Hilti TE-6： How good is it？

G'day Hammerheads, welcome back to the bench and we've got a very very special episode today. Now yes I do say that basically every time but I really mean it today because we have the Hilti TE6 Neuron. So if you're not familiar Hilti is coming out of Liechtenstein, the tiny European country and that's about all I know about Liechtenstein other than my concrete guy comes from there too so uh shout out to you Ronaldo. And this is of course the 22 volt Neuron platform which came out a few years ago. Hilti basically released a whole new platform of cordless tools and a lot of them were pretty similar, a lot of them were upgrades like this particular one and Hilti tends to think really long term as a company so this is probably going to be their platform for about the next 15 years so get used to it if you're on Neuron. Now there are a whole bunch of you know digital integration features that Hilti does include with their current tools. I did a video some time ago breaking down a lot of that cool stuff so go check that one out if you want and today we're just going to stick with this guy which is basically a three mode one inch ish so 26 28 millimeter rated rotary hammer. So let's take a look at the features on this guy. Up the top we got basically the best depth rod in the business it is ribbed for his pleasure and it's super easy to set you can just pull the little catch down with your thumb slide it up and that thing does not move once you've set the depth. The handle itself has a a multi-piece choker sort of thing on there so really easy to rotate if like me you've spent a lot of time unscrewing these bloody things to get them in the right position you are going to like that. This is the first model up that includes a quick change chuck as well so if you like you can get a three jaw chuck to stick in there and that'll do you for your core drills, drilling timber, drilling steel all that kind of stuff. Now I don't use that feature myself but they are popular in Europe I think a lot of Bosch hammers will have it even Milwaukee makes some models in the European market that have it they're handy for a lot of stuff but what sets Hilti apart is they also make this bloody right angle SDS chuck so you can do right angle drilling with your TE6. Now I've never used one of these but damn I'd love to give it a try unfortunately they cost about 800 bucks or about as much as this drill did so I won't be getting one unless I can get some donations going so like and subscribe and all that stuff. So this one also got ATC active torque control which will stop the drill so it's got a motion sensor which detects if your bit is binding up a lot of drills have that nowadays great to see. Active vibration reduction so that is this counterweight thing inside here which basically offsets the bouncing of the hammer and that reduces your vibration a little bit actively it's also got your passive just springy handle. Hilti does have a few dust extractor options for this guy you can have an onboard extractor plus a whole bunch of other stuff that they make so check that out of their website and it is three modes so drill only, hammer drill, there's this chisel angle adjust kind of feature and then hammer only. So this is the first one up in Hilti's range that has the hammer only function if you get one of the smaller ones it will not have that. Now in terms of size it is pretty similar to the TE4 that's the one on the left so this one is a very capable tool it does have no chipping function but otherwise its performance is great I've done a very thorough video on this one so go check that out but we'll see that again in a minute and let's look at the specs so here's the star of our show in bold and price almost $900 dude weight 2.8 kilos capacity 28 millimeters yeah Hilti's done something weird with this Neuron generation they've rated both of these to be 28 millimeters even though the TE4 is a fair bit smaller they also say the optimum range is up to about 18 millimeters which makes a lot more sense but if we look at the impact force and these other parameters here this is basically specced to be a 26 millimeter one inch kind of hammer interestingly they've got the smaller TE4 and the TE6 revving exactly the same rpm and in fact the same as the old version of the TE4 as well now they wouldn't have built all three of these with the exact same motor but for some reason they've just decided that 1050 rpm is the speed that they like and let's take a look at the revs basically spot on what they advertise you'd think it's easy to do but very few tool makers actually get their revs exactly right and let's have a look at the TE4 slightly lower 1009 and let's check the weight so TE6 is 2.9 kilos TE4 is about 2.4 kilos all right so that's enough yapping let's get drilling first test as usual is drilling 12 millimeters into 32 MPa concrete hammer drill mode please all righty and a 12 millimeter speed drill where is our Hilti all right there she is well towards the front of the pack so this is every tool that we've tested with this particular test and aside from this little Makita all of these guys are rated to 28 millimeters or above so the Hilti is basically trailing only the very biggest most powerful hammers we've tested aside from that little Makita which in this test is a little bit of a freak and the star of our show the TE6 was about 10% faster in that test than the TE4 and our next test is the max capacity so in this case Hilti rates this guy up to 28 mil this series of drill bits only goes up to 26 so that's the maximum for this test let's see how she goes all righty and the maximum capacity speed drill let's see how our Hilti went yeah further down towards the back so there she is towards the back of this very large data set but don't forget these are all drilling different sizes depending on what the manufacturer rates them for all the ones with the star they got 26 millimeter bits and all these ones at the end here are the 26 millimeter hammers that we've tested the one inch hammers and Hilti is basically ahead of every single one of them now there are a bunch of others that got that same 26 mil drill bit so that's 28 millimeters 28 that one's like 34 so basically the TE6 is on the border between all the 26 millimeter hammers and all the 28 and above and the TE4 which we saw on the bench earlier that one got an 18 millimeter drill bit for its test so much faster that's why it wasn't shown together and next up not really a test more of a demonstration just a little bit of chiseling so some light breaking in 32 MPa concrete hammer only mode self-sharpener like that see how she goes anyway hammerheads there you go hopefully that's been informative for you uh make sure you like and subscribe and uh you know in doing so you help promote my channel as well as helping me to pay off all these tools because of course i don't get freebies from tool companies basically have bought every single thing i've ever tested except for one which was loaned to me so in terms of which one you would get i mean if you're into Hilti if you need that kind of quality that kind of power personally i am really liking the TE4 because that's how i roll i drill small holes usually in hard to reach areas so smaller is better for me this guy is an absolute winner it's a big price difference between these two as well this one is you know almost double the price so if you want that extra power if you want the chipping mode if you want to be able to stick that bloody right angle bit on there uh go ahead and get yourself the TE6 because the TE6 i wouldn't really say it's a full-on 28 millimeter hammer it doesn't quite have the same impact force the 2.6 of impact force that is basically exactly what you would expect from a one inch or 26 millimeter hammer but in true Hilti fashion they've basically gone and built basically the the best 26 millimeter hammer around it is a bit weird that they say the maximum that this can do is 28 but they also say that about this little guy and you know what i guess it'll get there eventually but that's why they do the optimum drilling range too which is 6 to 18 millimeters in this case now if the price puts you off well yeah understandable this guy does cost about double what your standard one inch hammer from say Milwaukee or Makita would cost you but the good news is the Hilti Neuron platform has been around for about three years now so there are actually starting to come some onto the second hand market so you might be able to grab yourself one for cheaper on eBay or whatever just be aware that Hilti only sells to commercial customers so you may not be able to register your warranty if you do it that way but anyway hammerheads i reckon that'll do it for me so thanks for watching i'll scratch yous later