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Another feature of the C12 gearbox is the integral
shaft-lock to assist in bit changing. The motor can
rotate the drill chuck, but the drill chuck cannot
rotate the motor. With the shaft-lock, you can
tighten the chuck as hard as you want, and the
gearbox will hold fast.
Conclusion
I'm not big on drawing conclusions for others to
follow. I am more comfortable writing fact-based
information. So instead, I will use this space to
provide some of the opinion-based information I
came across during my examination. It might be
a hodge-podge of ideas, but I guess that's what
opinions are supposed to be.
I first saw a cutaway model of the C12 at the
AWFS trade show in Las Vegas this summer (see
the cutaway picture on page 2). I was so
fascinated with the idea that a 3-phase motor was
being used in a battery operated tool that I
volunteered to write this technical review and
give it to Festool without taking a fee for my
work.
With technology this cutting-edge, I knew there
would be a lot of people that were not yet
familiar with it (including myself). Besides, I was
dying for a chance to tear this drill apart to see
how it worked (I am a card-carrying member of
tool-junkies anonymous).
While it wasn't very scientific, one of the first
things I did when the drill arrived was to try to
drive a 4-inch screw into a block of wood; except
I wanted to see what would happen at ultra-
ultra-low speed—about 1 revolution per second.
I carefully held the trigger in a fixed position so
the bit was spinning at a constant speed, and
then started the screw into the wood. I can't even
begin to tell you just how blown away I was
when the drill kept plodding along until the
entire 4-inch screw was sunk into the wood. I
tried the same thing with one of my other drills,
and it stalled after just 1 inch.
Oh by the way, I wasn’t doing this in low-gear
like you would expect. The drill was in high-
gear! The motor appears to deliver a constant
torque at any speed or load. However, without
seeing the schematic of the motor's electronic
controller I cannot state this as fact, so I am
leaving it as just my opinion.
My excitement just kept escalating from there on.
So the next thing I did was build a dynamometer
so I could compare the power of this 12-volt drill
against several 14 and 18-volt drills I bought at
my local home center.
Unfortunately, when the three most popular
drills on the market (names withheld) started
smoking under my dynamometer's load, I
decided it would not be wise to publish this data,
lest I wanted a lawsuit. However, I found it very
curious that the only drills with torque curves
higher than the C12 were also the ones that
allowed their motors to self-destruct.
I could have legitimately published the rest of
the data, and throw out outlying data because
the drills destroyed themselves to achieve their
results. Instead, I decided to throw out the entire
test, because trying to explain the outliers might
have sounded like I was playing games with the
data; and I refuse to publish anything that
sounds misleading.
Finally, there are a lot of intangibles about this
drill that don’t fit neatly into a technical review.
Here are some other quick observations:
► The motor is extremely smooth and quiet;
noticeably so over other cordless drills.
► The drill is perfectly balanced, with the center
of balance right over the trigger—you can
balance the drill on your index finger.
► Even with the largest optional batteries, the
drill is still very light.
► Changing batteries is very easy because the
batteries slide in from the front, and the latches
don't need to support the weight of the battery
like most other drills.
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