The drill and the driver are two of the many tools that a carpenter often used when he carries out a repair job in your house. As for those people who like to do their chores themselves, they too might be aware of what a hammer drill or an impact driver is. They may even be able to tell that for which sort of work is a drill suitable and for which a driver. But this is not the only difference between the two. The fact that they are used for different purposes is the different way in which they work. Not only this; for certain jobs, only one of them is suitable.

But for those of you who still do not know what we are talking about, let us first describe what a drill and a driver is!

A drill is a special tool that has a cutting tool fitted to its end which is usually used to bore holes in materials or surfaces. An example is of the holes being drilled in order to fix your tube light on to the wall by putting screws through it. So the hole made where the screws will enter the wall’s surface and hold the tube light is made by a drill. As for a driver, the drivers previously used were for screws, that is, for driving a screw into a hole. These days, drivers are not just concerned with this job and can also do what drills do, that is, make the hole before driving a screw into it. The two are more similar these days and are used interchangeably.

However, in terms of how the two work, the difference remains. The direction from which each of these tools exerts force on their twisting action is different. In the case of a drill, a large force is exerted directly into the bit as the thing that is being drilled is hit. In contrast, a driver or an impact driver increases the force but in a perpendicular direction to the bit. This means that the direction at which force is exerted is about 90 degrees to the bit. To further explain what is being said here, let us take an example. If a drill is being used, the force is such as if someone would slam the back of the drill harder and harder into the surface which is being drilled. This is what we call direct force. That is what makes a hammer drill feel more or less like a jack-hammer in the user’s hands. On the other hand, the mechanism of an impact driver is quite different. The driver pushed a tiny anvil against the rotating mechanism from the side. This, as opposed to pounding the screw directly on its face with greater force, is an increasing force on a wrench that is placed around the screw.

Another important difference is in the components that make up the two tools. A driver usually has 3 additional components that a drill does not have. These include a weight (an impact mass), a strong compression spring and an anvil that is T-shaped. As drilling begins, the spring and the mass rotate at the same speed. However, with increasing resistance, the weight swings slower than the spring. This allows the spring to exert greater pressure against the weight which in turn pushes on the anvil. The anvil pushes against the drill’s bit and its fastener from the side. This increases the torque and gives increased control to the user when using a driver. The process is not so complex for a drill, since the force applied is direct or head-on.

Summary of differences expressed in points

1. Drill- a special tool that has a cutting tool fitted to its end which is usually used to bore holes in materials or surfaces; driver- used for driving a screw into a hole, nowadays used for doing the tasks that the drill does
2. Different direction in which is force is exerted; drill- a larger force is exerted directly into the bit as the thing that is being drilled is hit; driver/impact driver -increases the force but in a perpendicular direction to the bit
3. Drill-works simply as force is applied directly or head-on; driver-complex mode of action; it has additional components- a weight (an impact mass), a strong compression spring and an anvil that is T-shaped which work in tandem to cater the force applied in a perpendicular direction

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