Revising Black & Decker's L12000 Drill

When I was a teenager, one of the gifts I had been most excited to get was a rechargable drill. I wouldn’t consider myself a carpenter or handyman of any kind at that age (and have only marginally improved since then), but to me it gave an aura of legitimacy when I would help construct props for school plays. The drill had been one piece, came in a rotationally molded tough (looking) box and a built-in battery that charged through an AC adapter. The drill felt solid without being heavy, was well balanced and looked like it was invincible, looked being the key word.

Working on my Eagle Scout project, which involved building 4 heavy duty picnic tables at a local park, I soon learned exactly how the cordless drill worked. Saying the drill worked was an overly generous sentiment, as it oftentimes ran out of juice halfway into a piece of pressure-treated lumber. My forearms were sore at the end of the workday, however not from restraining the unmitigated power of the drill but from using a screwdriver to finish drilling in the holes that the screwdriver was unable to do.

So you could say that when I saw the Black and Decker L12000, I may have been biased. As a quick introduction, Black and Decker is the orange consumer-aimed brand of Stanley Black and Decker. DeWalt is meant for folks who list construction as their occupation on their W2’s. With this designation for Black and Decker tools, it’s reasonable to expect a Black and Decker screwdriver to hang a picture, not drywall.

In my opinion, the most important aesthetics of a screwdriver designed for consumers is how it looks and the ease of use. Price is not as big a factor for the “weekend warrior” clientele as they just want to click on their favorite site or grab it from the local store. How do I know this? As first-time homebuyers who are rushing to take our HGTV "knowledge" to the test, we are much more interested in getting something simple ASAP versus just something cheap online. This "gotta have it now" attitude is probably one of the factors that keeps Home Depot from suffering from the Amazon effect. At $20 on Home Depot, the L12000 is approaching Harbor Freight pricing, an added bonus.

As for it’s looks, the L12000 fits the market. It’s small, has few buttons to mess around with, and is not overly aggressive looking, something that Hitachi sometimes struggles with. While power tools are often considered a boy’s club, many times the decision makers of the household purchases are women. Lowes has very successfully capitalized on this consumer demographic, Black and Decker isn’t doing badly itself.

As far as comfort, the drill is lacking. Yes it can switch into 3 positions, which greatly aids in tight spaces, but as you have to hold and operate it in an awkward way, it’s not very comfortable. The larger, more commercial models of Black and Decker go with the tried and true pistol grip, allowing the user to aim their fingers in the direction they are drilling. However, since the L12000 is not meant for high-torque applications, we don’t need to worry too much about a pistol grip or an auxiliary handle.

Something we do need to worry about however, is the forward and reverse button. It is located on the top of the drill, as you can see in the above picture to the right. You cannot operate this drill with one hand, unless you happen to be a point guard in the NBA. Most drills have a forward and reverse button within easy reach, so that way the hand guiding where the drill goes can also guide whether the drill goes forwards or backwards.

The drill does not need a lot of improvement as it looks the part, has enough power for simple home repairs, but is not comfortable to use. For a consumer good, we need to make sure that the user can easy use it with minimal strain. Above, I have changed the button so that it is on the grip section of the drill instead of on top of the drill, and I added a safety below the switch. On the safety, click left for forward or right for reverse and squeeze the button. More importantly, if a screw needs to be backed out, the safety can be clicked easily and the top button squeezed without skipping a beat.

The button and the safety can be the same bright orange ABS plastic as the working section of the drill, and judging from the current thickness of the bright orange plastic, it wouldn't be much different for the buttons.

As an aside I would highly advocate adding anti-microbial silver additives to the Santoprene grip as sweat tends to be easily and quickly absorbed into thermoplastic elastomers and we can avoid a stinky screwdriver. In addition, if being green is on the menu, the ABS can be easily replaced with corn-based PLA. Furthermore, if Stanley Black and Decker wants to recycle and make a big impact, plastic from the ocean is a really neat way to do it.

A naysayer may think that the buttons, where I have placed them, makes the L12000 prone to accidental usage. This would be the true IF we did not have the aforementioned directional safety switch that either specifies forward, off or reverse. Nobody is perfect, so it's reasonable to assume that a consumer who's running low on energy and/or coffee may forget to set the safety to off, however it's relatively easy to fix.

So what's next? Let's tackle a consumer drill that's a little bigger and torque-ier...if that's actually a word.

Would you make these changes to the L12000? Why or Why not?

Thanks for joining me in drilling down into design,

Jacob Eberhart,

Industrial Designer