the screw.

No returns after 90 days, so consider it a disposable tool bound for the electronics recycling bin sooner than later. Interestingly, their new brand of drills called Hercules, actually have 1 model that Consumer Reports rates as a best buy. Probably going to pony up the bigger bucks to get a higher quality unit though. I really like Fein and Milwaukee brands.

Drill master is probably going away now that they have the Bauer and Hercules lineup.

I recently purchased the 20V Bauer 1/2" and 1/4" impacts, as well as the angle grinder.
I'm going to be thorough and test them with the 3 amp hour battery, but so far, I am unimpressed with the performance of all three.
With the 1.5 amp hour battery, the 1/2" impact doesn't have enough torque to loosen lug nuts.
The grinder takes several seconds to get up to speed, and you can stop to arbor from spinning with very little pressure. It's not as fast as it needs to be to get good results with a flap disk, and it certainly doesn't have enough torque for a cutoff wheel.
The 1/4" driver is ok, but base on AvE's recent teardown and testing of one, I wouldn't count on it lasting for long.

So to sum it up, they're all basically garbage and you should buy the Hercules brand. Supposedly, there are new Hercules tools coming soon (grinder almost definitely) that use the same battery.
The 1/2" impact is incredible if you don't care about battery interchangeability among tools.

I only use HF that plug into an outlet. All of those have been beasts and I don't have to worry about power running out.

Edit - Going to remove this all together. Not as convinced of quality as I was.

Anyone have any experience with the HF 29pc Cobalt Drill Bit Set?

https://www.harborfreight.com/135-sp...-pc-61885.html

Not that set, but the 115 pc. one. I find the sharpening can be hit or miss. Although, having bought one about 10 years ago, and having gotten another set within the past 2, I can say they have definitely gotten much better.

I just run them through the drill doctor before use, and they are good to go. BTW, if you don't have a drill doctor, get one. It will save you countless hours of frustration using dull bits.

Thanks! I have been watching a ton of videos on hand sharpening bits. Is the drill doctor that much better than just dremel or hand sharpening to the correct angle?

YES! A hundred times over. You stick it in the chuck, hand tighten, and then twist it over the grinding wheel two or three times. It makes contact twice in a revolution, sharpening the flats on the end. Done.
Takes literally seconds to do a bit.
Probably took me longer to type that then to actually sharpen a drill.

Don't bother with the larger models. How often do you use a bit larger than 1/2"? Likely never. And the split point thing isn't really all that useful.

Have you used the odd sizes of the HF drill bit index? Typically the cheap drill indexes only have like common sizes actually hardened since most people wont use the weird sizes at all.

I think you'll find most drill indexes are pretty soft and don't make holes very well. Have you tried using drills instead?

Anybody use the "COBRA surveillance DVR with 4 HD cameras" yet? Or is there a better option for the same money someone is already using?

https://www.harborfreight.com/8-chan...ies-63890.html

No experience with that unit,m but having worked in the industry I can almost guarantee you that it will be a huge piece of shit. If you can tolerate the garbage (poorly translated, unintuitive, feature-poor) firmware on the DVR, be prepared to replace all of the cameras within the next few years.

Don't get a coax system, POE is absolutely the way to go. Most security brands sold in the US are either rebranded Dahua or Hikvision (both Chinese of course). http://ipcamtalk.com has a ton of info on it. A lot of people will piece together systems off of aliexpress. I bought an LaView system off of Newegg on sale and have been adding cameras to it, not sure I'd do the same thing over again. For camera placement, check out this website, very awesome for making sure you have all area covered.

:ohnoes:

Attachment 236865

Used about 8-10 times. It's not bolted to the floor or anything so it does twist some under load, but damn I didn't expect this part to bend. This also pushed a rear bearing into a spindle a little sideways and gouged the inside of the spindle. I was careless and didn't check it going down enough..... it did the other spindle without issue. Thinking this bent when I was pressing the old bearing out of the spindle.

Not sure if there's a warranty on this with HF or not. I might just flat plan the piece.

I don't have the COBRA system but I have a Swann system which i'm 99% sure is the same garbage software. I highly reccomend spending at least double and getting something much better and that's POE.

Newegg Flash deal for a decent LaView POE setup today. Would need to get a hard drive for it though. WD Purple 2TB would run ~$65.

WIN: windshield removing tool aka cold knife. Windshield out in 10 minutes without breakage (that's a smear in the dust, not a crack). Didn't care about keeping the glass but it avoided a big mess.

The best tools at HF are the ones with half 1-star reviews and half 5-star reviews, since there's a trick to using them. One of the 5-star reviews had the helpful advice of making sure that the blade is separating the glass from the urethane, not cutting down the middle of the adhesive.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...080a35d9a3.jpg

I purchased the LaView system in the link and it has arrived. The manual leaves something to be desired. Does the unit not come with a hard drive? The documentation doesn't discuss installing one, just initializing one and you recommended purchasing one. Was the recommendation just as an upgrade or is it necessary for operation? I just feel strange taking out a screwdriver and opening up a brand new component.

Nope, doesn't look like it comes with a hard drive.