I bought the Mini 121 for my hard to buy nephew for Christmas after seeing a Marco Reps video where he’s using it on a project. All the engineers where Nephew works love it (he says), but it’s way too damned expensive for me to own, I’ll stick with a cheap manual one:-)
Thanks. Looking forward to your impressions. I don’t have a real driving need for a power screwdriver, but have always had the thought of getting one eventually. Xiaomi makes some good things. I have one of their very unusual design LED table lamps, with a dual LED setup. I could never get the WiFi app to work for remote control, but it wasn’t a big deal. It’s a really neat concept that Xiaomi pioneered with Philips (LINK).
That Mini 121 and even the 120 are NEAT. But… not something I would buy for that coin.
I do have the AAA USB rechargeable WOWStick. Only use it occasionally, but I do like it for small screws.
First impressions: This thing is Flippin Neat.
Came fully charged (I think) cause the green light came on as I plugged the USB-C connector into it. As it charges there is a Green LED that appears to be breathing as it ramps up and down.
Need to hold in the torque button in to get it to change setting. Green is the low and the 2 smaller bits are color coded to help recall settings. I can stop the driver with my hand in low and it will flash a red LED once it stalls. Orange is the high torque setting. I can Not stop the bits with my hand on High or Orange setting.
This has a Great Solid Feel to it and has some weight, certainly does not feel cheap. Really feels like a quality tool in hand. Handle is rubberized from about the reverse button to the tail cap. Nice texture and feels durable. I didn’t realize at first it was a different coating till I torqued on it and can also feel its softer with my fingernail. For me there is enough room on the rubber section of the handle to really get a good grip without touching the buttons.
2 LED lights at the front are positioned where they light up the area needed pretty well. But only light up with the direction buttons pushed. Would be nice it they had a 3 second delay to turn off the LEDs. That would be enough time to locate the screw head and get the bit ready to remove the screw without having the bit turning to light up.
Bits are all Wiha branded and seem of good quality. Bits are nicely uniformly cut. No branding on the extension. There does seem to be a magnet in the handle to hold the bits in but I cant get it to pickup or hold a screw. The extension has a ball-detent to hold it firmly in the handle and holds in good. Magnet in the extension is Strong to hold bits and screws.
On the handle it is branded:
Screw Driver 4129
Wiha Tools (Shanghai)
Made in China.
I think it shuts down after setting a few minutes. Hard to tell this early on… but twice now I needed to press the direction button 2X to get it to turn. Correction: does seem to shut down but it only has a fraction of a second delay if you hold a direction button after it’s been sitting for a while. Otherwise pushing a direction button is instant motion.
Sadly… The back cap don’t come off. Perhaps it will after some use and a few drops on the floor. But I can’t force my luck on my new toy.
Well, that’s my first impressions of it so far. Happy with it but it hasn’t really been tested yet.
Welcome,
Will do another update when I get a project to really test it out.
But so far I am impressed with it. Certainly has a place in the toolbox next to my Snap-On and Hazet ratcheting screwdrivers.
Added some slight updates to the post #17… like the Country of manufacture, charge indicator and some info bout the delay after sitting.
If you are willing to spend some money, take a look at Dewalt’s gyroscopic screwdriver. The UI is either love it or hate it but I fall into the love it camp. I’ve had it for 4 years now and it has served me well.
OK. I checked this DeWalt item out. I fell hopelessly in love with it. After hemming and hawing over it for a week, I bought one. I got the” kit with 2 batteries and charger”:Amazon.com. I don’t know if I’ll need the extra pack but for only $2 more than a single battery it seemed like a no-brainer to me.
vwpieces, thanks for starting this thread. I do hope the Xiaomi works well.
Well, this electric screwdriver of mine which is the subject matter of this thread, when I started to use it, it has to be fully-charged each time I use it or it won’t work. Charging it fully before using to do some light work, then storing it afterwards will render it life-less after only 3 days in my drawer.
Right now I don’t know the cause of the problem…but it should be either crap OEM cell or horrendous battery parasitic drain from its electronics.
I was able to have it opened…the OEM cell is branded TL ICR18650 1500mAh that will now NOT accept a charge from any of my stand-alone chargers and using Vapcell YR1030 IR meter it registered 57mohm.
thanks for letting us know. I was wondering about this screwdrivers and their quality, will stay away for now.
There are so many available, not clue which ones are good or not.
In all probability, yes, I will know tomorrow because I will have to bring my Panasonic NCR18650PF cell to my friend’s shop and put it in to replace the not only dead, but also leaking cell.
What I am much more interested to know is the cause of the drain…either bad electronics or utterly crap OEM cell used by the manufacturer.
Edit: I got this Wiha Zu Hause Electric Power Screwdriver from Banggood and when I complained to them about the problem at the time I got it last year, with only one email I was able to receive a refund notice from their rep. True enough I did get the refund three days after receiving the refund notice.
Now in hindsight, I wonder if this electric screwdriver manufacturer has chosen a crap cell supplier, quality-wise, or is there is just a problem with my specific unit’s electronics’ parasitic draw?
Smells like both high parasitic draw (?) and (probably) low quality cell at the same time.
Certain things you say simply don't make sense to me, though. Like “had to be fully charged before use”, for example.
Maybe Banggood knew the unit was faulty, did you got confirmation about this?
Hope the electronics can still work, with some devices the manufacturers set electronic flags which render the devices non-easily restorable. My brother once gave me a 2x AAA powered pop-up trimmer which could work while connected to its power adapter, or if it was turned on connected to the adapter and then disconnected. But the electronics had “discarded” normal operation for the device, and so no way for the stuff to operate without its supply at hand even if their cells were replaced. No way I am buying crap like that, suffice to say.
P.S.: be sure to install a cell with enough power delivery or amperage draw, nothing less than a 30Q I'd recommend.
This is what happened from the time I received it: It didn’t work out of the box, (not really surprised by this), so I charged it. Maybe an hour or so (usb-c) it showed ‘full’ and it worked. Did some light to moderate work with it, then put inside its original box for storage.
After perhaps a month of so, I wanted to use it again and it won’t work, again. Charged it to ‘full’ again and it worked, but after working I put it inside my drawer, (a little bit worried already) so I can check it easily if I want to. First few days it worked when tested. On the third day it won’t work again.
And the cycle is repeated, each time the same procedure, several times.
Fast forward several months: the other day I brought it to friend who knows how to open a non-user serviceable tool, and we come to my previous posts above.
Btw, I’ll be replacing the OEM cell with a genuine Samsung INR18650-25R, which has even a higher continuous rating than the 30Q.
Well, this is the ‘exploded’ view of the screwdriver.
I won’t know if the OEM cell was crap, or was damaged by the extremely high parasitic draw since I don’t think this thing has low-voltage protection.
But what is certain is that its electronics has extremely high leakage and it certainly left the OEM cell at 0 voltage after only 3 days.
