Makita SDS suggestions

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I'm fed up of not being able to drill into concrete lintels and concrete blocks. I tried drilling into a lintel last month. This month I'm trying to drill through concrete blocks to install a 2-gang socket to replace the single socket. My DHP480 and multiconstruction bits aren't managing to penetrate more than 20mm. An electrician breezed through the wall with his SDS when he was wiring in an alarm system.


I see some of the Makita drills come with a dust collector, which might help me avoid poncing about with the vacuum cleaner. Ultimately, I've already got two 18V 4Ah batteries so I was looking at a cordless/barebones model.

What should I be looking at buying?
 
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I see some of the Makita drills come with a dust collector, which might help me avoid poncing about with the vacuum cleaner. Ultimately, I've already got two 18V 4Ah batteries so I was looking at a cordless/barebones model.

What should I be looking at buying?
If you want an 18 volt cordless with a dust extractor you need to look at something like the DHR242 with the DX01 clip-on extractor. There are other models available, but that's the kit I've used for about 4 years now. Pretty much replaced the need for a corded SDS drill in my life
 
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There may be, but whilst on paper it looks to have similar performance to the DHR202 (my previous cordless SDS), in the real world the two are poles apart in performance and battery life terms. The 242 is sufficiently powerful that I have drilled many dozens of 16mm holes into sandstone for resin anchors plus countless 5.5, 6, 7 and 8mm holes in everything from lightweight block work to engineering brick and high density concrete. The DX, when I use it (inside finished buildings), is reasonable, but not stellar. Saves a lot of vacuuming up after tasks, however it does use a lot of battery power - turning a 5Ah battery into more like a 3Ah one in terms of run time. It was good enough for me to sell my 2kg corded Bosch SDS (although I still have an older, extra heavy duty Atlas-Copco for bigger tasks)
 
The downside of using a vacuum is that it restricts mobility quite a lot - the hose has a tendency to pull you off line as well as tire you out (with the effort of lifting the extra weight, especially when dealing with ceilings or above shoiulder level) and most domestic vacuums have neither sufficiently good filtration nor a long enough hose to be anything other than a noisy distraction, I've found. Commercial vacuums (class L or class M) tend to have sufficient filtration as well as having long enough hoses to drill at ground/shoulder level, although when drilling high up walls (such as on a step ladder) or into ceilings the hoses are often still too short
 
I bought the DHR242. Good machine. Made light work of drilling through concrete and much better than a combi on hammer setting. The DX01 was nowhere to be found. I normally buy all my stuff from FFX. Another site, fastfix, had the DX01 in stock so I ordered it from there. They rang to say it was no longer available and had been superceded by the DX06, which explains why I couldn't find the DX01 anywhere.

The DX06 clips on well and makes it feel like part of the machine. It runs for a few seconds after I let go of the trigger. I drilled only two holes in concrete but there was zero dust on the floor. Cleaning out the dust extractor was easy too. The only downside to it IMO is the plastic adjustable depth guide which feels a bit too flimsy and requires trial-and-error to get the right depth.
 
I bought the DHR242. Good machine. Made light work of drilling through concrete and much better than a combi on hammer setting. The DX01 was nowhere to be found. I normally buy all my stuff from FFX. Another site, fastfix, had the DX01 in stock so I ordered it from there. They rang to say it was no longer available and had been superceded by the DX06, which explains why I couldn't find the DX01 anywhere.

The DX06 clips on well and makes it feel like part of the machine. It runs for a few seconds after I let go of the trigger. I drilled only two holes in concrete but there was zero dust on the floor. Cleaning out the dust extractor was easy too. The only downside to it IMO is the plastic adjustable depth guide which feels a bit too flimsy and requires trial-and-error to get the right depth.
Never used a depth gauge, far easier to mark bit with a permanent marker if you need a specific depth.
 

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