pattern batteries for big brand tools

[James1979]

Gone back to genuine Makita batteries here after hit and miss experiences with clones.

+1 for this. Except mines red not blue!

Been round and round in circles with various fakes and they always let you down and never last as long.

I earn my living with mine so I need them to work properly. Horses for courses. If I was a guy in a shed putting up shelves or something I’d probably give the fake ones a shot and put up with any issues.

Except setting my shed on fire. I don’t think I’d put up with that

 

[Onoff]

with a couple of buckets full of dead ones (the majority of which are chinese copies) floating about in the unit that he cant bring himself to throw out

He could strip them and send the old PCBs with battery contacts to me for repurposing in adaptors!

https://flic.kr/p/2oiQczn

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Genuine dewalt batteries have expensive cells...which is why even dud used batteries sell for good money on eBay as the cells get stripped, tested and then resold/repurposed.

The cheaper copies just have cheaper cells so of course they aren't up to hard use...but I've found for light (pun intended) use they're plenty adequate.

 

[graffian]

I bought a Makita drill and the cheapest battery on Amazon[about 20quid],
that was in 2016 and its still going strong.

 

[MattF]

+1 for this. Except mines red not blue!

Been round and round in circles with various fakes and they always let you down and never last as long.

I earn my living with mine so I need them to work properly.

I don't earn a living with my tools, but I look at it this way: If you're going to buy good tools, there's no reason to skimp on the batteries. You know genuine ones will be well designed, well tested, & hopefully safe.

Been bitten before by the "buy cheap, buy twice" thing. Certain times, cheap is fine, but some things deserve the proper gear.

 

[Onoff]

The very original 3Ah 18V Makita ones were I think plagued by issues. Something to do with one cell going down and bricking the while thing. I had two bought with my first 18V drill. Think Makita fixed the issue.

Proper peed off when I bought two 5Ah Makita clones off of eBay and they both died inside 6 months. No comeback etc.

The two 3Ah clones I bought before that, one is still going but it has no LED bar / charge indicator. Might try and graft an indicator strip off a duff 5Ah into the working 3Ah.

 

[premmington]

I only got one "clone battery" - Milwaukee 8amp 18v - someone gave me it on a whim - it was new in a box - I excepted it - to see if was any good? It is not...!

It does the job just - it does not have the capacity - what it does really hate is the cold.

No I would not buy one!

 

[TEO]

I've been through this with Makita batteries, out of the 4 non-genuine batteries only 1 is still working! All 3 of the others have been re-celled by me & had a better BMS fitted.

The BMS (the pcb that prevents over discharge) on the copy batteries is based on the old LXT one & doesn't monitor every cell in the battery. This allows the cells to discharge & charge unevenly, shortening their life. I fitted a better BMS that monitors all cells.

Where did you source the better BMS pls?

 

[chunkolini]

Thanks for all the input
I decided I'll go with the originals.
Then the battery problem sorted itself.
In a corner at work I found a Dewalt 14v Combi drill with two 4Amh batteries. I have dim memory of losing it a couple of years ago.
I gave it a good seeing to and all seems fin;e so the 18v combi with two 5amh batteries will live at home along with a pair of 2amh batteries.
So at home I have a supply of batteries and jigsaw, sander, reciprosaw, and two combi drills all 18v. Much more betterer for home based DIY work. Now to stop buying tools.
Ill keep the mains powered multi tool even though the lead now drives me mad.
At work mains tools are no problem.
An 18v mitre saw would be nice though

 

[PhillipM]

I've got a 3rd party BMS pcb in one of my m18 packs, as the original failed.

It's been fine.

When I find a little spot welder that works I'll make up another pack, as you can get empty shells from the usual suspects.

I'll use quality 18650, tested, cells from laptop batteries and there is no reason that I can see why the unit should not work well.

laptop cells are a slightly different chemistry and generally have massive voltage drop under any sort of high load, and will probably barely manage half their capacity if it's in any sort of demanding tool outside of a worklight or similar.
That's also part of the problem with clones.
Slap a clone battery in an impact gun and unless you get lucky half of your torque output has gone.

 

[JOEPRO]

I have several genuine and also several ebay knock off Milwaukee M12 and M18 batteries. Had them this 3 years or so and abused them all equally! Hours of grinding under cars and going though several batteries in an evening.

No issues the knock off ones perform like original IMO. The only problem I had was one m18 battery stopped charging at 2 bars. Opening it up I was able to solder a broken wire back and its working perfect again.

I also have knock off Dremil batteries same good results.

Thing is don't buy the cheapest ones from China. Try to look for a UK supplier with "name brand" ebay shop and warranty. Then results should be better.

 

[PhillipM]

Thing is don't buy the cheapest ones from China. Try to look for a UK supplier with "name brand" ebay shop and warranty. Then results should be better.

To be fair most of those places are just drop shipping the same parts from China or at most slapped their sticker on them first.

 

[JOEPRO]

To be fair most of those places are just drop shipping the same parts from China or at most slapped their sticker on them first.

I don't doubt that can be the case. But let's look at 2x examples:

2x 8ah high output and 5 year warranty for £50!!



Note no brand. Very generic battery and insane cheap price. 5 year warranty? Yeah right they will be gone in a month.

Then:



This is a brand I have used before.

One 6amp battery £29.1 year warranty. And they will be around they have been for years so far.

The second one is the best of a bad choice that's all I'm saying. Don't go for the cheapest of the cheap generic no name battery and expect good results.

 

[PhillipM]

I mean even in your picture there they've photoshopped the capacity on a generic stock photo - they've got the 6 upside down on the bottom one!
It's an absolute gamble as to whether you get something completely useless after 6 months and end up rebuying batteries and if you get a working one whether it can even get near the performance of an OE one (even the good clones will cost you a chunk of performance -

)

I've rebuilt plenty of packs in my life and unless you're using secondhand cells you can't rebuild a pack with decent cells for what most dewalt/makita/metabo etc, batteries cost you. So imagine the cells the cheapo's are using to hit that price.

 

[JOEPRO]

I mean even in your picture there they've photoshopped the capacity on a generic stock photo - they've got the 6 upside down on the bottom one!

That's actually because the listing had a drop down for 6amp or 9 amp.

But I 100% agree with you.

Don't buy em at all.

Buy genuine only. Buy once cry once? I have genuine batteries too and all perfect.

 

[julianf]

laptop cells are a slightly different chemistry and generally have massive voltage drop under any sort of high load, and will probably barely manage half their capacity if it's in any sort of demanding tool outside of a worklight or similar.
That's also part of the problem with clones.
Slap a clone battery in an impact gun and unless you get lucky half of your torque output has gone.

Do you have any documentation on this?

The power wall folk are onto EV batteries now, but, for a long time, harvesting 18650s was a real thing. I don't remember ever having read that the 18650 cells from laptop power packs were to be treated any differently.

The various charger / discharge testers have options to set their discharge rate for testing. I can't remember anyone ever having said that cells from laptops need different settings in all the time ive been lurking on these sorts of forum.

Maybe it's just something I've overlooked, so I'd be interested to read about it.

 

[PhillipM]

There's 3-4 different chemistries in 18650s, some of them are safe even if they're punctured but can't charge or discharge at rates much more than 0.25C, there's some much more potent that will happily do 20-30-40C discharge rates. Some of the really high performance specialist cells you often see in stuff like cordless vacs, etc, can charge at 5-10c too - that's a 6-12 minute charge time, vs a usual laptop pack that generally will be 0.5c and 2 hours.
The ideal capacity of an 18650 is only a tiny part of its' performance envelope.

This might help:

The Lithium-Ion Cells and Chemistries You Need to Know

An industry insider’s snapshot of Li-ion battery cells, covering the most popular sizes, formats, and chemistries. Given the diversity of Li-ion cells available, the focus is ...

www.electronicdesign.com

Although it doesn't really touch on charge rates and voltage drop much. There's a huge amount of info and datasheets out there though.
Power wall folk don't usually care too much as they're generally charging and discharging at very slow rates for the pack size.


edited for a link with more info

 

[Turbo]

The very original 3Ah 18V Makita ones were I think plagued by issues. Something to do with one cell going down and bricking the while thing. I had two bought with my first 18V drill. Think Makita fixed the issue.

Proper peed off when I bought two 5Ah Makita clones off of eBay and they both died inside 6 months. No comeback etc.

The two 3Ah clones I bought before that, one is still going but it has no LED bar / charge indicator. Might try and graft an indicator strip off a duff 5Ah into the working 3Ah.

The BMS on the early LXT batteries didn't monitor all the cells, just the first, last & middle. This led to uneven charging/draining & premature death of the battery. All copy fakita batteries I've come across use this basic BMS.
Later genuine Makitas have a BMS that monitors all the cells voltages.

 

[Turbo]

Where did you source the better BMS pls?

Ebay, I think.

 

[Turbo]

A good source for decent 18650's is the X20v Parkside batteries from Lidl. You get 5 2Ah cells for around £15. I've recelled a few batteries with these & they give the full 2Ah output & decent working time.