Johnson Levels 40-6544 Electronic Self-Leveling Horizontal & Vertical

Barnaby (host):  Hey what’s up?  Barnaby here.  So you want to know more about the Johnson self-leveling, both horizontally and vertically, laser level with “Green bright” technology.  Well, we put it into the capable hands of Richard. And you’re with Bruce Heys Construction?

Richard (product tester):  Yes sir.

Barnaby (host):  What sort of work do you guys do?

Richard (product tester):  We do renovation and new construction.

Barnaby (host):  Alright, and so have you used laser levels before?

Richard (product tester):  Yes I have.

Barnaby (host):  Ok, ever with the Green bright technology?

Richard (product tester):  No.

Barnaby (host):  Tell me about that.

Richard (product tester):  it’s a lot brighter and a lot better.  The red dot you seem to lose a little bit, but with that bright green it seems like it goes for a ways.  We were kinda messing around with it.  We set it on the far side of the room and then opened the door and shoot it like 200ft. down the hallway and you could see it plain as day.

Barnaby (host):  Messing around with it.  Just another case of boys with toys.

Richard (product tester):  Oh yeah.

Barnaby (host):  Alright and so let’s talk about what you actually used it for.

Richard (product tester):  We used it for our steel stud walls and our drop ceiling.  With our steel stud walls you could pretty much just lean it down like this, press on a couple of buttons and it kinda get your line you have snapped on the floor on the wall and then you can just go off that measurement right there and you know that it’s perfectly level.

Barnaby (host):  Ok, so were you monkeying around with the scan rate?  Slowing it down?

Richard (product tester):  Yes we were a little bit; just to see if all our measurements were the same on all four corners of the building.

Barnaby (host): Ok and how hard is it to get just the specific dot on the wall?  Can you just bump it down with the remote control?

Richard (product tester):  Yup.  You can bump it down with the remote control.  There are just a couple of buttons you just gotta push and push this one to make it stop and then push this one right here and it will get it to stop spinning and then this one right here will get it to pinpoint in one spot.

Barnaby (host): Ok, what about the drop ceiling application?

Richard (product tester):  The drop ceiling was great.  You could just set this up on our little frame, and screw this right on to here and then all you got to do is take this little dot thing and put it up on the steel studs and when it gets in the center you know that you’re good all the way around.

Barnaby (host): Ok and this has a magnet on the back, right?

Richard (product tester):  Yes.

Barnaby (host):  That holds, but apparently it didn’t hold well enough because it’s broken, dude.

Richard (product tester): No it did not.  We were kinda screwing off our walls and it kinda vibrating from it.  It just fell and landed in a great spot right there in the corner.

Barnaby (host):  As it always does jelly side down.  Alrighty, so talk about durability here.

Richard (product tester): I was kinda nervous about that cause it’s not really like real strong plastic.  It just seems like if you dropped it, that it would just shatter into pieces.  But I didn’t want to take that chance.

Barnaby (host): Ah, probably better, right?

Richard (product tester): Yeah.

Barnaby (host): Ok, and so it’s a rechargeable battery.  Did it ever just run out of juice in the course of the job day?

Richard (product tester): No, we had it for a whole week.  Had no problems, battery never died.  we charged it on all weekend and then brought it back on Monday and same thing, it went all week.

Barnaby (host): Alright, so its recommendation time.  If somebody came to you and asked if they should maybe buy this one, what would you tell them?

Richard (product tester): I would say I would, but the only problem that we had using it is sometimes it wouldn’t recalculate itself.  It would just kinda, if you bumped it, like climbing up a ladder and accidentally hit it with your shoulder or something it would kinda throw the line off.  And then you would try to turn it off and turn back on and to try to recalculate itself and it wouldn’t do it.  And then it’s got its own recalculating button on it.  We would try to push that and sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn’t.  Other than that it was great.

Barnaby (host) Alright, hey well thanks for all the good information and for the experience-- look what I get for you.

Richard (product tester): woo hoo

Barnaby (host): I’m not a tool, but rather a tool tester for toolselect.com.  Extra-large?

Richard (product tester): yes.

Barnaby (host): took a stab at that one.  Alrighty I’ll tell you what it’s all about real stats, real people, real easy here at toolselect.com