These three drivers all share some very key characteristics.
They all run on 20 volt battery platforms.
They all have brushless motors.
They all have lights to illuminate when you're working in dark areas.
And they're all about the same size.
And they put out very similar power figures.
They also share one other key characteristic.
Despite the fact that these all wear different
branding, they're emblazoned with different logos.
They have different paint jobs.
They are all made by the same company, Stanley Black Decker.
So my question is why?
Why does one company sell the same product
three for three in five different ways?
Is this just a case of simple brand engineering, or are there
some real differences between these drivers?
So here is the plan for today.
We are going to take a deeper look at these three drivers
and see what makes them the same and that what makes them different.
We'll start with surface
level features and functions that are different between them.
And then we're going to do a deeper dove into them, tear them
apart and see just how much part sharing is going on here.
And we also might talk a little bit
about why a big company like Stanley Black Decker would create
so many various subbrands to sell what is potentially the same drive.
I think first we got to address the poor cable tool
because I didn't even know that Porter Cable had a 20 volt cordless platform.
And I also didn't know that they made impact drivers.
I actually bought this tool specifically to make this video.
I think it was 220 bucks on Amazon.
At first blush, I could actually see that it might be closer
to the the Walt Disney of eight six, the last generation of impact driver.
You can see that the truck here at the front is very similar.
Oh, and in case you're
wondering how I got this midnight blackout edition to what impact driver
I actually made it myself and I did a whole video on it
that you can check out here.
So the very first thing I noticed when I started handling this tool
is that the battery indicator is down on the bottom of the tool here.
Really quickly, I realized that this is just a dumb design.
The very first thing you do when you take a battery out of storage
is you check the battery level on it
to make sure it's got charge before you bother putting it in the gut.
This just adds an unnecessary step.
Another thing that I noticed is that the battery is spring loaded.
There's actually a couple
of little springs here in the handle that push the battery forward
as soon as you release it.
It definitely feels very satisfying to do, but I could also see this
being a little bit of a hazard if you're on top of a ladder,
something like that,
and you pop the battery out and it just flies right out of the tool
down on the ground.
One thing that I do really like about this driver is that it's got an extra bit
holder here as a Canadian, I am constantly switching between Robertson and Philips
head drivers, depending on what fasteners I'm using.
So having the ability to store an extra
bit here is really handy and I wish all of these tools here had it.
One other little thing that I noticed is that on the Porter cable tool,
the LED light is down here on the bottom of the handle, as opposed to both the Walt
and the craftsman, where the LED light is closer to the bit.
I actually much prefer the style I find it provides way better illumination,
especially because these LED lights aren't really that powerful.
So yeah, that's about it for the Porter Cable, actually.
One other thing. This is a to Walt Charger.
This is a craftsman charger.
And then this is the Porter Cable Charger.
As you can see, the Porter Cable Charger is quite a bit smaller
than either of the others.
I can see there being some advantages and some disadvantages to this as well.
I think disadvantage, number one, is probably that this doesn't
charge nearly as quickly.
This is 20 volts at one end.
So that means that it's a 20 watt charge output forearm.
So this is an 18 wall charger.
This is six amps at 20 volts.
So 121.
So this is six times faster than this one.
The other disadvantage is that you can't wall mount, at least not easily.
That poor cable charger.
The way I have with this, the wall charger right here.
This is really handy, especially in a jobsite or a shop setting,
but I guess it does kind of bring me around
to the one advantage of that little charger.
If this is going to be a tool that you don't really use that often,
you just keep around the house for occasional use.
Small charger like this is actually kind of handy
because you can just tuck it in a drawer and it doesn't take up that much space.
So now let's move on to talking about the differences between the craftsman
and the the wall primarily.
The one thing that you'll notice right away
is that the tool what has the switch here for controlling the amount of torch
that it delivers?
So this is actually really handy if you're doing something
like assembling IKEA because you can limit it and you will snap
any fasteners, any sign of it.
I don't know.
Not much really.
I think the the Volt comes
with a clip from the factory, whereas the craftsman does not. And
yeah, that's about it.
I can't think of anything different between these two,
even feel like they're the exact same way.
Now let's talk about the similarities and smaller.
There's a lot of them.
The first thing I notice is that the trigger on all three of these
feels exactly the same, looks exactly the same outside
of a different dye they used in the plastic and the forward
and backward indicators, well, not physically identical,
are in the exact same location and they feel identical to.
Another thing that I noticed is that the screws for all four of these
drivers are pretty much in the exact same position, and the vents
for the motor in the tool is also in the exact same position.
Yeah, there's just a lot of physical similarities between these tools,
which leads me to believe that once we tear these guys open,
we're going to find that there's a lot of power sharing going.
So what do you say we do?
All right.
Well, I guess the first thing we should do is pop all of our batteries out
so I don't get shock while I'm doing this right.
Last but not least, the one that pops out is very satisfying.
I do like that feeling now. I really want to emphasize this again.
All of these screws I like in the exact same spot, the screws the same.
This one's the same. This one's the same.
I mean, I feel like they start with the same CAD model
and then they just kind of change things a little bit on the outside.
Here's another thing that's similar between all these tools.
They all use the exact same screws to put them together.
I guess that should be a surprise
given the fact that they're all in the same location, but certainly
not to worry about separating the screws because they could all be interchangeable.
I should check to see if they're all made in the same place.
I mean, you think about that. Made in China.
Made in China, made in Mexico.
Made in Mexico. Interesting.
So not all made in the same place.
Oh, they've got a little tricky.
I've disassembled my tool can be warranty trick on there.
Interesting.
Oh well now
that we've got all our screws move, we can start taking these shells apart.
Yeah, they just pop off a little something like that.
Oh, this one's dirty.
Oh, that is gross on the inside.
All right. You look at that.
On first blush, they seem very similar on the inside.
I mean, very similar.
So a couple of things that I notice right away.
The motor looks extremely similar
and I find a parts number anywhere on this thing.
There we go.
Physically, these look identical.
Oh, here we go.
Here's a number P, a 80 6gf 33 and I'm getting old.
Guys, I need glasses.
No, pa66gf33.
So slightly different model number going into this back connector.
Here you have one, two, three, four, five wires.
Yes. Exact same thing here. Yeah.
I'm going to go out on a big limb here and say that this is the same motor
between the craftsman and the DCS 87, the walls.
Okay, let's take a quick look over here at the eight, eight, six.
And this is actually a different motor, not much different,
mind you, but there are some small cosmetic differences between.
What about the porter Cable?
Porter Cable is actually a little different.
P.A 66gf 33 That's the same as the the watch three.
Yeah. 3333 Okay. Interesting.
The first bell housing
that has the quick release, Chuck looks a little bit different
on the Porter Cable, but the actual motor here at the back is identical.
I wasn't really expecting that because they do have
slightly different power outputs.
I was expecting that they all had different motors.
So I wonder if the difference in output is related to the amount of voltage
that gets sent from the battery to the tool or some other small change.
I mean, also these front bell housings are all a little bit different,
so there could be some gearing in there that's counting for the difference.
Okay.
So now looking down at the triggers, there are some differences to be seen
here.
Actually, they seem to follow a similar design
philosophy, but you've got different connectors for the LED one.
You have different connectors sending power from the trigger to the motor.
But then if I come over here to the Porter Cable driver,
this seems to be running the same trigger and grid setup as the two.
What's so that's interesting.
The LCD connector is even the same, but they wrote the wires in different ways.
So this one goes up to the head of the impact driver, whereas
this one goes down to the grip with a longer wire.
So moving down to the battery connector, there are some differences
to be seen here, but nothing too crazy.
So obviously the two walls with the variable torque setting dial thingy here
has this braco daughter board for that, whereas the older one does it.
This connector that connects your battery appears to be identical.
It has the exact same
number of power leads coming off it, coming over here to the craftsman.
This is interesting.
The the world has four wires going down
to the battery connector, but the craftsman only has three.
Looks like this third or second pin depending on your orientation.
Here is just a dummy pin and doesn't actually do anything.
It's not connected to anything inside the tool.
Three wires going to the or table battery connector.
However, there's also this fourth wire here that's just not connected
to anything.
Which makes sense actually, because the poor cable grip
or handle piece is the same as the one from the DC RF 87,
and that has a fourth wire that goes down to the battery connector.
So literally all they've done is just clip that wire and put a little cap on it.
I think how interesting.
I wonder what that fourth wire does on the wall
and then again on the power cable.
Here you have the daughter board that has the control for the battery indicator.
Flipping these guys over is interesting
because we actually get some part numbers here.
2014 Oh man, was this tool made in 2014?
Is that how old that is in four, four, one, seven,
six, six and 449266, six.
So technically, these are different part numbers,
but you would have a very hard time tying them apart.
I wonder if the different part numbers just account for things
like the clipped connector and the differently colored trigger.
So look at that. Isn't that interesting?
There is very clearly quite a bit of part sharing that is going on
between all of these drivers, but it's not necessarily in the way
that you would expect, like the DC f87 has the same grip as the much
newer quarter cable impact driver and that has a different grip
than the craftsman impact driver that was made around the same time.
But I think we can all agree
at the end of the day, these are all largely the same tool.
There's some marginal differences
between them, but the similarities are pretty overwhelming.
All right, let's button these guys back up and then we can talk about
all the things that we've learned.
Before I get go about putting these back together, let me give it a quick dusting.
Oh, yeah.
This DCF 87 hasn't been running that well.
Doesn't owe me anything.
But if I can
dust it out a little bit and make it work better would be nice.
All right, let's start with my number one favorite tool.
The DCF at eight six midnight Blackout Edition.
And we go, let's test this real quick
here.
It actually seems to work a little bit better since I cleaned it
for a battery in there.
Again, the charger seems much more responsive since I clean it.
So let that be a lesson to all you guys at home.
If your triggers messed up on your tool, tool might need to be opened up
and cleaned.
And last but not least, we have the water cable.
Actually, you know what?
Maybe it is the least I think of all four of these drivers.
This is probably by please favorite.
Not that it's bad by any stretch of the imagination
but yeah, I just I don't see myself using this again.
I'll find a nice like school or tool library to donate this to
me. So
at this point, I think that we can safely say
that all four of these drivers are the same. Yes.
Stanley Black Decker has made some efforts to differentiate the models.
But honestly,
this just feels like the type of brand engineering that car companies used to do
back in the day.
Fun fact.
My first car was a Pontiac Sunfire,
which was basically the same car as a Chevrolet Cavalier.
And then there was also the Dodge Neon.
Or should I say limited neon or no way.
Maybe it was the Chrysler neon. Yeah.
They didn't even really try when it came to the neon.
So why do companies do this and is it effective?
Well, the short answer is they want to create different brands
in order to market to different target audiences.
You want to be able to market your products to group A
without worrying about alienating Ruby.
Sounds a little bit complicated, but let's use these tools as an example.
Now I'm speculating a bit here, but it is my belief that Craftsman tools
are aimed more at homeowners r wires and more occasional tool users,
whereas the wall tools are aimed more at professionals and tradespeople.
Now, tradespeople are a fickle bunch.
I should know because I am one.
But if all of a sudden DeWalt started advertising their tools towards
homeowners, it could potentially turn off some tradespeople.
The tool brand would kind of lose its air
of professional status by marketing to nonprofessionals.
It's silly at the end of the day,
like the only thing that should matter is what the tools are capable of.
But you can see where they're coming from.
Like human beings are a notoriously fickle bunch.
Again, I should know because I am one.
We are ruled by our emotions and our perceptions of things.
So, yes, I do feel like brand engineering is an effective tactic.
It doesn't mean that I like it, but I do understand
at least why companies do it.
I think I should point out at this point in the video that I don't want to make
this video come across like I'm picking on Stanley Black Decker
because they are not the only company that's doing it.
In fact, I found this fun infographic that you can see here
that shows which tool brands are owned by which tool company.
As you can see, there are not nearly as many players
in the game as you might have originally thought.
Now, with all of that being said, I don't know that this is a
particularly effective example of brand engineering.
Like, yeah, I get the split that's going on between two walls and craftsman.
But then where does Portal cable fit into the mix?
And what about Black and Decker?
Stanley Fat necks and hostage are both stitch or however you say.
It's all just getting a little crowded for my taste, and personally,
I just don't think they're doing enough to differentiate these products.
You really have to ask yourself, why bother when your products are
this similar?
It's to the point where I think it's really got more to do with appeasing
different retail partners than it is about finding the right target audience.
I also think, largely speaking, low effort brand engineering is on the decline.
So you see this so clearly in the aforementioned auto industry.
Back in the day, a Lincoln was a Ford with leather seats.
Nowadays, they share a lot of the same underpinnings in order to save on costs.
But a Lincoln SUV is a signifier, greatly different beast than a Ford SUV.
You also see a lot of automakers
eliminating brands that don't have a very strong identity.
R.I.P.
Mercury, Plymouth. Pontiac.
Saab. Saturn.
Who else do we lose lately? Comments.
Just so many casualties.
Because whenever you get
I think
all of this is happening because consumers are becoming much more savvy.
We've got things like the Internet
and YouTube to point out when manufacturers are simply
just swapping the badges on things and calling it an entirely new product.
So it is my hope that Tool Brands will follow the lead of auto brands.
Clean up your product and your brand stacks a little bit.
Spend more time differentiating the brands that you do keep and maybe,
just maybe, allow for a little bit of cross-platform pollination.
But that's a different video for a different day.
And on that note, I think we are done with this video.
So thank you so much for watching.
I hope you enjoy this video. I hope you found it informative.
And if you did and you'd like to support the channel, consider becoming a supporter
on Patreon like these fine folks over here and over here.
If you want to get any one of these drivers,
I will include some links to them in the video description.
And of course, as always, I will see you guys in the next video piece.
Oh, and I should also mention for all you off the cut fans out there,
that's my podcast
dropped my case.
We now have the official off the cut windbreaker.
I know we've been joking about
sending these out to all the callers, all the people who send in questions.
Me and Eric actually got the made up.
I think they look pretty awesome.
I got this in camo, but it's available in a whole bunch of different colors.
I'm 62.
I'm rocking a large right now.
So there's your sizing for scale.
All right.
I will see you guys on that video this.