The Most MISUNDERSTOOD Feature On Your Drill

that's very loud, so this is the clutch collar and we're going to make sure that you're totally familiar with it. We'll also do a little cutaway to show you exactly how it works mechanically on the inside so you can understand when to use it, how to use it, and how it compares from one

drill

manufacturer to another, for example, now down the road I'm going to share with you five facts. less known about the clutch, so whether you're totally new to this or have a lot of experience with power tools in general, I can guarantee there will be some here that will be new to you.

First, let's talk about when you would use the clutch, now the clutch settings depending on

your

drill

, it will have a few different drive settings, so on this one here, for example, we have the hammer mode, we turn it once and it sees a bit which is for drilling holes and then in this particular one

your

only option is then check the numbers of the graduations on your clutch now while it's in that 11:1 mode it's in controller mode so it's going to drive something, a fastener, a screw, maybe loosen something and that's what it means now, that's not it. should be confused with this little guy, this is an impact driver and its job is to be able to screw, loosen things, tighten things, it's not necessarily designed for drilling holes, but I have my own school of thought as to why this thing can be used for al

most

everything, so on the driver here just remember that the clutch should only be used if you're putting in screws or fasteners of some kind, they could be lag screws, they could be screws, something like that, maybe one of the best ways to show you this is to take these 2 and 1/2 inch screws and I'm going to drive them into this Douglas leather 4x4 and I'm going to do that on each of the 11 graduations on our collar, here we go, wow, that's terrible, so I should have done that. been much softer, took it beyond this even on the lightest setting, which is not good, that means this thing is applying too much torque even on the lightest settings, not something I'm going to recommend at all, so to show. this a little different I'm going to take that Flex again and we're going to go every two steps on this okay setting up two here we go okay setting up four six 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 and finally 24 from Kitchen Echo Dinner is ready just for show them the difference.

I'll also put it in drill mode, which means it won't back up at all. It will run flat out all the time. Let's take a look at the difference in drilling mode. so there is no clutch enabled on this one, that's the gap that was completely reduced and would have continued to the end if I had a little more time. This isn't a perfect example, but it definitely shows exactly how much torque is. applied or approximately how much torque is applied at least to each of the bolts depending on the clutch setting so again this is 2 4 6 up to 24 and then down here this one that went in exactly without clutch on that now I must admit I'm not normally someone who asks for anything about subscribers or likes or that kind of stuff, but this is year 12 for me making YouTube videos.

I currently have around 750,000 subscribers and I'm really looking forward to this year. to get to 1 million when we get to a million I will be doing power tool giveaways, tool set giveaways, other DIY product giveaways and even some cash so I hope you can join me in subscribing let's see if we can reach a million. end of 2024 after 12+ years of making YouTube videos thank you very much, the obvious question is why do you need the clutch, what are some circumstances where those clutch settings will really help you and one of the reasons is if we are doing something that's a little delicate in terms of smaller screws, so a small screw like this, for example, is one that will often require you to go all out, you don't need 1,400 inches of torque to drive this. on anything you might want to do something with the lighter clutch setting if you have a small bolt.

A great example of this is when you are installing cabinet hardware, you don't want to go too crazy because wood is usually at least a little softer and we don't need to try to remove that screw or that screw hole using too much torque when installing hinges. cup on your doors, for example, they have these pretty small and delicate little screws. both sides of the cup and those just need a pretty light touch and the clutch is perfect to make sure you don't overdo it. One I come across even more commonly, although it has pre-drilled and pre-sunk screws, so for example, I'm going to use my Milwaukee with this counter timing bit here, drill a small hole here, so I don't need a lot of torque on this , just the threads will grab a little bit, so I'm going to Take my Flex.

I'm going to turn it down to number one and make sure it's in drive mode. Here I will start with number one and work my way up from there. You always want to start with the minimum amount of torque. that you can get away with it and then work your way up until you find that sweet spot, so here we are at number one, look at that, that's al

most

perfect. I want it to go a little bit more, so I'm going to go to three here. Well, that's exactly where I want it to be, so something like this where it's countersunk and pre-drilled with a three is all I'm going to need because I'm having enough torque for the threads to grab onto the surrounding fibers of wood.

I've got my clutch. in three. I can go full speed and not worry about being really delicate because it will stop on its own. The boom fits perfectly flush every time because my clutch is in the correct position. Now let's take a look inside. the drill to see exactly how it works and this is a good time to mention our first little fun fact here, something less known, which is the pistol grip or style of drill that we know today with a trigger and everything that has been around for Approximately More than 100 years, but actually it has been more than 7 5 years since Black & Decker invented the clutch, now Black and & Decker is the company currently called Stanley Black and & Decker and they own DeWalt and Porter Cable and Craftsman and several other brands, but this is what they invented was a version of this, it hasn't changed much in all that time, that year was 1946, so this has been around a long time.

I have my trusty Harbor Freight Warrior 18vt drill here, this was my sacrifice. drill here, so I used my multi-tool here, the oscillating multi-tool, to just cut in here, so we can see this now, up here you can see I'm on the highest clutch setting, which means it's going to offer the with the highest torque or the greatest resistance. I'm going to try rotating the drill so you can see exactly what's going on. As I turn it this way, it starts to separate from the transmission area and now you see there's a big gap there. right here, between this part of the black shaft here with the threads and then the body of the drill, now that we've seen how the threaded part works here and we can see how it tightens back down here all the way, let's take this thing apart. a little further and show you the actual mechanics of how this happens, we're going to have Warrior dismantle Warrior here, so this is Warrior's impact drive and we're going to use it to disarm his first cousin, whatever that is. .

The ratio might be fine, here we go now, if we take this apart, we can see that here is the big spring that compresses and gives us that resistance when turning the clutch collar. Now this brings us to lesser known fact number three, which is the mechanics of What's inside here is basically just a spring inside that collar and then on the opposite side of that casing, there's a metal plate that has teeth that They will engage or disengage with the ball bearings inside the housing for the spring to push. the housing is closer or further away from the teeth of that metal ring and it will turn on or off depending on the amount of resistance it receives, so once it reaches that certain amount of resistance or torque it will turn off and will no longer do rotate the unit.

If you like the t-shirts I wear, I try to keep them fun and light because us DIYers have enough on our plate, let's have fun with it, so be sure to check out the links to our merchandise in the description below now that We've seen exactly how the clutch mechanism works in terms of the internal mechanics, let's talk about these numbers on the collar here and this brings me to my second lesser known fact, which is that these are completely arbitrary. They vary quite a bit from manufacturer to manufacturer and even across two different drills within the same manufacturer line, so it's something you should always keep in mind; in fact these do not represent any units, you will be hard pressed to find a manual that says the number seven is 100 in pounds of torque and the number eight is 120 in pounds of torque or something like that, these are not specific units, they are actually just arbitrary gradations between the drill's total torque capacity and the minimum amount it can produce, think of it that way as an illustration of this.

I'm going to use this Milwaukee drill to show exactly what the clutch settings will do on this one. This one has 16 clutch settings, so I'll use each of them in opposition. at the 11 I had the or 12, I guess I had the flex drill, so I'll do these 16 right next to it and you'll see that they'll line up at least a little bit differently, in fact, even if we did another one. set of flexible ones one behind the other or right next to them. You'll see a difference there so it's not always the same but as you can see here these are also a little bit different from brand to brand with flex you'll get a pretty nice one with Milwaukee it's really a little bit aggressive and then with DeWalt even more aggressive, wow, so that's the DeWalt at level one, essentially the least torque it's going to be able to produce, it was completely flush, which is crazy, so this thing is too powerful it has basically zero sensitivity, It's just a hammer.

I mean, it's like it's either all the way or not at all. Lesser known fact number four is what we've been seeing here, not only are they not specific. units assigned to these different numbers, but unfortunately there is no standard either. I've made videos before about the lack of standardization in power tools, so for example with multi-tools, the method of attaching the blade is very different across all the different types of tools. I have a spreadsheet that shows literally dozens of different types of accessories for using these oscillating multi-tools. Well this is no different, unfortunately there is no consistency even with the numbering system.

For example, we have this one here that is going up. to 11 on DeWalt and the one right next to it goes up to 24, that's a huge disparity and that's basically the range that I'm seeing on all these different types of drills and what that means is you can never look at a number and then just Assume that on that drill and any other drill you can use that same number as far as the clutch goes and the torque you get will vary each time, so always test the low crank first. with those lower numbers and then work your way up until you get the resistance you need.

Our fifth lesser known fact is that we are moving less and less towards these mechanical clutches like the one we just saw taken apart and more towards electronic clutches like you will find on these two drills here, this is the DeWalt DCd 999 and this is the Fest tool. This is a much more expensive drill but look at how it handles the clutch for example on the rear bead this is where you'll find the clutch settings so I've got this set to one right now and we're going to put a screw in and see what happens, then it stops right there, gives me a little chime, and lets me know that's all it's going to do while we move it.

Let's go to number two, see if we have much difference. In fact, we'll move on to three here just to show you and there's something pretty cool about these electronics. Wow, that went way beyond that. Well, deep down, that other one is about an e. Beneath the Surface is pretty aggressive just at level three, especially considering it's aimed at woodworkers, people who need a little more precision and accuracy in their work and it's not so much about knowing everything about the power, but rather more of the finesse, so this is In my opinion, it's not as good with Finesse when it comes to the electronic clutch, that's what you'll notice if you look at this and talk to people who use these different types of drills for their daily work .

You'll find that most people don't really like electronic clutches, they want the old school mechanical clutches because they're just more consistent, work better and give you more control, especially at those lower numbers, so that's something things to keep in mind when If you're buying a drill, you might see one with an electronic clutch and think it looks cool, it sounds new, new technology, it's cool, let's try it, but it'sYou may also be quite disappointed. Let's look at the same thing with our DeWalt DCd 999 I. I think that's what this one is, yeah, and let's see what we get.

Well oh, the bit did slide into the chuck, but only after it went back down an eighth of an inch from the surface, so not ideal now for those of you interested in having them all. of this at your fingertips to the extent thatthis information I have a pretty interesting drill

feature

s guide that you can check out right here that I have produced so that you can get it on my website and that gives you the five main

feature

s of the electric drill to make it really It's easy to figure out how to use each of them.

I like to leave mine here next to my chargers and it gives me at a quick glance everything I need to know about how to properly use my power drill. Did you know that 82% of people don't know the five features of their drill well. You can watch this video right here to see if you are at 82% or 18%. I'm Nils and I'll learn how to do it yourself, thanks for watching.