And in the office, it is important to purchase the right set of power tools. An electrician has to do construction work, such as: chasing walls for cables, drilling through holes for laying a line, holes for installing sockets, switches, etc. All these works are united by the need to make a selection of the material from which the walls, floor or ceiling are made. To do this, use drills with a percussion mechanism or perforators. Let's see how they differ and which is better to choose: an impact drill or a hammer drill?

Hammer drill

It differs from the usual built-in mechanism for making translational movements - strikes. Their cartridges are similar in design, look and work the same. To hold the working equipment, drills, for example, three-jaw chucks are used. This design shifts the cams towards each other during rotation of the outer holder of the chuck, with the help of which the drill is clamped.

The picture below shows the internal structure of the tool:

There are two modes for operation:

1. drilling.
2. Impact drilling.

The impact mechanism is implemented using a ratchet from a movable and stationary ring with teeth on one side. This mechanism does not involve longitudinal movement over a long distance - the amplitude of the movement of the drill is within a couple of millimeters, and its energy depends on the pressing force of the impact drill against the wall and is within units of Joules (J). That is, it rather does not hit, but vibrates into the material being processed.

Perforator

The main difference between a hammer drill and an impact drill is the design of the impact mechanism. It can be electromechanical and electropneumatic. The latter is found in most models of the modern market.

The principle of operation is as follows: the electric motor rotates the gear of the gearbox, on the output shaft of which a swinging or, as it is also called, drunken bearing (1) is fixed. It drives the piston along the cylinder. As a result, the piston interacts with the ram (2), which hits the striker (3), transferring energy to the equipment installed in the SDS cartridge (4). In this way, greater energy and depth of impact is achieved.

Interesting: with a similar power, the impact energy of a perforator is 2 or more times higher than the impact energy of an impact drill, which is more suitable for concrete.

The second difference between a hammer drill and a drill with a percussion mechanism is the way the drills are attached to the chuck. If in the previous version cam chucks were used, here SDS chucks are used. You cannot install an ordinary drill in them - only special drills with an appropriate shank. There should be 4 slots in it, which in pairs have different diameters, they are needed to hold the snap.

To install conventional drills in an SDS chuck, you can install an adapter on a cam chuck, but in this case it will not be possible to achieve high quality drilling due to runout.

It is also worth noting that there are two types of shanks and cartridges:

What is the difference

To sum up, to understand what is better than a hammer drill or hammer drill, let's compare the general characteristics. We assume that the power is the same. Then the rotary hammer will have about 800-1000 rpm, and the drill will have 2500-3000 rpm, the torque differs similarly.

Typical impact energy depending on the model within:

• Impact drill - small, determined by pressing against the wall. The amplitude of the longitudinal movement of the drill is also small.
• Perforator - 0.5-27 J.

Tooling:

• Impact drill - for crowns and drills of various configurations with a cylindrical shank.
• Perforator - drills, chisels, crowns with an SDS shank. When installing an adapter on a cam chuck, it is possible to install any equipment from drills and screwdrivers.

Operating modes:

• Impact drill - drilling without impact and drilling with impact.
• Perforator - drilling, drilling with a blow, only blows.

The cost of devices of the same power at the time of writing:

• The cheapest hammer drill on Yandex.Market is 800 rubles, 400 watts.
• The cheapest puncher - 1839 rubles, 400 W, 1.5 J.

What is better to buy and where to apply

We have considered the general structure of these tools, now let's move on to work in everyday life. For example, we have compiled a selection of tasks that are encountered by an electrician and an ordinary builder.

1. and distribution boxes. This procedure is performed using a crown. Different crowns are used for wood, brick and concrete. For concrete, tooling with victorious soldering or diamond coating is used. It is performed without impact, so both a conventional and impact drill or hammer drill will do.
2. Drilling blind holes in hard materials. When drilling concrete and brick, you need a blow, both versions of the tool are suitable, and for through ones - only a puncher.
3. - performed with a puncher with a chisel or a wall chaser. The hammer in this case is switched on in the "only blows" mode.
4. Chiseling niches under the shields - only a perforator.

If you look at a number of tasks that both of these tools solve, you can come to the conclusion that it is better to take both. For a home to drill a hole in the wall a couple of times a year and hang a picture, for example, it is worth choosing a good impact drill rather than a bad hammer drill. For repairs with a limited budget, a rotary hammer will be a more versatile solution. It is not entirely objective to talk about “what is better ...”, because these are different tools, although they are used for similar tasks.

We hope the material provided has helped you decide what is best for you: an impact drill or a hammer drill. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments below the article!

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