cordless drill for raising popup roof

[campfire joe]

Originally Posted by Bob414

My popup has a square shaft to raise the roof. Is there a commercial adapter to connect it of a cordless drill?

I have a impact driver, but would not recommend it for raising the roof, to much jerking and noise. Also, remember that true impact sockets are 6 pt., 12 pt sockets will eventually round the head of the bolt if applying a lot of torque and not all 6 pt sockets are rated for impact use.

Bob

mine has a square shaft too. the adapter i bought is from , custom cylinders international inc. the adapter is a socket jenie lvsg-625. the square 7/8th end fits in the square winch slot.

[Villagerjjm]

Originally Posted by campfire joe

So i'm trying to make things a little easier on myself. Thinking about buying a 1/2" cordless drill and adapter to raise my popup's roof. For all you who use a cordless drill for this what power drill is your drill? Been looking at getting a 18 volt. Will this do it? obviously the size of everyone's roof will effect what type of drill to get. My rockwood 2318g's roof is 12' L by about 85" wide. Thanks

Get a nice Dewalt when it is on sale. Adjustable chuck so you do not “overdue” anything.

[Gotagonow]

SimiHal above had a good suggestion - get an impact driver. I used a cordless drill for a couple of years; worked just fine except that most (all) cordless drills have a keyless hand-tightening method to hold the bit. You can tighten it enough. It works fine in one direction, but in reverse the bit falls out. For a little more money you can get an impact driver where the bit snaps in and stays put.

Also a safety suggestion: DW was raising a stabilizer and thought the bit wasn't snug, so she leaned in for a better look. The stabilizer hit the top and the drill handle spun around and smacked her up side the head. I didn't realize my wife knew some of those words.

[Gotagonow]

PS you can buy the impact driver socket for campers from Amazon.

[campfire joe]

Originally Posted by Gotagonow

PS you can buy the impact driver socket for campers from Amazon.

That's probably true, but i try not to buy from Amazon if i can help it. Anybody who makes 13 billion in one day can do without my business. In post #21 i posted that i bought it from Custom cylinders international. Think it was $25.00.

[USMC0311]

I use a cordless drill on my stabilizers without any issues, anything similar should be ok.

[campfire joe]

Originally Posted by USMC0311

I use a cordless drill on my stabilizers without any issues, anything similar should be ok.

Yep i have always used a cordless drill on the stabilizers. My question was dealing with using a cordless for the winch to raise the roof. Sounds like from everyone's responses that 18 volt 1/2 drill will do the job.

[Bob414]

Not all drills are made the same, tried the top rated Borsh 18 V from Lowes. And it would not even start raising my 10 ft box. Use the Ryobi standard drill, and got half way up before it stopped, I suspect a heat issue somewhere (drill or battery). Let it cool a few seconds and it would make a few turns and stop again. Got the upgrade torque drill from Home Depot, it preformed better, but still has a problem stopping before fully raising the roof, but does have the side handle for control.

PS: All drills were on low speed setting. Using 4A lipo batteries.

Bob

[campfire joe]

Originally Posted by Bob414

Not all drills are made the same, tried the top rated Borsh 18 V from Lowes. And it would not even start raising my 10 ft box. Use the Ryobi standard drill, and got half way up before it stopped, I suspect a heat issue somewhere (drill or battery). Let it cool a few seconds and it would make a few turns and stop again. Got the upgrade torque drill from Home Depot, it preformed better, but still has a problem stopping before fully raising the roof, but does have the side handle for control.

PS: All drills were on low speed setting. Using 4A lipo batteries.

Bob

Bob i ended up getting a Makita 18 volt and 2 lit ion batteries. Probably will give it a try next week in my driveway before we go camping the following week.

[rsdata]

simiHal

has enough torque to remove my lug nuts, plus it’ll drive & remove my 3/8 x 10” lag bolts I use as ground stakes

If you need to replace or add to those ground stakes, I use these SPAX from HD which get a great bite into the ground... I have 6" 8" and 10" for different situations.

These can dig into the ground and hold well...

[CentralCoast_Angler]

I bought one of the socket adapters to raise & lower the roof of my old Coleman with a drill. And the shank of the socket wasn’t long enough (the crank was recessed inside the rear bumper). So the longer the shaft, the better. [thats what she said]

[rsdata]

So the longer the shaft, the better

always better longer rather then shorter

[Bhrava]

I have an old Porter Cable, it is about 20 years old, and the batteries were about shot, and all I found were the NiMh packs, no more Lithium. Was not happy because the drill is one powerful Sumbuck. I found on Amazon a pair of aftermarket lithium packs for what the one PC NiMh pack sells for and tried them out. Happy feet.

I used to do woodworking and PC was a great brand for tools, what happened? Hard to find good tools anymore. I finally broke down and got a cordless set for the trailer, found a Bostitch set, 1/2" drill and 3/8" impact. So far so good, did everything I needed for the trailer. Problem I have now, as with the PC above, hard to find batteries for it.

One other thing to be watchful of, the tool companies like to change up production every other year or so, which means they change the battery packs. Milwaukee did that a while back. They had a set of tools that shared the same pack, so people bought up these tool kits, then Milwaukee went and "upgraded" the tools which uses a totally different battery pack making the old set obsolete.

So point here, if you find a battery powered tool you like, stock up on batteries!

[rsdata]

One other thing to be watchful of, the tool companies like to change up production every other year or so, which means they change the battery packs. Milwaukee did that a while back. They had a set of tools that shared the same pack, so people bought up these tool kits,

this has not happened with HomeDepot supported Ryobi... same battery packs now for like 8+ years with over 175 tools that they fit... and they claim they will keep up support for this for a long time...

I probably have 20 tools from Ryobi, a 6 port charger and about 10 various sized batteries from 1.5 Ah to 6 Ah, and have only had 1 battery pack go bad in all these years

newest tool below I got and very powerful

[bondo1954]

I used a 20 volt DeWalt with my old Coleman. tried several different 18 volt but none seemed to have the guts needed.

[campfire joe]

Originally Posted by bondo1954

I used a 20 volt DeWalt with my old Coleman. tried several different 18 volt but none seemed to have the guts needed.

Well i guess i'll see if the new 18 volt makita i just bought will work. Most of the responses on here said their 18 volts worked. Next week i plan to set my camper up in my driveway to check things over before i go on my next trip. So i'll know if it will work before i go. If it doesn't i'll just crank it up like i have the past 6 years.

[campfire joe]

just to follow up on this thread. Used my 18 volt Makita today for driveway set up and it easily raised my camper's roof. so unless i forget my drill when i go camping my hand cranking days are done.