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A few days ago, Jude posted about DeWalt's recently announced DC020 florescent worklight . DeWalt
was kind enough to send us an advanced model ahead of it's September 2008 release date and I just finished unpacking it and trying it out. Here are my first impressions of the new DeWalt DC020 portable fluourscent work light.
- It's bright! The 38w florescent tube really puts out a lot of light.
- At just 6 lbs, it's lightweight. Although it's almost entirely made of synthetic materials, it still feels very solidly built and quite durable.
- It runs for over an hour with an 18v battery (I timed it to just over 75 minutes with an 18v NANO battery )
- It has two handy AC outlets on the back that are active when the DC020 is plugged into an AC power supply. This is super handy if you are working somewhere like an attic, garage, or basement as you can power your worklight and tools with just one extension cord
- It stays relatively cool. Even after an hour of illumination, the case was warm, but not nearly hot enough to burn you or cause nearby flammable materials to combust, as is the case with old-school halogen worklights.
So far, I am really digging the DC020. Read on to find out more about how this product compares to a couple of DeWalt's other portable lighting solutions.
Initially I thought the DeWalt DC020 was going to be a replacement for the DeWalt DC022 that was released last year (pictured at right) , but that is not the case.
The DeWalt DC020 is intended to supplement the existing DeWalt lighting line.
Although the DC020 uses
the same 38 watt florescent bulb as the DC022 (model DeWalt
DC0213), but there are a couple
of key differences between the three products:
- The DC022 has the capability
to simultaneously charge two DeWalt 12-18v NiCad batteries (but
not the 18v NANO lithium ion battery). Although there is no charger in
the DC020, it can be POWERED from a DeWalt 12-18v battery (including
the NAN0).
- For the onboard AC outlets, the DC022 has protected GFCI outlets while the DC020
has non-protected AC outlets.
Here's a photo comparing the sizes of the two lights:
The tradeoff is that the DC020 is almost half the size, weight and price of the DC022. At an MSRP of just $99, the DC020 is a very useful
and reasonable addition to your tool collection, even if you are not an
existing DeWalt system user. In fact, I suspect that this product is partially intended for non-DeWalt users who needs an excellent portable worklight but would find the charging functionality of the DC022 entirely superfluous.
Thanks to it's bright fluorescent light, low weight and small size, the DeWalt DC020 would really be fantastic for working in the attic, basement,
crawlspace or even the garage. I thought it might even be great for taking on my next
camping trip.
DeWalt has indicated that the DC020 will be available from your favorite DeWalt dealer (which I hope is ToolKing.com !) sometime in September. So far, I really like this product.
Keep watching Toologics for more updates & video on this cool new product from DeWalt!
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