Makita’s 6 1/2 18v Brushless Circular Saw
DHS680z

When you hear ‘brushless’, what do you think of?

Well hopefully it’s the same as me, more power and longer runtime.

That’s what this saw is all about.

It’s an absolute pleasure to run.

The ergonomics are great. It has a nice balance and is very light. The grip on the handle keeps it from sliding around. The safety is perfectly placed and after short use with this saw, you will naturally hit it before the trigger.

One important thing to me is a light. This saw features an LED light that shines directly on your material. Without a light it can be hard to see your line due to shadows or dim worksites.
Another must-have is a rafter hook, and it has that too. They come in handy when working on elevated projects. It can easily be hooked on a ladder or material, lowering the chances of it falling which could damage it or hurt someone. After writing that I thought, well, at least they would break the fall. That’s how much I like this saw.

The saw is also very powerful. From my experiences it’s the most powerful saw I’ve used for it’s size. It has no problem cutting at full depth at an above normal push. Sure, it will bog down, but it can still do it. It has what is called Automatic torque Drive Technology (ADT) which adjusts the torque and speed according to the load. The Japanese were on their A game making this one!

What do we all want on our cordless tools? A battery gauge? It has an onboard one of those too. Makita just introduced gauges in their batteries, so for those guys with the preexisting packs with no gauges this will save you from carrying on a low battery.

How many more features could this thing have, do you ask? Well a few more, like the soft start and brake. These are things that we have grown so accustomed to that they pretty much need to be there. It’s not only nice to use but a great safety feature as well. If your blade guard was to get jammed open from a cut off or something, then setting down the saw by habit could be dangerous or wreck the work surface. Also, having the blade on the left makes your line so much easier to see, you don’t have to look over the saw anymore.
There is a dust port adapter available that also comes with a smaller handle for your blade guard. It’s smaller due to the fact the stock one will hit the adaptor.

All around I really enjoy this saw. It’s the one that’s always in the truck and on the site. We’ve ran it for well over a year now. We highly recommend it.