What do you guys think about ever rising voltage on cordless tools? They are trying to close the power gap between corded tools but while doing so they also increase the size and the weight of the tools to the point where you are wondering why im not just using corded tools at the first place. Maybe if you need the juice and are working on a off-grid or otherwise difficult location but for a average joe i dont think it makes sense to hop on a new platform yet. Not with current battery technology anyways.

>>2921377 (OP)
They’re just solving more peoples different use cases. Corded tools on job sites has always been a pain, trip hazards, ladders, confined spaces, gennies etc. Tool companies move rapidly to lawn care where 40V is an advantage, more so with increasing rules on gas powered mowers and blowers in some countries. Plus for some tools the cable just gets in the way

Most consumers won’t need 40V anytime soon especially with the pretty good LXT 36V line up around.

>>2921377 (OP)
It’s 99% marketing…
“Bigger number is more gooder” — t. average consumer
The 1% is that it lets them enshitify it by making the wires smaller. Somewhere around 60 volts is the upper limit, depending on country.
That’s it.

>>2921384
>Most consumers won’t need
anything above 24v ever. but whatever you might as well argue teal vs yellow

>>2921377 (OP)
Makita had to come up with those 40V batteries because they had no foresight and designed a bunch of tools that could never use batteries larger than 10x 18650. If they wanted to use 21700 cells and go larger than 6.0Ah packs, they had to do them in 40V packs to save face.

>>2921395
40V is far better in bigger motors like lawn mower or earth drills etc.

>>2921377 (OP)
stupid
i thought they used to make lawn mowers that took two big 18v batteries. what was wrong with that?
personally i think you should use a push mower or corded if you insist and just work away from the outlet not exactly difficult.(gas is terrible).
anything that needs a 40v battery is 'specialist' imo and i don't really like it. at least they could have made it an odd number. 36 or 42. but 40? fuck off.

Drill/impact driver don't need 40v.

40V is better in high power tools. Get the new BL4040F battery for 20-30% higher peak power

40v angle grinder with BL4040F is a huge upgrade over 18v. I do concrete floor/wall polishing with diamond cup disc

I got a few 40v tools which are actual upgrades:
Angle grinder
Leafblower
Circ saw


>>2921405
this 50%. Another reason is 18v platform patent expired so every chink manufacturer is competing with pirate tools on 18v makita platform now.

>>2921422
> two big 18v batteries. what was wrong with that?
Technically nothing, but now you have to buy more kinds of batteries,

It should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that putting all the batteries in parallel (resulting in a 3.6 V tool) instead of series (resulting in the “40 V” tool) has exactly the same amount of energy in the pack.

>>2921422
I got a blower that takes 2 batteries
works great

>>2921432
Don't you need load leveling for parallel but the batteries level themselves in series?

>>2921456
No, it's the opposite.

>>2921424
> is 18v platform patent expired so every…
This makes the most sense out of everything I’ve heard, all manufacturers want to get you on new hardware and new battery pack systems at any cost because now they’re coming with DRM.

The opening salvo is makita batteries permanently bricking themselves if the voltage dips too low, so you have to change the microcontroller and the cells if you want to refurbish the pack.

This is just like those inkjet printer refill scams.
…and the rfid chip in the dymo label printer rolls.

>>2921420
Most consumers won't need tonise an earth drill....what the fuck is an earth drill? An auger? Hell, I do fences and porches sometimes and I don't even have a gas engine one. If I need one I rent it but 6 holes or less I use a post hole digger.

>>2921377 (OP)
If you must go wireless, why not attach the pack to your belt and run a cable to it, instead of hauling that absolute dumbbell around the whole time?

>>2921377 (OP)
> they also increase the size and the weight of the tools to the point where you are wondering why im not just using corded tools at the first place.
Dubs of >This!
There’s no universal weight (or size) where this starts to apply, but some combos of battery + tool are just ridiculous.
>2 18V 10Ah batteries in a lawnmower?
Fine!
>2 18V 10Ah batteries in a circular saw?
Do you really wanna climb around framing with this behemoth?


For me, it’s tiny but powerful 12V tools, the best cordless tool variant.

>>2921712
Makita has you covered with the battery backpack!
Make sure you can get it off quickly if you’re using your wireless earth drill and it catches fire.

>>2921720
The double-battery skilsaws are just now getting the same power as some low-to-mid-range and older corded and brushed variants… for 10 minutes.
Luckily, 10 minutes is the maximum daily work output of the average zoomer on the site.

>>2921432
Amount of energy is the same but higher voltage means lower amps for the same power. Lower amps means thinner wiring so lower costs.

>>2921732
>Time bomb
>New OSHA req. just drops: racing driver style fire proof suits mandatory for workshops
Speaking of which, f1 has you covered re. corded tools in the workshop.

>>2921387
it's not really marketing. power losses are lower with higher voltage since p = i^2 * r.

>>2921763
Best thing about those suits (which i agree should be mandatory everywhere) is that you don’t have to wear clothes or underwear underneath them.
Plus it saves a few hours every morning getting dressed, accessorizing, etc. you just put on your identical jumpsuit.

>>2921768
>>2921768
So, that’s true for DC. But let’s put that into context:

But if you generously assume 8" of 10 AWG wire inside the tool, which is 0.00067 Ω, running around 20 A on average, it works out to 0.27 W, which is 0.018% of the sustained corded power available in north america. Or, in other words…

Sweet bugger all.

> marketing
Dewalt imagining of their 5 cell pack as being 20 V when it’s really 18 (in places where you can just lie about those things), is a lie 600% greater than the losses (which they probably don’t know about, nor could they even measure).

So yeah, it’s marketing.

>>2921768
But battery resistance is lower with the cells in parallel for 20v instead of series for 40v.
the motor is gucchy with 100ºc, the battery pack is not

>>2921786
> battery resistance is lower with parallel cells
Also motor winding resistance is lower.
Higher-voltage motors have more turns of thinner wire.
So, adding up those detriments to series cells and higher voltages, it looks like a 3.7 V pack is also going to be more efficent with less overall losses.

>>2921783
Dewalts marketing team really dropped the ball when they did not go for 21V. 21 is clearly bigger number than 20.

>>2921783
the losses of interest are in the MOSFET and in the motor windings. you quoted 0.67 milliohm wire resistance. MOSFET on resistance might be 5-50 milliohms (and there are also switching losses as the MOSFET moves through its linear region.) motor winding DC resistance might be 100 milliohms.

>>2921783
Most manufacturers lie that their 10.8V tools are 12V.

>>2921818
>hurr durr
>>2921817
the losses in the motor windings are not really of concern as the motor is the sole part actively cooled. watt hour efficiency is always secondary to raw power

>>2921770
Thanks Claus Schwab, really love the lack of identity it gives me.

>>2921826
You can still wear your gangster Tweety bird T-shirt under the jumpsuit. Don't worry.

>>2921818
> 10.8 V
More like 11.1.
However, it’s a generally accepted practice to call 3 li-ion cells “12 V”
The reason why, is because 12 V tools using NiCd had 10 cells rated at a nominal 1.2 volts—so that 12 V. The NiCd era was ultimately responsible for the whole 12 V “class” of tools, and 3 li-ion cells at 3.7 volts is as close as you can get.
NiCd also created the 18 V class of tools with 15 cells working out exactly to 18 V.
With li-ion, that’s generally accepted to be 5 cells, which works out to 18.5 V. It’s been like that for decades.
Then these know-nothing marketing/mba grads running dewalt bumped that up to 20 V, which is 100% bullshit.
Except in europe, where they have actual consumer protection laws and anti-fraud laws.

As someone said, why not 21 volts? Or 22? 10 million? It just proves that it’s over-inflated lying like those 100,000 mAh 18650 cells you buy on e-bay, or those chinese 1,000,000 lumen flashlights.
And, it seems likely that the chinese side of SB&D is probably running the show.

>>2921880
>Except in europe, where they have actual consumer protection laws and anti-fraud laws.
yea that is entierly american fantasies
the reason its called 12v now is because nobody wants to say
>OY MATE THROW ME THE TEN POINT EIGHT VOLT BATTERY

>>2921885
As i said, 12 V is generally accepted.
20 V for 18 is not.

>>2921886
yea because it doesnt have the homosexual decimal point in the name

>>2921886
That does not make it less of a lie. You need to know about these things to be able to "generally accept" it. And if you know about these things the false advertising does not work on you so it does not even matter.

>>2921886
Yeah, in germany the 20 V XR powerstack says 18 V… lol
Your papers are not in order.

It's just funny to see the dual battery tools that end up with 80V or 120V .... soon enough we can run all our corded stuff with universal motors on these batteries.

Power=voltage*current. You can't put too much current. If you have only 12 volts maybe you can't call it a power tool anymore. Just electric screw driver.

>>2921998
Say this to my M12 tools in Person and see what happens!

>>2921998
> put too much current
Oh? How much current is too much? Cars have had 12 V starter motors drawing 200 A for a century or so.
It’s a universal standard.
My PC power supply for crypto mining is 12 V at 240 A. That’s over twice the max instantaneous current draw of any ordinary cordless tool.

>>2921920
>call it 18v
>pack uses NMC type cells with nominal voltage of 3.85
>19.25v battery

>>2922395
Fuck me, tool batts should be longevity focused not max cap/instantaneous power draw. Don't need no god damned 4.35v lithium in there.

>>2922572
in a world where a tradies hourly rate is higher than the fucking tools retail? are you nuts?

>>2922572
All too often you will find the more power the tool has, the faster it finishes the task, so less power overall is used.
Like with impact drivers it's literally more efficient to use a bigger one that hits harder and spins faster because I said so fuck you

>>2921377 (OP)
Makita being dead set on the 40V and it being a completely separate system from LXT is so fucking retarded. space-wise a single huge 40V battery is not a lot more convenient than two 18V batteries of a similar capacity and, while I agree that 36-40V is a huge step up in some cases, e.g. circular saws, some tools just don't need 40V at all, some don't even need 18V. now everyone is forced into an abandoned system, or a system where you need a fucking huge brick sticking out of even something like a ratchet, instead of just having a single battery for some tools and just an additional battery for others that benefit from it, all interchangable and with a single charger.

>>2921377 (OP)
Never been an issue, I'm running M18 and have never had a need to get into the MX line. Every M18 I have works fine for the jobs I do.

>>2921920
People still fall for this retarded marketing wank. DeWalt 20 volt max refers to the maximum voltage, 18 volts is the nominal voltage like every other 18 volt system. Nothing wrong with DeWalt, but people that fall for this marketing wank should be embarrassed.

>>2921377 (OP)
I was about to buy a Milwaukee 18v grinder that comes with 2 batteries because it's on sale for $300. but I just realized I don't need it. I have a corded one I just hate having to bring out the electrical cord. Thanks OP for saving me 300 dollars.

>>2922837
>maximum voltage
The maximum voltage of a 5S lithium battery is 21 V

>>2921384
I’m in California, gas lawn care equipment for non-professional use is literally illegal here, I’m not joking … it sounds like I’m making a joke

>>2921422
>at least they could have made it an odd number. 36 or 42.
What are you smoking?

>>2923021
36 or 48 are the only legitimate voltages in those areas and 48 V is the telecom standard (and ethernet POE voltage) among other things, so that’s the preferred one by far.
Going higher than 48, you start to run into countries’ rules against “high voltage” which varies.

They should have just jumped to that immediately instead of gradually upping it and obsoleting old battery “schemes” but marketing liked putting you on a treadmill.

>>2923088
>gradually upping
Cordless tools weren't comparable to corded tools until lithium batteries and brushless motors became commonplace, then people gradually wanted more power and more battery tools, while a corded drill pulls only 500-800w a grinder or saw can pull 1500w, batteries gradually rose from the low voltages used in earlier NiCd packs like 7.2 or 12 to what we have now

>>2923021
rechargeable cells iirc are 1.2v
thats where you get 6 (5 cell), 12 (10 cell), 18 (15 cell) volt batteries from.
36 and 42 are the closest 'whole' number of nominal cell voltage sums.
36 seems most clean because its just two 18v batteries, perhaps some system where two batteries could slot into a carrier as an option alternative to an identically sized single unit 36v battery seems to me like it might be useful to some people e.g this guy >>2921451

of course as a lot of people point out itt, the advertised/actual voltage of a battery is pretty meaningless, and this post was basically just autism. ( i know because i wrote it and even i think its autistic )

>>2923105
Your assessment seems fine, but if you go back to the 70s, I had a belt of 9v rechargables I used for “portable” mobile video camera work, the output was 120 V or thereabouts.

So, pretty much power tool companies must have been largely ignorant of people that had already developed cordless technologies.
Kind of like spaceX probably should have asked nasa about some stuff.

>>2921377 (OP)
They don't need to close any gap - they just make shitty corded tools. Try to find an electric impact gun that rivals a good battery-powered one. A corded unit would blow a cordless one right out of the water - they just don't make it.

>>2923813
We had cordless drills 20 years ago and they were shit. The chemistry of modern batteries allows extremely fast discharge (high sustained current) which is why we now have saws and lawnmowers too. It's more than voltage.
I wonder what spacex could learn from nasa? How to kill people? How to kill people, put a woman in charge, have her kill more people, the promote her? How to lie about landing on the moon?