The insanity of battery incompatibility

[John Fitzgerald]

All the reasons I will not buy ANY battery powered lawn equipment, selections are equal to a women's shoe store.. and about as functional as a pair of "Stiletto-Heels" .. :laughing:

I don't know about that. I have a Greenworks 60V ten inch pole saw, and it's proven very useful so far.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I have similar issues. I had the entire series of Black and Decker 18 volt NiCd tools, and accumulated quite a pile of free batteries from special deals. As you probably know, the problem with NiCd is low cell voltage (1.2) and so each battery has 15 cells! As soon as one shorts out, then the others begin to get a higher charging voltage and current and quickly also begin to cook while charging, and fail. The slow 9 hour charger was the most kind. The fast chargers are lethal. So I would take the packs apart, and replace the individual shorted cells.... quite a labor of love or stupidity. When lithium came on the scene, I quickly learned that the best deal on batteries was the Lowe's Kobalt 24 volt 2.5 AH which is only $20 !!!! I modified my electric bicycles to use these (I have a youtube video on how to do it) and was quite happy with that idea. Then I thought, why not try the lithium batteries on the B&D tools? The tools work fine.... but I can't any longer pay $35 for a B&D NiCd when I can get the lithium batteries for $20. Of course they dont fit without an adapter. But I had a whole load of dead 18 volt NiCds, each with the charger plug on them, so I just took the batteries apart and used the plate for the adapter. I have several youtube videos on how to do this. Takes a little time and some gorilla glue, and of course the polarity is backwards so beware you have to switch the wires. And the drill goes a little faster on 24 volts, but not a real problem for me.

The 40 bolt lithium tool series from Kobalt is pretty good, and the 5 year no questions asked warranty is insane! As I told the salesman, there is not a chainsaw made that I cannot destroy in a year.... and they warranty it for 5 ??!! So far I have swapped out 3 of them.... the oilers are less than ideal. I am currently trying the Lynx 40 volt chainsaw from Harbor Freight..... it is $20 cheaper, and the warranty only 90 days. But how do I solve the battery compatibility problem? The Lynx battery is $59.... similar to the Lowe's but I have four of the Lowe's ones.

Well done & well thought out.
I do something similar with my anchient laptops.
A real PIA job but it means the old wall street will run another 10 years on the 2 new battery packs just so long as you do not charge them in the computer or have them in the computer when the power wire is plugged in.
Got all of the service manuals in them for those who wonder what you would use a 30 year old laptop for.

 

[HON]

Getting interoperability / interchangeability across all brands is a pipe dream... because we can't even get one company to offer interchangeable batteries just within the brands that a single company produces.

Take a look at one single Chinese company TTI, which owns AEG, Milwaukee, Ryobi, Homelite, and licenses the Ridgid brand name for yet another line of battery operated tools, all with completely incompatible batteries. Five different tool brands that use 9 different incompatible, non interchangeable lithium battery styles... all manufactured by one company.

Another example = Greenworks, as has already been discussed in this thread. The Greenworks brand was created and is owned by Changzhou Globe Tools Co., Ltd. About three years ago, Stihl, another outdoor tool company that produces an incompatible bevy of battery operated garden tools, bought a minority stake in Changzhou Globe Tools, which effectively announced the role that Globe Tools in China has in making Stihl battery operated tools, which of course, use a different battery interface than the Greenworks tools, despite being manufactured in the same Zhonglou development province. The brand "Powerworks" is also manufactured by Globe.

Another example... Yamabiko. Now some readers may have never heard of Yamabiko, but will have heard of Echo. Echo, another leader in outdoor yard and garden tools on par with Stihl, has a line of battery operated tools as well. So does Shindaiwa. Both Echo and Shindaiwa are owned by Yamabiko. And the 56v batteries used by Shindaiwa (which are now entirely discontinued, even though Shindaiwa's customer service people are instructed to deny this fact in order to sell out the rest of inventory) are entirely incompatible with Echo's 58v line of battery tools, even though manufactured by the same parent company.

Like I said, with such pervasive battery incompatibility within the offerings of just one company, it will certainly take an Act of Congress, plus an International Treaty agreed to by all the industrialized countries around the world, to impose battery compatibility across an entire industry. Not bloody likely in our lifetimes.

The only notable exception to all this incompatible brand and battery BS is Makita. Makita is just Makita. Not owned by anyone else. Not sold as anything else. Makita did buy out Dolmar almost 30 years ago, but Dolmar is exclusively gas and gas/oil mix outdoor equipment. When it comes to battery powered equipment, any Makita LXT 18v battery that works with any Makita battery tool will work with any Makita battery operated lawnmower, string trimmer, brush cutter, chainsaw, leaf blower, hedge trimmer, grass clipper, pruning saw, cultivator, rotary sweeper, power wheel barrow, etc. The equipment may require 2 LXT batteries, to make 36V (same power as 40V, just rated by the nominal operating voltage instead of the useless peak surface charge voltage immediately after charging) instead of just one LXT battery, but the batteries are entirely interchangeable and interoperable across the entire line that now exceeds 200 different tool solutions.

Not only do Makita batteries work with all Makita tools, they also work with other professional industry tools, such as electrical industry cutters and crimpers by Greenlee, and plumbing industry pex crimpers and dialators by Klauke. That is about as close as the battery operated tool industry has ever come to a "standardized" battery.

 

[Boobala]

Gave away ALL my DeWalt battery powered tools, got a RIDGID drill & driver kit with LIFETIME warranty on the batts. everything now, is 120V. or gas-powered .. NEVER LOOKIN BACK ! .. :thumbsup:..:thumbsup:

https://www.ridgid.com/us/en/full-lifetime-warranty

 

[tom3]

Selling those replacement Li-ion batteries for 80 to 100 dollars a whack would be a pretty good reason for each company to make a different battery for each tool I'd guess. Probably about a 200% profit.

 

[tom3]

Gave away ALL my DeWalt battery powered tools, got a RIDGID drill & driver kit with LIFETIME warranty on the batts. everything now, is 120V. or gas-powered .. NEVER LOOKIN BACK ! .. :thumbsup:..:thumbsup:

https://www.ridgid.com/us/en/full-lifetime-warranty

Do they really replace batteries after a period of time?

" RIDGID product may experience normal wear and tear and require service. While normal wear & tear is not considered a "defect" and is not covered by the RIDGID Lifetime Warranty,"

 

[bertsmobile1]

120 V sort of defeats one of the reasons for using cordless.
anything over 50 V is more than capable of giving you a fatal shock.
Not the tool you would want to have in your hand holding onto something metal while you are drilling a hole in it on a damp day.

 

[Boobala]

Do they really replace batteries after a period of time?

" RIDGID product may experience normal wear and tear and require service. While normal wear & tear is not considered a "defect" and is not covered by the RIDGID Lifetime Warranty,"

I have NEVER had a battery or charger issue thus far, (3 years now since bought) I have been to Home Despot several different ones & times, and I usually ask the guys in the Tools Dept. about the warranty, ALL have told me, jus bring in the "kit" ( drill, driver, Batts. and charger, carrying bag, AND the receipt,! they will just EXCHANGE it right there for new, 1 did say, if none in stock THEY.. would send it back to Ridgid 4 replacement .. MUST have COMPLETE kit and tools had to be REGISTERED with ALL serial numbers from tools AND batteries, 30 days 2 register after purchase .. no problem, was told bvy 1 store they so far only replaced 1 cutomers kit, said never an issue with Ridgid tools ... MUST HAVE RECEIPT AND TOOLS REGISTERED !! ...

 

[Bob E]

I've gave up on batteries about a decade ago. All my tools run on AC, gasoline, premix, or elbow grease.

 

[HON]

I've gave up on batteries about a decade ago. All my tools run on AC, gasoline, premix, or elbow grease.

Therein lies the problem... a decade ago, the top of the line battery operated tools were still NiMh, and the rest were still NiCd holdovers.

It wasn't until 2005 that Milwaukee introduced the innovative but ultimately ill fated 28Volt battery platform in the USA. The innovation was Milwaukee's bet on lithium ion battery technology. Prior to 2005, no common commercially available battery operated tool dared to use LiIon battery chemistry, as it was thought to be unsuitable for tools. During the same year (2005), Metabo, in conjunction with the Cordless Alliance System, a consortium of mostly European tool companies who have standardized on a common battery platform, tentatively introduced LiIon cells in some tool batteries.

Milwaukee's 28v system didn't gain much traction, but the benefits of Lithium Ion (no memory effect, significantly lighter weight, significantly higher energy density per unit of mass, significantly slower self discharge, and other benefits...) took the industry by storm. By 2009, exactly 10 years ago, both Makita and Hitachi reached negotiated settlements with Milwaukee, who had sued almost every tool company in the industry for patent infringement (in the US market)... because everyone was now migrating to the clearly superior lithium ion batteries. It was a game changer.

If you left the game 10 years ago, you're missing the best innings. You're missing out on the field goals... which is the freedom from cords and gas fumes.

I too, had given up on cordless. Thirty years ago, I had a full kit of 9.6v battery operated tools, that were neat and convenient for little things, but ultimately relegated to the status of toys, not tools. When the 12v versions of the same tools came out, I didn't bite. Likewise, I ignored the 14.4v and 18v reincarnations that occurred over the years. I was finally intrigued by Milwaukee's 28v line, but stayed away.

About five years ago, a neighbor gave me a 20v lithium ion impact driver, with a battery, that he had no charger for. He buys the contents of abandoned storage units, and this tool came with the lot. I thanked him and put it away, and forgot about it. Over a year went by, and I stumbled across the tool by accident, and pulled the trigger. Not only did it still work, it worked stronger than my NiCd tools ever did even when they were new and fresh off the charger. And here this LiIon tool had been sitting forgotten in a drawer for over a year, and who knows how long it had been since it was charged prior to my neighbor giving it to me, because he didn't have a charger, and who ever had the storage unit had abandoned the contents for at least several months prior to the contents being auctioned off.

I was sold. I bought a charger, and the rest of the tools I that I use frequently... and let me tell you... the freedom from cords adds so much to the efficiency, utility, and safety of using the tools. It would be silly to deny yourself these incredible benefits, based on your memories of older NiMh and NiCd battery tools from over a decade ago. Times and technology have changed significantly since then.