Over on Twitter, Tom Ellison asked about Ridgid’s new 18V brushless drill. Or is it a brushless hammer drill? Either way, there’s a new brushless drill coming to market, and it’s got Ridgid’s name on it.
Shown above is a new AEG 18V brushless drill that was recently released. TTI has brought numerous AEG tool designs to the USA, but there have been some holdbacks. For example, AEG came out with a brushless hammer drill that never made it to the USA under Ridgid branding, nor have we seen AEG’s 12V interchangeable chuck drill/driver set.
The photo Tom shared (link above) was of a magazine scan, so I can’t post it here. It’s also a little dark. If I had to guess, I’d say the new Ridgid brushless drill will look a lot like either the AEG drill (above) or hammer drill (below).
The new brushless drill, or drills if there will be both standard and hammer versions, will likely launch into Ridgid’s 18V Gen5X lineup, which kicked off earlier this year. The battery platform isn’t any different than before, but the tools have been updated, hence the new styling and product family.
AEG’s 18V brushless drills look to be compact, and their product descriptions boast about short they are. They are also powerful, and it’s safe to assume that users will see longer runtime compared to when using comparably classed brushed motor tools. The same is usually true of bushless drills.
So what do you think? Would you buy a premium Ridgid 18V brushless drill?
Ryobi also recently came out with a new 18V One+ brushless drill (overseas), and we’ve seen good indication that Porter Cable is joining the brushless arena as well. There’s room for one more.
Whereas we probably won’t see the Ryobi brushless drill here in the States, because the price point would be uncharacteristically high for the brand, Ridgid’s higher level tier would allow for a more premium brushless drill.
We’ll give you an update once we know more. In the meantime, should you happen to find more info before us, please let us know!