We got the Makita 6095DWBLE 9.6-Volt, 3/8" Cordless Drill/Driver Kit with Flashlight a few years ago as a gift. At the time the drill was listed as the "Most Popular Jobsite Drill," so we had high expectations. Sad to say, we were disappointed with the drill, but we didn't mind too much because it came with a GREAT FLASHLIGHT and the charger fit our other batteries.


About the driver drill

The drill has a standard upside-down "L" shape. It measures about 9 inches from front to back and 10 inches from top to bottom. The top section has the keyless chuck and motor. Underneath it is a long, straight handle (about 2-1/2" deep by 1-1/2" across) with a trigger in front and a rubber comfort grip along the back. The rechargeable NiMH (nickel metal hydride) battery is about 7" long and slides into the handle from the bottom, where it is held in place by a big metal clip. The battery takes up the whole handle and when it's not in, the drill feels top heavy.

Operating the drill is pretty simple. There is a switch to put the drill into forward or reverse (controlling the direction of the spin). Pressing the trigger turns the drill on. There is a knob that switches the drill speed from high to low.

One feature of this drill is that it allows you to adjust the fastening torque to one of 6 settings. In the 5 main settings, the clutch is designed to slip when you reach the specified torque. This allows you to tighten fastenings to a specific torque and prevents you from damaging fastenings by torqueing them too much. If you don't realize that the lower settings deliberately have the drill stop when it reaches the specified level of resistance, then you can be frustrated if you have it on those settings when trying to use the tool for something where you don't want it to slip, such as drilling, as it seems to give up right when you want it to dig in. The drill has a 6th setting that is meant to be used for drilling. In this setting the clutch won't slip.

The keyless chuck accepts 3/8" drill bits. Turning the ring in front tightens or loosens the grippers. (Instead of turning the ring, my husband just holds it and makes the drill spin to do the work of tightening or loosening the grippers. I can't get the hang of that, so I do it the slow way and turn the ring by hand.)

What we think of the driver drill

It's not a great drill, but it's okay. My husband would give it 4 stars (I'd give it 3-1/2).

IT'S HEAVY AND BULKY. I have small hands and tend to hold it with both: one gripping the handle/pressing the trigger and the other underneath the front helping to aim and support it.

We'd already had a 12volt Makita Cordless Impact Driver 6916, which we really liked. We used it for driving screws and drilling holes. Theoretically, a driver drill should have been better for drilling since the clutch won't slip, but this drill just doesn't seem to have as much power as we expected. (I should mention that this drill probably had more power than the old Black and Decker cordless we used to have, but just not as much as we'd hoped from a high-end tool. For difficult jobs, we would have needed to use a more powerful drill.) We found ourselves going back to the impact driver for drilling, since it could handle both easy and difficult jobs. The impact driver was also lighter and more comfortable to hold. Unlike the driver drill, I could easily use it one handed.

My husband doesn't like the keyless chuck. It tends to jam and he would sometimes have to fight with it to get his bits out.


About the flashlight

The flashlight is great. We'd give it 5 stars. It stands about 12-1/2 inches and weighs just slightly more than the battery, which slides into the handle the same way as in the drill. The light head is almost 2-1/2 inches in diameter. It is attached to the handle by a hinge that allows the light to be set in one of 4 positions. A simple button turns the light on or off. There are also places where you can attach a carrying strap.

Why we like the flashlight

The light is bright. The batteries are rechargeable. It's solid, but not heavy. The flashlight has a slightly wide base that makes it stable in the upright position (it won't easily fall over). The fact that the head can be set at different angles is great for aiming it at whatever you are working on. It's perfect for working on: plumbing under the sink, the back of a large appliance, wiring in a dark crawlspace...


About the batteries and charger

Two rechargeable NiMH batteries come with the kit, even though the labels on the drill and flashlight say that they use NiCd (nickel cadmium) batteries. I assume that the tools were originally sold with NiCd batteries, but that NiMH batteries were later developed for them. This is really good because NiMH batteries hold a charge longer and are better for the environment. NiCd batteries are safe to use, but you can't just toss them in the trash when you no longer need them. Cadmium is poisonous and in a landfill it will leach out of the batteries and contaminate the ground water, etc.

We recently tested the flashlight by putting in a fully charged battery and leaving it on. We noticed that over time the light starts to dim. After a few hours it's still reasonably bright, but by 4-1/2 hours the light was significantly dimmer--dim enough that most folks would change the batteries. I would guess that you could get maybe 4 hours of decent light out of a single, fully charged battery. We then put the depleted battery in the charger and it took about 50 minutes to fully charge.

The charger was a pleasant surprise. Even though the drill and flashlight use a 9.6volt battery, the charger can also be used for other voltages. It can handle 7.2, 9.6, 12 and 14volt batteries (either NiMH or NiCd). This meant that the batteries for our 12volt impact driver would also fit in this charger. Suddenly we had a spare charger that could work on the batteries for either tool. (If we'd wanted to buy one, the charger alone would have cost around $45 to $80).


What the kit contains
The kit comes with:
-a nice, hard-plastic carrying case
-2 NiMH batteries
-a battery charger
-ML902 flashlight
-6095 driver drill
(it might have also included a strap for the flashlight, but if it did, we accidentally threw it out)


For more Information

John Swensen has an article on how to repair the 6095 drill
http://home.comcast.net/~jaswensen/machines/drill/drill.html

For information on NiMH, NiCd and other rechargeable batteries, go to:
http://is.med.ohio-state.edu/policies/battery.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride_battery

If you are interested in reading my review of the Makita 6916 Cordless Impact Driver, go to:
http://www.epinions.com/content_115430231684

Recommended: Yes