The Skil 3070 HA screwdriver is a cordless model with a brushless motor and percussion mode. It promises power and versatility while remaining compact and quite affordable. An interesting bet.
Presentation
Skil is an American brand founded at the beginning of the 20th century, and a subsidiary of the Chinese group Chervon in 2016. It started with the first electric saw and now offers both jigsaws, drills, sanders and garden tools such as lawn mowers or hedge trimmers.
The Skil 3070 HA drill driver is currently the brand’s most premium cordless model. In particular, it has a brushless – or brushless – motor developing a torque of 60 Nm and a speed of rotation that can climb to 1800 rpm. The Model 3070 can also rely on a percussion mode to allow it to pierce masonry materials.
The Skil 3070 HA drill is delivered in a transport box with 2 2.5 Ah batteries and their charger, a screwdriver bit and a belt hook. This pack was launched at 199 €, a reasonable price for a machine with such characteristics delivered with 2 batteries. There is also a version called Skil 3070 CA, sold without battery or charger.
All our tests were carried out with an official Skil 2.5 Ah battery.
Ergonomics
The Skil 3070 drill driver is mostly made of plastic. However, the quality of it and the assembly of the machine are rather reassuring about its durability. The housing containing the brushless motor is protected by rubber elements. Few in number, these elements do not guarantee the resistance of the drill to a fall unfortunately.
For a model with the technical sheet if provided, the Skil 3070 is surprisingly compact. A content format that allows it to slip into rather narrow places. This reduced template also implies a weight that is also moderate for this category of impact drill. The 3070 displays 1.1 kg without battery and 1.55 kg with its 2.5 Ah accumulator. It is among the lightest machines in our comparison. A welcome lightness when it comes to tackling long work sessions.
The grip offered by the handle is very good overall. Although covering a large portion, the grip however lacks grip for our taste to be really perfect. The trigger which falls under the index lacks a little progressiveness in the speed delivered. Maintaining a chosen speed using the variator is still satisfactory. The Skil 3070 has an LED which very effectively illuminates the area to be drilled.
The chuck is made entirely of metal, which ensures good durability. It can be handled without problem, but requires very firm clamping to hold the drills perfectly. You may be surprised once or twice not to have sufficiently tightened the chuck before taking the hand. The chuck is capable of accommodating bits and drills up to 13 mm in diameter.
The torque can be adjusted using a ring placed at the back of the chuck. This ring turns smoothly and stays in place on the chosen level. The selection of a mode is made by means of a switch toggling on the 3 positions: drilling, screwing and percussion. A small pictogram on the top of the machine indicates the mode in which the drill is located. The passage between modes is not very smooth and sometimes requires forcing. The gear selector, placed on top, slides easily between the 2 positions.
The Skil “20V Max” batteries – which are 18V Li-ion batteries, make no mistake about it – easily insert and remove. Just press the button on the front of the battery to release it. Four LEDs indicate the battery charge level. The position of these LEDs at the front of the battery does not allow a quick gauge of the remaining capacity when fully screwing or drilling.
Screwing
Our tightening test includes the tightening of a 5 x 70 mm wood screw and that of an 8 x 100 mm lag screw. A 5 mm pre-drilling is done for the second, none for the first. This test is applied in fir and oak cleats of 60 x 60 mm.
With its 60 Nm, the brushless motor of the Skil 3070 promises good performance in screwing. The torque can be set in 17 positions, in addition to the drilling position. What to be precise enough for the screwings which require it. The ability of a drill to maintain a slow speed is useful when it comes to proper screw placement or for effectively leveraging torque. We measured, for the 3070, minimum speeds of 24 and 72 rpm respectively in speed 1 and 2. Very satisfactory values which put Skil’s drill on the right side of the average of our comparison.
During our screwing tests, we did not encounter any major problem. The screwing in the tree, rather soft, is done without any problem. For a harder wood like oak, it is necessary to switch to drilling mode to be able to fully screw our lag screw by insisting a little more. Overall excellent performance for this compact drill driver.
Drilling
For our drilling tests, we use 5, 10 and 15 mm wood drill bits, 6, 8 and 11 mm concrete drills, as well as 2, 6 and 10 mm metal drills. We drill in fir and oak cleats of 60 x 60 mm, in concrete blocks, bricks and steel bars 1.5 mm thick.
Skil’s cordless drill advances maximum speeds of 480 and 1,800 rpm. In reality, the 3070 HA does not stray too far from it with values that we measured at 455 and 1680 rpm. Differences of about 5% and 7% respectively, which make it a good student in terms of our comparison.
The Skil 3070 is a little less perfect for drilling than for screwing, but remains an excellent student. It is able to pass through the 1.5mm steel of our protocol without any problem. In wood, it can easily be drilled in fir, even with a large diameter, but ends up presenting more difficulties with the 15 mm drill in oak. It was necessary to insist more strongly on this last test.
The percussion mode can climb up to 27,000 strokes / min, like many cordless drills. Here again, the Skil 3070 pierces the brick and concrete block perfectly on the first 2 diameters of our protocol, but hardly more in the face of the larger diameter. For longer holes with large diameters, the Skil 3070 shows its limits and risks heating the drills and damaging them. Using a perforator is still the best option in this case.
Noise
The 3070 HA is not the quietest drill driver we’ve tested. We measured 76 dB (A) at 1m away, placing it tied with the Ryobi R18PDBL-252S for last place in the standings on this point.
Autonomy and charge
For our runtime test, we use a 10mm wood drill bit and drill holes in 60mm thick oak until the drill is no longer able to fit through. In this exercise, the Skil 3070 HA and its 2.5 Ah battery do quite well. The machine drilled 72 holes before exhaling. This remains a little less than the 81 holes made by a Parkside Performance PSBSAP 20-LI A1 , equipped with a 2 Ah battery. The Skil 3070 HA on the other hand does a little better than the 50 holes drilled by the Bosch Professional GSB 18V-55 with a 2 Ah battery.
It takes 67 minutes to fully charge the 2.5 Ah Skil battery with the supplied charger. This is quite long compared to other competitors and limits the possibility of juggling only 2 batteries of 2.5 Ah in case of intensive use over a long session.
Skil 3070 HA – Conclusion
The Skil 3070 HA drill driver has many advantages for such a compact model. Its brushless motor performs very well for screwing and drilling – except for large diameters. In the end, a machine that is quite versatile, compact and rather light, which in addition proves to be enduring. Delivered here with 2 2.5 Ah batteries, the Skil 3070 HA offers good value for money.
Pros of Skil 3070 HA
- Compact and well finished.
- All-metal mandrel.
- Good at screwing.
- Efficient Led lighting.
- Getting started.
- Good autonomy.
Cons of Skil 3070 HA
- Rather slow battery charge.
- Dimmer less precise than on other models.
- Limited drilling for large diameters.
- Noisy.
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