An Impact Driver With A Swiveling Battery
By Sean O'Hara
If the picture above is a bit confusing at first, don’t feel bad; we didn’t get it at first either. While some power tools allow you to install the battery so that it sticks out ahead of or behind the grip — Milwaukee’s V18 comes to mind — the Znex CL-3180’s battery actually rotates to face all four cardinal directions (while still installed) in order to fit into crazy-shaped nooks and crannies.
Other than the rotating battery, the CL-3180 seems like a normal cordless impact driver. Znex claims a 330 ft-lb. torque rating, and it’s got a front-mounted LED work light — like most tools in its class. It ships with two 18V NiCd batteries.
CL-3180 1/2″ Impact Wrench [Znex]
Street Pricing [Froogle]
Via Amazon [What's This?]
April 5th, 2007 at 10:33 am
I believe that the DrillMaster 18v cordless hammer drill from Harbor Freight also features this swiveling battery. At least mine did. I never figured out if that was a stock feature or if a plastic tab was missing or broken and the battery just happened to spin.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:18 am
My Ryobi right angle drill has this feature too.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:23 am
hmm just looking at ryobi’s site, looks like they added some new tools to the one+ system. Theres a home/garden sprayer, pole trimmer, hedge trimmer, and leaf blower. The sprayer sounds interesting, dont see any pricing though.
April 28th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
This would have come in handy once or twice. But I have always been able to use my corded drill to finish the project. If I didn’t already have a cordless drill I would consider getting one like this, but only if the battery could be used in other tools, like some other manufacturers.