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Denali 673135 14.4V Cordless 3/8-Inch Drill/Driver Kit

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Denali 673135 14.4V Cordless 3/8-Inch Drill/Driver Kit

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The Denali 14.4-Volt Drill/Driver Kit was designed with the home user in mind. This drill kit is compact and lightweight, yet it's loaded with many of features that professionals demand, like a 2-speed motor with brake for easy screwing and drilling. This kit is ideal for the home, shop, apartment, condo, college dorm, cabin, or RV. Includes two batteries, a charger, and two double- ended screw driving bits with on-board storage. Comes packed in an easy-to-carry nylon storage bag.
What's in the Box
Two double-ended screwdriver bits with on-board storage, one charger, two batteries, and a nylon carrying/storage bag.
The Denali Story
Named after the tallest mountain range in North America, Denali tools stand above the rest in providing an exceptional blend of quality craftsmanship, professional-grade features, and customer value. All homeowners, hobbyists, do-it-yourselfers, and price-conscious contractors will appreciate Denali’s design and functionality. Denali products compliment one another and will be an indispensable and long-lasting addition to any home or workshop. Our products undergo rigorous third-party testing to ensure high performance standards. Denali tools are available exclusively on Amazon.com.

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Product Details

Package Length:	13.4 inches
Package Width:	12.5 inches
Package Height:	10.4 inches
Package Weight:	8.45 pounds
Average Customer Rating:	based on 2 reviews

Features

Denali 14.4-Volt Cordless 3/8-Inch Drill/Driver Kit features powerful 2-speed motor with brake (0 to 400/0 to 1150/min)
17 torque settings, 3/8-inch Jacobs keyless chuck
Forward and reverse action; soft grip
Includes two double-ended screwdriver bits with on-board storage, one Denali charger, two Denali batteries, and a nylon carrying/storage bag
1-year warranty

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 4.5

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15 of 15 found the following review helpful:

A great product for the price! Dec 20, 2007
I recently took a chance and purchased this Denali 14.4-volt cordless drill/driver, despite the lack of reviews. So far, I've been pleasantly surprised.

I used to own a 14.4v Black & Decker Quantum Pro drill/driver. Actually, I still do. Unfortunately, my home was burglarized a while back and the numbskulls took the battery and charger but left the drill. (The things they took compared to the things they left boggles me to this day...but that's unrelated to this review.) To replace the battery and charger would have cost more than buying this unit, and this one comes with TWO batteries. That was the clinching point for me, as I often would start to use my B&D and find that the battery didn't have a lot of charge left in it. I suppose I should explain why I didn't just leave the battery on the charger, and I will later on in this review. There are a lot of caveats to Ni-Cad batteries, and I'll bore you ad nauseum with them in a bit. But for now, back to the review:

The unit has two-speed gearing (400 RPM and 1150RPM max) and a true variable-speed trigger. This is a big plus...most inexpensive units have a two-speed trigger or even just an on/off trigger. The variable-speed trigger means that you can turn a screw at just a few RPM if you need the torque or want the precision. Speaking of torque, the torque clutch has 17 settings. (My B&D had 24, but I can't really see an appreciable difference.) For those that don't know, a torque clutch will slip when the rotational force (torque) becomes too great, and it will stop spinning the bit (it will instead make a loud clacking sound as the motor continues to turn but the bit doesn't). This usually happens when the screw's head finally hits the surface that it's being screwed into, and the clutch keeps you from either over-torquing and stripping the screw hole or continuing to spin the bit once the screw has stopped and stripping the screw head. There's a drill setting that doesn't allow any slip for when you're actually using drill bits with it.

I used this unit this weekend to assemble a platform bed. It performed flawlessly. At first there was that "new electric smell"...new motors often smell a bit until they break in. After a few uses it was gone, and it never gave me a lick of trouble on this project.

The main reason I bought this unit despite the lack of reviews is because Denali is Amazon's own brand for tools that they source elsewhere. They warranty the unit for 12 months, and getting a replacement/refund is as easy as calling Amazon's customer service number. I figured that Amazon must have researched the items that they were going to put their name on (okay, put the *Denali* name on) so that they wouldn't sully their reputation. In this case, that assumption seems to be true. I've seen a number of off-brand imported drill/drivers before, and the build quality of this one is obvious.

It's very well-balanced, and it's fairly lightweight (which is one reason I stay away from the 18v models). I also like the canvas bag that holds the tool, the two batteries and the charger. My B&D had a hard plastic case, and it was way bulkier than this canvas bag.

I highly recommend it, especially given the price.

Okay, so much for the review of this unit. Now, here's way more than you ever wanted to know about Ni-Cad batteries:

You should never leave Ni-Cad (aka Nickel-cadmium or NiCd) batteries on the charger indefintely, as doing so will greatly shorten their life. There are two reasons for this: 1) Batteries on the charger get hot, and heat shortens their life; and 2) the batteries will charge up, then lose some of their capacity, then charge back up again. This is bad. It's called a memory-effect, and it happens when you recharge the battery repeatedly after only using a portion of the available charge. Leaving the battery on the charger is the worst thing you can do, as they discharge only a few percent and then charge back to a full state again. Likewise you shouldn't use the tool for a few minutes and then put it back on the charger. Eventually the batteries "remember" this small capacity swing, and then that's all the capacity they'll ever give you. You'll pull the battery off of the charger one day and find you can only drive three screws before it's dead. It's best to drain them to about 20% of empty (you'll hear the drill start to slow down, and you should stop using it at that point), then fully recharge them and promptly remove them from the charger. NiCads lose about 10% of their charge within 24 hours, then about 1% per day while in storage, so you should charge them about every two months at a minimum. If you do so, they'll probably last you up to about five years. You'll get maybe two years of life out of one if you discharge it every day. However, if you leave them on the charger or routinely charge them when they're barely discharged, their life will be greatly shortened...sometimes to the point where you'll have to replace them within a year. And if you ever let them *fully* discharge (to zero volts), even once, they will probably never take a charge again. (The manual makes reference to never leaving the drill running unattended with the trigger taped down, as it could permanently damage the battery. Has someone actually done this?)

So, the ideal situation with Ni-Cads that you don't use very often is to have two batteries. The goal is to alternate charging them, never letting one go uncharged for more than two months. If you rarely use them, charge them both every two months but make sure one of them is a month out of sync with the other. In other words, charge battery A in January, B in February, A in March, etc. When you go to use tool, use the 'older' battery, the one that was charged the longest time ago. If it dies on you, you've still got the other one to fall back on that should have a very good charge. If you use them fairly regularly, just keep using the one battery until it's starting to lose power, then swap it for the other one and repeat as needed.

There's a way to make a Ni-Cad hold a charge much longer and extend it's lifetime too: Store it in a refrigerator. The colder temperatures slow down the breakdown and crystallization of chemicals within the batteries, which means they'll naturally discharge slower and will last many times longer. A freshly-charged Ni-Cad stored in a refrigerator may still have 75% of it's power available after six months, and those six months will only take days off of the lifetime of the battery. The problem is that you can't use the batteries when they're cold or their output, capacity and life will suffer, so you have to let them slowly warm up to room temperature over a few hours before you can use them. This really only makes sense for people that almost never use their batteries, because otherwise you might as well have just put them on the charger for a few hours before using them. But if you rarely use your batteries, you might extend their life by decades by using this method. You should still recharge them about once a year, and you need to let them come to room temperature before putting them on the charger.

In the case of this model, you can charge a low battery in three hours according to the manual (five if it's severely discharged, which you should never let happen). Unless you're building a deck or something, the other battery should last you plenty long enough to recharge the first one. And if you're planning on building a deck, go ahead and charge up both batteries the night before...it takes more than one partial charge to cause the memory-effect in a Ni-Cad.)

Sorry about all of the Ni-Cad info...I guess it's just been building up inside of me for a lot of years and I finally found an outlet for it.

6 of 6 found the following review helpful:

Denali Cordless Nov 12, 2007
Haven't heard of Denali, but seemed like a lot for the money. Have used it a couple of times now for minor projects and have no complaints. It does what I need it to do.