Makita AVT or not on hammer drills

[Andrewr3]

Hi

has anyone noticed if there is much of a difference in the vibes to the user between a Rotary hammer and an AVT Rotary Hammer drill?

For example Makita HR2611F v HR2610.

I am wondering if it is worth the extra few quid for AVT (Anti Vibration Technology)

 

[Andrewr3]

I decided to buy the HR2611 with AVT (Anti Vibration Technology). I have just had a carpal tunnel operation on my wrist so am keen to keep the vibes low. I'll report back here later after I have used it a while.

 

[Andy78]

Would be interested to hear any feedback on this. My work buddy also has carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands/wrists and is in need of a new drill.
Piece of advice for you though. My mate had the op on one wrist and has seen little to no improvement to it. I put this down to him not resting it up enough after the op. He was advised 2 months rest, and probably gave it a week before swinging lump hammers again. Rest that paw for the medically advised time.

 

[Andrewr3]

Re: Makita AVT or not on hammer drills, vibes effect on hands

Would be interested to hear any feedback on this. My work buddy also has carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands/wrists and is in need of a new drill.
Piece of advice for you though. My mate had the op on one wrist and has seen little to no improvement to it. I put this down to him not resting it up enough after the op. He was advised 2 months rest, and probably gave it a week before swinging lump hammers again. Rest that paw for the medically advised time.

My operation needed light duties for the first 8 weeks, but then the consultant explained that more vigorous massage is needed to break up the deep vertical cut of scar tissue so as to to allow each layer of the skin and stuff below to knit properly. The cure for my numb fingers was instant after the operation, also got back some of the lost sensitivity (I was lucky on that last part). But the scar has been quite sensitive for many months since. For example doing press ups is pretty uncomfortable on the hand, if not impossible for the first three months after the op'. After the operation the most difficult things were using a hammer or axe and sawing by hand. Strangely recently I still got an dull ache after a day of painting a fence at home. But all of the down sides is well worth the hassle because I no longer wake up at night with my hand numb or find my hand is numb after a few hours using the same hand tool. My hand even used to go numb when holding the mobile phone for a long conversation! Much better now, but need to decide if to have the other hand done next.

 

[Andrewr3]

Re: Makita AVT or not on hammer drills, vibes effect on hands

First observation on using the Makita 2611 AVT drill is the detail on vibration spec's in the manual:-

Hammer mode drilling concrete 12 m/s (15m/s for the same non AVT tool)
Chiseling function 9 m/s (9.5m/s ditto)
Drilling metal 2.5 m/s (2.5 m/s)​

If you look at the HSE vibration limit (5 m/s A/8) calculator you will see the AVT version for hammer drilling gives you 1 hour 23 minutes of trigger time a day. For the non AVT version you get 53 minutes of trigger time.
For Chiseling you get 2 hours 28 minutes a day before the limit is reached on AVT, and a few minutes less for the non AVT tool.

For those of us who have been exposed to vibration for many years already, then we are probably interested in staying below the 2.5m/s A/8 limit. Which is somewhat lower that the figures above. This means for hammer drilling with AVT you get 21 minutes of trigger time as opposed to 13 minutes on the non AVT. Similarly you get 38 min's of chiseling with the AVT version.

Maybe this tells us that we should chisel out our chases on a different day to our drilling walls for back boxes. Also, if fixing loads of tray and conduit to concrete surfaces, then make sure you are using decent sharp bits not knacked old blunt ones that are many years old.

 

[Andrewr3]

Hi

has anyone noticed if there is much of a difference in the vibes to the user between a Rotary hammer and an AVT Rotary Hammer drill?

For example Makita HR2611F v HR2610.

I am wondering if it is worth the extra few quid for AVT (Anti Vibration Technology)

User feedback on the AVT version; I was drilling and chiseling concrete today and I can report the AVT is the bees knees. I was impressed. There was more vibration in the front handle than the rear handle, and really I could hardly detect it on the rear handle. Very pleased.