Is that a V28 Engine under the hood? Milwaukee Li-Ion Chevy Bel-Air

The "Red Line" tour came to our place today. This included the Monster Garage built V28 powered car. Not only is this thing cool to look at, it's also pretty darn quick - getting up to almost 100 mph in the quarter mile. It runs from 384 of Milwaukee's V28 Li-Ion batteries and drew quite a bit of attention (yes, that's almost $50k and 900 lbs of "fuel" for those keeping score at home, not including the 210 V28 chargers). I'm sure that seems like a decent chunk of cash to most of us, but our rep stated that getting this car built cost them $275k, so it's not all that much in comparison.

Now that you know what powers this beast, allow me show you some of the details of this interesting rechargeable automobile.

Stock looking interior

As you can see, the inside is fairly "standard". Nothing overly impressive, other than it looks great for being a 1962 vehicle. Milwaukee had it done in their black and red color scheme with some white highlights, but it still looks pretty stock. It wasn't perfect, but it was also done pretty quickly for the show and wasn't what they were really concerned with. They did, after all, just want to make something that went fast down the 1/4 mile track, and 93 mph in 14.5 seconds isn't too bad for a power tool battery powered car.

Interesting accellerator

If you look really close (clicking on the image to zoom in a bit helps), the gas pedal is actually like those used on boats for trolling motors. I found that a bit amusing that they ended up using one of those, but it is understandable since they're running electric motors with it and not moving a lever to open up the carb letting more fuel and air in. I hadn't ever really thought about what they would use for an accellerator, which is probably why it stood out as much as it did to me. Either way, the feel was a bit different and I thought it was worth noting. The wire coming off of it will be re-run at some point, but for now it's functional.


Stock from the front

From the front, this car looks fairly stock as well. Nothing really screams "electric muscle car" from the outside. Come to think of it, electric muscle car is sort of an odd term. The other phrase I heard to describe this is "High-tech classic". That didn't really make much sense either. An electric car shouldn't be considered a classic if you ask me, regardless how old the body style is. But I would have to agree that it's sweet technology, as would most any classic car enthusiast. I'd still prefer a V8 over a V28, but that wouldn't help with Milwaukee's marketing like this does.

Sweet wheels

The wheels that they chose looked pretty nice as well. I like the Milwaukee logo sweeping across the fender, even if some of the paint had already decided to bubble and start peeling. But hey - it's a classic car body that's been on the road being shown at tool stores around the country, so you can't expect it to be perfect. It's still plenty shiny, and those low-profile tires look nice. I'm just glad I didn't have to mount them on the rims. That would have been a real pain in the back-end. I guess that's why I decided to be a geek and not a tire changer for a career.

Under the hood

Now that you've seen the outside, it's time to take a peek under the hood. Being an electric, it looks quite different. No gas lines, just electrical wires. No oil dipsticks, no air filters, just solenoids and fuses. But since it's a newer technology, it's pretty neat to look at. I think it's cool that a car can run that fast and be almost completely quiet, void of the typical rumble of exhaust pipes. Obviously, if it were a commercial vehicle it would have the wires hidden a bit more, but it's not so it was just made to be functional and semi-pretty to look at. I'll include a few more pictures below from under the hood, just because it's neat.




In this last "motor" picture, notice how fire was hand drawn coming from one of the monsters. Sort of a neat touch.


The Fuel

As you can see from the underside, there is no gas tank. Why would anyone need a gas tank on an electric car? Some of the straps for transportation are still draped over the rear end and sway bar (was that supposed to go there - the bar now looks bent), and you can see that the power cables aren't actually hooked up. At the top of the picture, you can see that the trunk was wood lined, which allowed for easy mounting of the battery receptacles. No, there weren't 384 batteries installed, but looking up it was easy to see where they all went.

Battery mounting system

To the left is the view from under the trunk. For whatever reason, they couldn't get the trunk to open, but from the underside all of the battery positions were visible. I was a little shocked to see rust on the underside of the trunk, but it is a '62 Bel-Air body with 43 year newer battery technology - and it shows in areas. The car is still sweet, but it isn't immaculate like I was expecting. In their defense, they did put it together in 4 days and have it scheduled to go in for a complete refinishing (body / interior) after this week. We're one of the last stops to get to see the Monster Garage's original work.

It was an interesting distration from our usual power tool workplace. Given a few more of these events, my blog won't even have to talk about power tools - just the publicity stunts that the manufacturers are trying. But until we get to that point, I'll be going back to Power Tool blogging for a while... except for an upcoming Milwaukee Chopper post.

Flexible power - the Bosch I-Driver

Every once in a while, a new tool comes along that just says, "Why hasn't anyone done this before?" Well, in 2006 that tool is the Bosch I-Driver.

Being flexible in the past has meant bending behind the motor, such as some of the Milwaukee cordless screwdrivers. They would bend at about the middle of the tool, making for something more usable in tight spaces. But the I-Driver goes well beyond that. By using some fancy gearing, they made it only move the actual bit end of the tool. This makes for a great many uses where a traditional cordless screwdriver just wouldn't do.

But Bosch didn't stop there. Instead, they added in a few features that power tools aren't used to seeing. For example, they added an electronic clutch. The traditional mechanical clutch clicks when the screw is tight. This one simply stops the motor. It was a bit weird feeling the first few times it engaged, but I got used to it after a few times.

Also new to me is the soft start mechanism. My first reaction when pulling the trigger was the feeling that the battery was dead. It's not normal with most cordless tools to pull the trigger and have it go slow unless the battery needs charging, so that's what I thought was happening. However, it was not only fully charged, but the soft start mechanism can actually allow it to drive more screws per charge than the pocket driver. The reason is that you're able to pull the trigger full and let it drive the screw without having any struggle starting the screw without the bit slipping. Slipping when trying to start a screw really shortens useful battery life, so this minor improvement is actually a very big deal.

Finally, since it is a Li-Ion tool and has Bosch engineering behind it, you've got enough life to drive 100 screws and the quality to last a long time. This is one tool that's very high up on my list of toys to purchase, especially since the pricetag is pretty attractive. Any time a professional tool is under $150, it's got to end up on my wishlist somewhere.

Trimming Dog Nails - The Power Tool Way

We've got pugs at home. One thing that I can safely say about them, their nails grow very quickly. The general rule with pugs is that if you can hear them on a wood floor, their nails are too long. Understanding that and having our 2 little boys running around the house means my wife is constantly trimming nails. But what's that have to do with power tools? Well, for us - a lot.

Dremel Sanding Drums
Yes, I'm bringing up a Dremel here. Those rotary tools are excellent for many jobs, and this just happens to be one of them. By using a sanding drum, my wife is able to hold each dog on her lap and quickly buzz each nail. They jump the first few times, but it only takes a few minutes and gives them a nice pet-icure. Ok, so that was a bad pun, but their nails are neatly trimmed and smooth from the sanding, just like a pedicure. The only thing she doesn't do is add nail polish. Hopefully she doesn't read this and decide to try that next.

Watch the RPM
We've got two Dremel tools at home. One is cordless, the other is electric. I had the cordless from a long time ago. The maximum speed on that one is only 10,000 RPM. That seems fast compared to my car motor, but it isn't fast enough to buzz our dog's nails without grabbing the nail and bumping their foot to the side. The other we have is an electric. Maximum speed on that is 35,000 RPM. At that speed, the buzzing is done before our dogs even know that my wife had selected a nail to trim. Someday soon I'll have to surprise my wife with a new cordless model that has the speed to trim nails cleanly.

Fixing scratched CD's

I've had many CD's get scratched over the years. It really annoys me when one of my favorite CD's skip, because it's always during my favorite song. I think that's part of Murphy's law - a CD will only skip during the best song of the album.

Rotary tool purchase
I originally got a cordless Dremel rotary tool in the mid 90's because it was on sale. I didn't really know what I'd use it for, but it looked fun. At some point, I noticed the felt wheels that were available and picked a few up. I didn't know how useful they'd be at the time, but looking back it was a great purchase.

Putting it to use
When I had a CD that was annoying me, I grabbed the rotary tool and put a felt wheel on it. I found that by going overboard, it was possible to actually melt the plastic on either side of the scratch and smooth it over the scratched area. Even some of the really deep scratches could be fixed this way. I don't recommend this for a simple "surface scratch", but something that won't play any longer and is going to the trash anyway can't be damaged any worse in my opinion.

Bare felt for best results
I've tried some of the polishing compounds at times, but it seems that the lack of friction makes it impossible to actually smooth over the scratch. I get the best results using it just as a bare felt pad. I use the polishing compounds only after I get the scratch pretty well smoothed over, just to make the surface shiny. When finishing it up, I have heard that linear cleaning (from the middle to the edge) is the way to go. I haven't paid much attention personally, but it makes sense.

Use at your own risk
I'm not going to replace any CD's you ruin with this method, but I have found it quite effective for my personal use. I'll have to see if I can do some before & after photos here next time I fix one.

Lower voltage batteries - a Makita secret

One of the most unusual little known facts about Makita cordless tools is that any of their pod style batteries can power a tool made to run on a higher voltage, just with a shorter runtime. This has some very interesting applications, especially buying new tools.

Keep using your old batteries
If you buy a newer Makita tool, you don't need to worry about your old batteries becoming obsolete. For example, if you had a 12V drill before and decide to buy a 14.4V impact, the 12V batteries will still work in the new tool. If you had a 14.4V drill that broke, you could buy an 18V no problem without losing the use of your old batteries.

Save money when buying additional batteries
If you want to save a few bucks on your next set of batteries, you can always buy a lower voltage. That's a unique ability. If I decide that 18V batteries cost too much, I can buy 12V or 14.4V replacements. I don't know of any other brand that is set up this way. Very useful for buying batteries for a flashlight, probably not so cool for buying batteries for my miter saw.

Borrow a battery
My neighbor has 12V Makita tools. If I'm in the middle of a job and run out of juice, I can borrow one of his for any of my 18V tools. That could be handy at times. Of course, having 4 batteries of my own means there are few instances where I'll have to borrow a battery, but it's still nice to have the option.

Reminds me of blood types
This reminds me of blood types. Having a 12V is a universal donor (Type O). Owning an 18V tool is a universal recipient (Type AB). Of course, with Lithium Ion coming out now this isn't going to be a universal technology much longer. Also, the MakStar tools don't fit in the same interchangeable line, either. It's still something cool that you can amaze your friends with. Tell them to try that with their "other brand" tools.

Getting a longer runtime for my cordless blower

There is an upcoming product announcement from one of our manufacturers which Matt has mentioned in his article "It's time to put your favorite tools on Lituium (ion)". No specifics yet, but you can probably guess who and what the announcement will be without all the details or specifics. At first, this seemed sort of like just a geeky thing to do to me. Changing battery technologies is cool and all, but for an IT guy how useful would that really be? Well, I'm having trouble deciding.

High Drain Applications
Obviously, longer runtime is a big deal for high current applications. If you only use a cordless flashlight there's not a real reason to switch, unless you're in Alaska and have those 24 hour nights and no charger. Ok, so you'll have to consider it twice there too with the charging problems with cold weather. But when you've got a geeky tool like the Makita UB181DZ which boasts a whopping 9 minute runtime, Lithium Ion may become a HUGE deal. Even if it only doubles the runtime, I could probably get all the grass clippings off of my driveway without swapping batteries.

Fewer Batteries
Right now, I have 4 batteries for my tools. I typically have to use 2 fully charged batteries for blowing off the driveway, sidewalk and patio. I have one always on my flashlight and one is usually in my drill. Being able to do the same amount of work with fewer batteries is cool on the geek meter, but is it truly practical?

Tough Choice
I'll probably get one for the blower and eventually have fewer batteries when some of my current ones start to die. By then, I should know what makes sense - longer runtime or more batteries. Once I have it figured out, I'll let you know what I decided.

The delimma is this: sometimes it's handy to have more batteries, but other times I'd love the longer runtime. I guess it comes down to how many tools do I want ready to go... and how much of an inconvenience it is to swap the batteries back and forth. That means it is subjective and it comes down to personal preference, so there is no right answer.