If you have just got a Makita drill then you may not yet be familiar with all the different settings and buttons on it. To help you out I have created this handy guide using an old (and dusty) Makita drill.
Video
If you prefer watching a video to reading then I have created this quick little video below. Keep scrolling to read the article.
Speed Settings
So above and below you can see the speed settings. Speed one (above) is the slower setting.
In this slower setting, the drill has more torque, this is the most powerful setting. This speed is intended for use in driving screws.
Below is this drill in speed 2. This is the top speed on this drill and you will be able to tell the difference in speed from the noise alone. Contrary to what some people think, the numbers around the front of the drill are not speed settings but torque settings.
Speed 2 on the drill is what you should use when drilling. Drilling requires a lot of speed so you should always drill in this setting unless there is some specified use case for drilling in speed 1, but if there is I can’t think of it now.
Mode Setting
Most of the drills you guys will have are combi drills, like the Makita drill in the photos. What this means is that they have a hammer mode alongside a drill and driver mode.
This is the Makita drill in drill mode. In drill mode, the clutch is never engaged, so this allows for maximum torque.
So this is for drilling into wood, metal plastics etc. If you are drilling into masonry, then you want to use the hammer mode.
This is the drill in hammer mode. In hammer mode, there is a hammering action applied to the drill. This hammers it forwards and backwards, this helps to drill through masonry.
You shouldn’t use this for drilling anything other than masonry and to be honest, you probably won’t want to; the noise is quite irritating from hammer mode drilling.
This is the driver setting. Used for driving screws and bolts. The clutch will be engaged here which allows the different torque settings to be used (silver ring).
When the drill reaches the max torque you have set you will hear the clutch disengage and the drill will stop.
This can save your wrist on high-power drills. It can also save screw heads and help increase the overall life span of your drill.
Torque Settings
The silver ring on this Makita is where you select the torque, the higher the number the higher the torque.
This setting is only used in the driving mode, the drill settings bypass the clutch making the torque selection redundant.
Further down the grip is this small black button. This goes all the way through the drill and sticks out both sides.
When pushed out to one side the drill will go forwards, push it out the other way and it flips into reverse mode.
Makita Drill Settings