An Impact Driver With A Swiveling Battery

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?]
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.
My Ryobi right angle drill has this feature too.
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.
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.