Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "egopower" vendor has some good products in this vein. I suspect others are catching up or passing them, but I've been very happy with the mower we have. The blower goes through the battery faster than anything else. But I'm very very grateful not to have gas in the garage for this. Even more grateful to no longer be mixing oil into gas to get these things to work.
It’s also very occasionally handy to be able to use the leaf blower indoors, which is a non-starter if it’s gas powered.
There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
91–100 of 126 posts
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#92Vendor lockin is why. These things are expensive, but they're not a pure profit center as one thinks.... Most tool batteries just wrap high quality LG Chem 18650s. I don't know the wholesale price, but since they're roughly $4-$5 at retail, lets say 8x @ $3 wholesale. Then you have electronics bom/assembly (generous $10) and casing/asembly ($2) and labor ($1) for a total of $37. Following the "Double your cost and ch…
It's definitely vendor lockin. Sometimes the straightforward answer really is the right one.
As you said, Ryboi and Mikwaukee have the same owner, along with Ridgid [0]. They could have easily made batteries work across brands, and even added caveats to their marketing that your Milwaukee tools won't have full performance with Ryobi batteries (etc). But they didn't - because once someone buys into an ecosystem they get a strong affinity to continue buying in, rather than saving money and buying a less expensive tool that they need less. Market decommodification generally increases margins.
The main draw for the lockin, at least in my experience, is wanting a good supply of batteries to not run out in the middle of something. Whereas if I had many different color tools and one or two batteries for each color, then I'd have to be much more attentive to keeping them charged.
Personally I bought into Dewalt - the trigger on their driver felt smoother. Then Dewalt 60V - the tool I wanted had good reviews and I can use the batteries in 20V tools for longer yard work, etc. My one deviation has been the Ryobi powered PEX cincher, for which Dewalt or anybody else didn't seem to have a comparable one. I bought it as a bare tool and added a Dewalt->Ryobi battery adapter. Occasionally I'll see more Ryobi stuff at great prices and be tempted, but I ask myself if I really need it, given that it's probably "less powerful" (half marketing, half truth) and the balance would be off (due to the adapter). Meanwhile a sale on a Dewalt tool that will make my life easier feels like a no brainer, due to already having the "proper" batteries.
The main churn-gimmick I've managed to resist is buying cordless tools when corded ones suffice for the type of job. Like if I'm needing a palm sander, I'm probably working on a longer term project and it makes sense to run an extension cord, rather than needing to occasionally do a few minutes of sanding at a time. Although I admit that calculus might be different if I didn't literally have more corded power tools than I know what to do with.
[0] https://toolguyd.com/tool-brands-corporate-affiliations/
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#93Vendor lockin is why. These things are expensive, but they're not a pure profit center as one thinks.... Most tool batteries just wrap high quality LG Chem 18650s. I don't know the wholesale price, but since they're roughly $4-$5 at retail, lets say 8x @ $3 wholesale. Then you have electronics bom/assembly (generous $10) and casing/asembly ($2) and labor ($1) for a total of $37. Following the "Double your cost and ch…
> ... batteries that use flat cells (called "Pouch Batteries") ...
They are but I think the more official/rigorous term is "prismatic cell".
https://www.google.com/search?q=prismatic+cell
(As opposed to cylindrical like 18650 et. al.)
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#94First time seeing this blog and it seems like they're trying too hard to give the benefit of doubt here. The list of concerns / drawbacks, particularly the reliability of performance concern, may be valid, but consumers deal with these already with every other battery powered device. A cheap USB charger or cable can dramatically effect your charging speed, a cheap AA battery may reduce your runtime, etc. It feels lik…
It's not that I wanted to give brands the benefit of the doubt, but that I believe there are other hurdles and significant obstacles independent of corporate profit considerations. Many consumers are familiar with the concept of Ah (amp-hours) as akin to a car's gas tank, where the more amp-hours a battery has, the longer it can power a device. If you buy a video camera, the brand's 4Ah battery should allow for doubl…
I'm not sure if it's intentional, but your example about a 6 Ah battery being worse than a 5 Ah battery seems to apply to Ryobi's 40 volt line, due to using cells from inferior brands[1]*. In this case however the inferior 6 amp hour (10s3p) battery is physically larger than the 5 amp hour (10s2p) and conveniently does not fit into some of the higher drain tools in this line, such as their chainsaw.
A potential solution to this problem is that companies be required to make the datasheet for the cells in their battery packs available to consumers. Presently I am not sure if there's a way to find out what cells a pack is made from except by taking it apart, which both voids the warranty and can be dangerous if you aren't careful.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ryobi/comments/oxn53g/psa_ryobi_is_...
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not quite as cut and dried as that, but it's getting closer as the brands expand. My contractor friend would refer to various tools as the "Brand" because he had one cordless tool from that brand because they had the one he needed. "Go grab the Makita", that kind of thing. From my experience it's the prosumer market that gets really rabid about their tool color. Do NOT cross the Red Army!
> From my experience it's the prosumer market that gets really rabid about their tool color. Do NOT cross the Red Army! Turn-over is much lower. A professional may buy a whole line of tools from a single brand but with the expectation that they may replace them all in several years. This allows some level of comparison and movement between brands as quality varies over time. The part-timer/prosumer is locked in for a…
It can vary company-by-company, but many contractors are their own little company and use the tool they need; a $250 battery is nothing if they need to keep working.
They also may not even bother warrantying a dead battery or tool unless it is painlessly easy (literally give it back to Home Depot when there to get something else), since the time spent isn't worth it.
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#96Vendor lockin is why. These things are expensive, but they're not a pure profit center as one thinks.... Most tool batteries just wrap high quality LG Chem 18650s. I don't know the wholesale price, but since they're roughly $4-$5 at retail, lets say 8x @ $3 wholesale. Then you have electronics bom/assembly (generous $10) and casing/asembly ($2) and labor ($1) for a total of $37. Following the "Double your cost and ch…
> ... batteries that use flat cells (called "Pouch Batteries") ... They are but I think the more official/rigorous term is "prismatic cell". https://www.google.com/search?q=prismatic+cell (As opposed to cylindrical like 18650 et. al.)
And prismatic cells are used in a large majority of electric vehicles, Tesla excluded.
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#97Vendor lock in is obviously a side effect, and there are consumer- hostile reasons why companies like proprietary batteries. But fundamentally the battery shape and power characteristics as well as the charging are still areas where companies can innovate and differentiate themselves. I'd rather have to choose a brand than get some out of date, un-ergonomic "approved" battery and connector that I have to use with my…
What surprises me is that even within a single brand there are multiple standards. Right now I mostly have Bosch Professional 18v kit. If I want a small edging router I have to biy a while new Bosch Professional 12v kit… unless I go with the Bosch “amateur” system which is different again. I think there might also be another 10v Bosch Pro system as well. Why? It’s like an xkcd.
There's really only a handful of battery voltages used across all manufacturers. It makes more sense if you think about the series count of a battery pack instead of the advertised voltage. A single lithium ion cell will have a nominal voltage of 3.6v and a "Max" voltage of 4.0v (technically 4.2v, but you can extend the battery life by not charging to 100% capacity).
Thus a 10.8v (3 x 3.6v) and a 12v (3 x 4v) are the same thing, just measured differently.
As is an 18v (5 x 3.6v) and a 20v "Max" (5 x 4v).
36v and 40v are both 10 cells in series.
Etc.
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#98There's no universal cordless power tool battery because the primary industry (construction) just doesn't care. Guys just buy whatever brand they are locked into and do the job. One-off tools or tools where one brand is just way better tend to be both corded and ran off a generator.
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#99First time seeing this blog and it seems like they're trying too hard to give the benefit of doubt here. The list of concerns / drawbacks, particularly the reliability of performance concern, may be valid, but consumers deal with these already with every other battery powered device. A cheap USB charger or cable can dramatically effect your charging speed, a cheap AA battery may reduce your runtime, etc. It feels lik…
It's not that I wanted to give brands the benefit of the doubt, but that I believe there are other hurdles and significant obstacles independent of corporate profit considerations. Many consumers are familiar with the concept of Ah (amp-hours) as akin to a car's gas tank, where the more amp-hours a battery has, the longer it can power a device. If you buy a video camera, the brand's 4Ah battery should allow for doubl…
But you generally can use a low power battery with a high power tool within the same brand. My 2Ah battery fits in my Dewalt 20V chainsaw. I'm guessing it has drastically less power and drastically reduced runtime (fewer cells -> more series resistance). And this would reflect entirely on the brand, except that people generally know enough to understand that using a much smaller battery than what came with the tool might result in a problem.
Marketing comparisons across brands is a matter of regulation (as opposed to say letting manufacturers post blatantly fraudulent specs like they did for shop vacs for the longest time). Or the market will adapt and it will just be common knowledge that "4Ah" in Ryobi land is more like "3Ah" in Milwaukee land (I've no idea if that's the case, just making up an example).
Overall yes, companies will come up with a myriad of reasons why they need more control in the name of "helping" people, and some reasons may even have some legitimacy. But ultimately they want that control to further their own self interest.
Re: There’s no universal cordless power tool battery – why?
#100Seems like there would be a market for a universal adapter that accepts all the different batteries and plugs into all the tools - or at least several of the major brands. Kind of like an octopus cable but with some additional straps to let you bundle the whole thing with whatever tool compactly. Probably the adapters would infringe on everyone's patents or copyright or whatever or someone would have done it.