Black & Decker 18V Smart Select Drill Driver
The Black & Decker 18V Smart Select Drill Driver is the perfect home improvement and do it yourselfer drill driver for the home and garage that has plenty of power for lots of tasks.
Ease of Use, Performance: 20/25
Look & Feel: 24/25
Features 20/25
How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 88/100
The Black & Decker 18V Smart Select Drill Driver is a great home improvement or do it yourself project drill driver that uses the 18 volt battery packs for plenty of performance. The 18V Drill Driver model SS18 is a 3/8 inch chuck battery powered drill driver that uses a clutch and high torque motor to deliver performance.
The 18V Smart Select Drill Driver has an on the drill torque indicator for easy setting of the two torques and various speeds of the driver by turning the dial behind the clutch. The driver torque indicator goes from small screws up to large bits and wood bits for the lower 1 torque setting. The higher 2 speed setting has three different drill bit settings and is for higher speeds at lower torque for drilling into wood, concrete and metals.
The Model SS18C Black & Decker Smart Select Drill Driver comes with the drill itself, a two sided driver bit, a charger base, carry case and two Battery packs with a manual. The battery charger was missing from my review unit but I wanted to check out a better charger anyway so I purchased a quick charger from a local home improvement store.
The charger that comes with the unit is your basic charger with few indicators and I am not sure what the charging time would be but I know it would not be as good as the quick charger I did purchase. Having the two batteries means always having one either fully charged or in the charger getting charged so it is always nice to have the two when you purchase a new drill driver.
The 18V Smart Select Drill Driver does have one feature I wish they had not designed with the chuck, there isn’t enough room on the chuck and the ring for holding the chuck while tightening bits. There are two parts to the chuck, the chuck itself and a ring between the chuck and the ring for choosing the torque and speed of the drill that you have to hold onto when tightening and loosening the chuck.
This ring is too small at 3/4 of an inch wide for us larger handed people so when wanting to really get a drill bit snug it can be a bit of a difficulty. I have not come across this too often in the use of this drill but I used to have another drill that had this same sort of smaller ring and found a few times when I wished it was larger.
I can get used to having another drill like this as this drill is not supposed to be used as an all around drill for those really tough jobs but it is nice when they do think of everything when designing a tool. Pretty much everything else is almost perfect with the drill including the two torque and speed settings and being able to use the small pictures instead of numbers for the torque.
The drill bit that comes with the drill may not be the greatest, I can’t find mine right now but I always lose those things and find them later. The drill accepts the usual driver and drill bits up to 3/8 inch and holds them quite securely during real tough drilling like wood bits and augers through 2x6 floor joists and 4x4 beams.
I used the drill for a month or so on my current projects around my new to me home and found it worked great with plenty of power and torque for those joist beam holes for my electric wiring. I did some work in the garage building a step and installing some support beams and found the battery had a good amount of power.
I drove in about 30 screws that are 3 1/2 inches long through two 2x4’s to build my step with railing and uprights that will be part of the upstairs storage of my garage. I also did some drilling of holes in the wood so I would not split some of the shorter 2x4 pieces as well as other drilling and driving using the same charge without losing power.
The battery holds its charge well for a decent job and you do have the second one which you should always have ready and on hand doing any jobs. The Black & Decker 18V Smart Select Drill Driver had no problem driving in six inch screws using a square head bit fully into two stacked 4x4 beams.
I also did a couple of jobs in the attic with the drill including drilling out a couple of four inch holes in my exterior wall that went through the three layers of wood and siding easily. I have done some work in my basement drilling holes for electrical lines using a 1/2 inch wood bit and had no problems getting the bits to hold and drill through the wooden floor joists.
The drill is your usual cordless drill and the battery easily slips on and off using a quick button release for easy battery changes. The drill has a battery level indicator on the base of the drill above the battery which you can press to see the current battery level on a three LED indicator.
The drill has the through the body direction and middle stop button as well as a good trigger for ease of use while working with and without work gloves and even the release for the battery is easy to use with gloves on. The SS18C 18V Smart Select Drill Driver from Black & Decker is a great drill driver for all those projects around the home or for lighter work on the job but this would not be a tough workhorse for a contractor or jobsite.
I found the 18V Smart Select Drill Driver from Black & Decker a great do it yourself project tool and household drill driver for all those tough and simple jobs.