The technology of Brushless Motors has made a huge impact on the power tool world. While they bring a slight premium in price vs traditional brushed motors the performance benefits have been huge! For cordless the is even more prevalent because of the simple fact they require less energy so the run time can be much better because they are so much more efficient. Brushless motors however have started to make their way into corded model power tools as we are seeing here in the new line of Metabo Brushless Rotary Hammers. Where the power efficiency is not really a concern in corded tools why add the expense of brushless motor?
There are several other important features of brushless motors that make them superior other than just battery runtime. These motors are more efficiency and require less servicing which is key for high demand tools like grinders and rotary hammers. As a warranty service center for most tool brands, repaired tens of thousands of tools we see a lot of bad things happen when tools are pushed to their limits while the brushes are worn down and needed replaced. This is when tools loose power or slow down, often there are clear warning signs of problems but keep getting pushed anyway to get the job done, as car with worn screeching breaks or low oil light blinking these are times to take it to the service center. The brushless motors are more efficient, the run better, often with less heat created, and just run for much much longer without issues.
What Brushless in this case does not deliver on is much more power which is typically what people are looking for in Rotary Hammers, what’s the impact energy and in this case for their 1-9/16” version the KHEV 5-40 BL is at about 8.7 J while their own brush version 1-9/16” KH 5-40 is nearly the same at 8.5 J which is a great hammer and value. At 50% higher cost is brushless worth it if the power is so close?
This lineup also features some very advanced technology in Vibration Control, Metabo VibraTech (MVT). As you see in the video it’s not just a dampening handle that reduces vibration (which they do have) but an internal counter balance mechanism as well that takes significant movement out of the tool, comparing the two Metabo hammers above drops vibration from 16.5 m/s² to 10.8 m/s² allowing for much longer safe usage in a work day.
The Big Question: Is it worth it to pay more for Brushless in Corded Hammer?
We say it depends on what you are doing and how much you use your rotary hammer. If it’s just occasionally used for short periods, probably not as Metabo makes very nice brushed hammers as well. For a heavy user that runs the tool daily for multiple hours, YES these brushless hammers will very likely outlast their competition as well as their own counterparts. The anti-vibration system MVT is among the best we’ve seen and these hammers feature a lot of other technology which make them superior S-automatic Clutch (in all Metabo hammers), overload protection, electronic soft-start, restart protection (after trip), options power reduction for working in sensitive areas and a bunch more. Basically if you are going through hammers and really think you should be getting more from a rotary hammers we’re going to point you at the Metabo Brushless Hammers and we’ve seem very positive results.
Comments