A new Flex tool makes an impact for Roger Bisby.
The new Flex impact wrench is rated at 250Nm with a brushless motor. Not only does this motor increase the power, it also gives you more work from each battery charge. There are three speeds from low, for controllability (particularly with small screws), up to full power for doing up nuts and bolts. The 1/2 wrench will take an adaptor to get you to 1.4 hex drive for screw driving.
There is also an electronic brake that helps prevent over-driving of screws. The electronic management system prevents you over-working the motor and the battery, so, in theory, you can’t burn it out or damage your lovely batteries. Often the speed settings are difficult to see on impact drivers but these green lights shine out bright and clear even in bright sunlight.
This powerful wrench will also undo bolts, but not quite as well as it does them up because, in my experience, impact drivers are never as good at undoing as they are at doing up simply because they benefit from a run in and maximum torque is impossible to achieve from a standing start. That goes for all impact drivers I have tried but the fluid drives seem to be better in this respect.
The wrench comes with two batteries and a very fancy looking digital readout charger, and is compatible with all 18V Flex batteries.
This is a very nice quality impact driver from the German company, Flex and I would have expected it to carry a higher price tag. I gave it a quick run but I have a fair amount of work to carry out with it in the next few weeks before it goes back to Flex so, hopefully, you will see it put to work in future issues. I might even lend it to the scaffolders to see what they think. They tend to get through impact wrenches at the rate of several a year so they are the ones to tell me how tough it is.
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