Are 12V corded power tools a thing?

[akio123008]

I'm wondering if there are power tools that can (and are meant to) run from a 12 or 24V DC power source, such as a car battery. (so not one that has it's own (removable)batteries)

 

It seems to me that these machines would be quite useful to people working from trucks or other vehicles at remote locations without power etc. There just has to be someone who has a 12 or 24V DC drill on the market, but I haven't been able to find one. 

 

What would such a tool be called? What search term do I use?

[harryk]

Cordless tools are so good now that I don't see any real advantage to having 12V corded power tools. If you need more power, 12V is going to be the limitation.

 

There are some corded low voltage specialty tools. Proxxon has a small lineup. Though these are intended for precision in-shop work, the benefit being a smaller more manageable tool in the hand with power management on the bench.

[atxcyclist]

Not a huge selection. There are many inverters that clamp-on and bolt-on to battery terminals, but the little 12V cigarette-lighter style receptacles don’t support much current, so they’re limited. 

[TopKitty]

You could always modify a cordless tool if you’re a diy type, just wire it to your 12VDC source. Keep in mind that you may have to bypass the temperature sensor.

[Zusafek]

As a truck driver, my corded tools run time off my 4000 watt inverter.  Also I have pneumatic tools I can run off my air compressor. And as others have said, cordless tools are amazingly good now. 

[akio123008]

12 hours ago, atxcyclist said:

There are many inverters that clamp-on and bolt-on to battery terminals

Yes indeed, I was thinking maybe there are tools that can clamp straight onto a battery as well.

 

7 hours ago, TopKitty said:

You could always modify a cordless tool if you’re a diy type, just wire it to your 12VDC source. Keep in mind that you may have to bypass the temperature sensor.

This is certainly an option, but I thought I'd ask if anyone knows if there's some existing product before doing that. I actually think that's what I'm going to do. It should be possible to make a cable with some sort of battery-shaped adapter on the end that can plug into a cordless tool.

 

1 hour ago, Zusafek said:

And as others have said, cordless tools are amazingly good now.

Absolutely. I should clarify that for my use case this isn't about portability or use from a truck. I have a small solar/wind power setup that charges a car battery and I'm looking for the most efficient way to power tools with it. I can charge tool batteries with it and then use those, but given I'm using these tools in a radius of 5m from the car battery it would be more convenient and efficient to be able to plug them straight in, instead of moving the energy over into another set of batteries first. Using an inverter is certainly a good option too, but high powered inverters are expensive, and introduce some extra power loss.

 

(that last thing isn't an issue if you have a truck with a running engine, but with the solar/wind setup every watt-hour counts haha)

 

[akio123008]

19 minutes ago, comander said:

The efficiency rate of the area not covered by a panel is 0%

Haha that's fair. 

 

21 minutes ago, comander said:

slapping another solar panel and/or battery in the array and not worrying about pure conversion efficiency.

This is something I plan to do regardless of this power tool thing, it's a work in progress really, sort of a hobby of mine.

 

I think I'll end up buying a big inverter in the end anyway, but for now I think cordless tools (perhaps modified to plug into the 12V battery) will do the job.