uh scott brown here before this exciting episode begins then we get into the makita
40 volt system this video is sponsored by skillshare now i like learning new skills and
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speaking of new the new makita 40 volt system are you on 18 volt makita do you want to change
to 40 volt and you're wondering if it's worth it what are the 40 volt tools like in general and
what tools are coming up that's what this that's what this episode's about so enjoy so here we go
the makita 40 volt system all the 40 volt tools that i've managed to get my hands
on so far anyway so now these tools behind me are actually mine i'll talk more about the miter saw
soon i'm just buying that from akita for the next week the other tools all belong to paido now if
you watch my videos you will know who he is he's been working with me from the start of the channel
and well before that as well he had a makita kit that was six or seven years old and it was
showing a bit of wear and tear so i reached out to makita and i said
hey is there any chance that we could maybe hook pair up with something he's in the videos
all the time and we're using your tools day in day out it would be cool if he could upgrade
um there's any way that you guys can help out and basically they just said leave it with us
week went by a couple of weeks went by and then one day they turn up to site with all these brand
new boxes filled with makita 40 volt tools and gave it spider and that's why he has the 40 volt
circular saw there's also why he has the 40 volt reciprocating saw and the drills and batteries and
they hooked them up which is amazing so it's been a few months that we've had these
on site now and we've been using them day in day out so here are some of my thoughts
so let's start with the system as a whole i've been using makita tools since 2004 2005 2004 and
i started off with an impact driver the 18 volt impact driver it was one of my earlier videos on
this channel um i reviewed that and talked about how i got on the makita platform and how a lot of
the people that i worked with here in new zealand were also on the makita platform that drill lasted
a decade at least and i since upgraded to the 18 volt that looks very similar to this and that's
been pretty damn good too so it wasn't until last year that makita came out with the 40 volt system
so after all my years as a builder on one makita platform makita has finally come out with a second
one now i should say that i'm not a battery expert i don't know a lot about this kind of stuff but
in our experience the main improvement has been run time we hardly ever charge these batteries
i i changed the battery today but that was the first time after maybe five days of using it and
that's using it every single day this battery here in particular is the four amp battery
and you can see it's quite chunky when it sits on the drill here usually when we're using the drills
we prefer to use the 2.5 amp battery this one here and if you compare it to the 4 amp it's quite a
bit bigger and quite a bit heavier so that's just getting that out of the way the big improvement on
this system compared to the 18 volt is how often you need to plug the battery into the charger
so here are the drills side by side and if one wasn't newer looking than the other you'd probably
struggle to figure out which ones the 18 volt and which one's the 40. and despite what i
said earlier about none of these being mine this is actually my impact driver i thought
i had pardo's one i know because the rubber thing the rubber thing fell off in terms of
appearance it looks the same and in terms of performance so far other than run time on
the battery it's been pretty much the same the impact drivers are great both of them
the drill is just like the 18 volt one that i had prior to this as well it has a little windy thing
down here to adjust the speed which is pretty cool you know how in some chucks they have it
up there well this is like a digital winding thing now i'm not sure how to activate it so
i don't know how to turn it on but those are the drills they're pretty much the same but they're
taking advantage of that new battery system so the reason i'm making this video is because i
get questions about the makita 40 volt system a lot since they started appearing in the videos
and in terms of favorite 40 volume makita tools this is mine this is top of the list it is the
circular saw and it's the 185 millimeter circular saw eight and a quarter it's a beast this saw
takes advantage of another thing that they're introducing to all these 40 volt tools and that is
the bluetooth system that fires up the vacuum if you have the makita vacuum cleaner sweet
there we go and also has a built-in dust port so you can connect directly to the vacuums and the
festool vacuums also fit this dust port it also has this great big rafter hook here which is very
handy look at the size of the thing one thing that may be overlooked by some people but i think is
super cool i know these things don't matter that much but see how it's side on like that rather
than some of the other makita circular saws that have the battery hanging off the back like that
this one helps make the saw more compact and i don't know i just really like it but that's
not the best thing about the saw the best thing about this makita circular saw and the thing that
we've been using it for the most is its ripping capacity we've been working on a couple of villas
and bungalows over the last six months and all the walls are crooked all this does need packed
it's never even you're never just putting a 20mm packer on a wall and it's good floor-to-ceiling
but it involves ripping freehand so you can follow a squiggly line and this saw's been great for it
and now this is one of the things that come up a lot for people who haven't been
completely converted to cordless tools in general and that's the circular saw they say
oh yeah it's great for you know cross cutting and trimming things but you can't rip timber with it
well that hasn't been true for a while but in particular it's not true now
this thing rips no problem with a fully charged battery
now this all sounds very positive i'm sure you are picking up and you'll notice i put the word
advertisement up there earlier basically in new zealand you have to say it is an advertisement if
you have been lent a product or given a product for free so makita haven't seen this video
any sooner than you would have seen it um but they did give us these tools so take that with
a grain of salt it doesn't have any effect on what i say about the tools but uh i should point that
out the reciprocating saw i'm gonna go out on a limb and say this is paido's favorite improvement
over the 18 volt now i haven't used it that much but here against this thing has a lot more power
and again it's on the 40 volt system so you're taking advantage of the runtime
so this is part of that bluetooth system that i mentioned before and i've used in previous
episodes basically you plug this into your vacuum cleaner it could be any vacuum cleaner it doesn't
have to be makita and then you turn that button on and then you also turn the subsequent button
on the saw and basically when you fire the saw up the vacuum cleaner automatically turns on
that way every time you go to use the saw as long as the hose is plugged into it
you're gonna get that dust extraction we've had problems with it previously when we're
using the um traxel basically you have to make sure you're within range and nothing in between
perhaps that'll improve over time maybe we were using it wrong i don't know but uh when it works
it works fantastic one thing a lot of people wondered when this system was announced is
what's going to happen to the 18 volt now you know a lot of us have invested in so many different
18 volt tools does that mean they're going to be just void and no good anymore they are planning to
stick with the 18 volt range and it's really cool that they throw in this little adapter here this
is the 40 volt charger and this is a adapter so you can charge an 18 volt battery now they don't
have adapters so you can use an 18 volt battery on a 40 volt tool and vice versa that doesn't exist
it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with the 18 volt now that 40 volt
is out now that i have 40 volt tools i only want 40 volt tools as soon as the 40 volt track saw
comes out i probably get it the 40 volt multi tool i'll probably just change right over to 40
volt makita say that they're sticking with the 18 volt but it's hard to see how it's not an either
or thing why would you get 18 volt if 40 volt is better it's kind of like analogous to cameras
for me and this may be lost on a few people but this camera here that i have is a canon camera
and canon cameras have been out for years but they recently upgraded the lens system so the adapter
here is different completely different so you know decades of canon cameras it's a brand new system
so there's only a few lenses that are out at the moment there's like maybe a dozen lenses that
fit this camera but as the years go by they're going to bring more lenses in and these lenses
are better than the old system so i've invested in this system and i'm only planning to buy the
new lenses there's no reason for me to go out and buy the old lenses i'm probably going to cut
this out of the video because it's not really about tools but it's kind of similar to this
it is pouring with rain today by the way
a little light there now i'm excited that they made this because
i've been pretty critical of makita mitre saws in the past particularly the cordless one
for me drop saws as we call them are meant to be portable certainly the cordless ones the great
thing about cordless drop tools in general is that it's very easy to take in and out of the
van and very easy when you want to do a quick cut it's the kind of tool that you'll grab if
you only need to do one cut whereas a corded one you probably won't bother from a first impression
this is only 15 kilos it takes one 40 volt battery it has the forward rail design
and it can come out very very far compared to saws of a similar size
it's early days like i said we only got it today we've made a couple of cuts at work
i'll be using it for the next week and i'll see if i can do a first impressions video
or at least talk about it in an upcoming video now one thing that may put off people
is this handle i for one like this handle i feel like your hand is more in line with the blade so
you're not putting unnecessary pressure against the blade which helps keep it straight but a lot
of people just can't get used to that sort of pistol grip i like it i've got it here on the
festool as well and this is even more in line with the blade it's like your hands are literally on
the blade so you're not putting any unnecessary pressure against it you're just on it whereas you
come over here and you look at the dewalt see how much further i am away from it that's just
you know years of going like that eventually it gets out of whack and that's what happened to this
that's why i end up changing so what do you prefer do you prefer the uh
handle on the blade or handle to the side that's the drop saw and that's the makita 40 volt system
does that mean we're going to stick with the 18 volt system i've still got a lot of 18 volt tools
and we still use them from day to day especially use the multi tool but i will say that over the
last three or four months that we've had the tools i haven't used my 18 volt impact i haven't
used my 18 volt drills we've barely used my 18 volt circular saws now that we have these tools
they're talking about simultaneously keeping both platforms i see myself just going over to 40 volt
it'll be real interesting to see what happens i just like that they're improving the systems and
keeping up with each other all the tool brands are doing so well at the moment we're kind of
spoiled for choice when it comes to tools i think it's a good system those are my first impressions
of it and um stay tuned for more exciting episodes where we work with exciting tools
so what do you think of the makita 45 system are you convinced are you more interested in
the other brands do they have better offerings would you change from the 18 volt to the 40
volt i'm interested to hear your thoughts in the comments below also i'll check a link over here
um at the end of the video to a channel called tools and stuff if you haven't seen it already
the guy who runs that channel has done a load of 40 volt videos where he compares the 18 volt and
the 40 volt together i'm talking reciprocating saws hammer drills most of the tools that i've
shown here already he's done a great in-depth tool versus tool comparison so definitely check that
out if you want a more in-depth look at the tools and i'll catch you in the next exciting episode