[glasss]

First 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 like the author is trying to not state the obvious that every comment here has pointed out - the batteries are lock ins, and expensive ones at that. For $100 I can buy modern electrical engineering marvels, or a run of the mill battery from Milwaukee. Or just a battery charger. It is this industry's way of making profits until they get regulated / legislated into being more consumer friendly, because I doubt they will do it on their own.

[StrangeATractor]

This isn't a secret in construction, you buy one brand of cordless tools and stick with it. DeWalt sells tools so cheap you wonder if they're a loss leader. A single battery (one of the big 60V, 12Ah ones you use for circular saws and angle grinders) is $285 on Amazon. The biggest cordless circular is $178, the biggest grinder is $163.

You'll want at least two of those batteries per day if you're doing any serious work.

The real pain is when they they change the battery's interface, which will happen every so often. They stop selling the older stuff and eventually you'll have to upgrade and buy the whole product line all over again.

[bombcar]

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!

[datpiff]

> 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 decade or more and ends up tying the tool brand to their identity...

[bombcar]

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.

[JohnFen]

> They also may not even bother warrantying a dead battery or tool unless it is painlessly easy

I'm this way as an individual customer, to be honest. I ignore warranties entirely because they're rarely worth all of the hassle that comes with them.

[citrin_ru]

It’s a rational choice for an individual but if people would always use warranty it would create an incentive for manufacturer to keep some minimal quality level to reduce cost of replacements/returns.

[dieselgate]

Also the cost of it for the contractor is just passed onto the consumer/client if they’re doing business “right”.

I used to work at HD supply hardware store (store targeting commercial contractors) and there isn’t even price tags on the items at all. Stuff is super expensive but all that stuff is baked into contract budgets

[StrangeATractor]

There are exceptions depending on what you're doing, but generally speaking 95% of your cordless tools will be one brand.

[Arrath]

And it'll often be for the advantage of a single warranty/service/repair contract as much as a unified battery logistics chain.

When you have crews burning out a half dozen assorted hammer drills, recirc saws, electric rivet busters, etc. a week then the service side of the contract really comes in to play.

[mikecoles]

Dewault has a 'sneaky' tactic. I just needed a battery. Tools run fine. You can't buy a new battery, of the legacy style, from the big box stores though. They do sell a battery adapter so you can use with their new style batteries with your existing tools. Now that you have a new battery to use with your old tools, might as well keep buying new tools to match that battery.

[hgsgm]

Why aren't ZYXNOO and BAJIP and all those Amazon brands selling cheap and modular replacements?

[nikau]

They are.

I have some clone Makita batteries and tools that are fine.

Your average tradie would rather just do a cash in hand extra job vs spending that time researching and waiting for some clone tools from China.

[rektide]

The world after usb-pd looks so different. Everything used to be expensive bulky & proprietary.

It turns out usb-pd works pretty damned well.

It'll be a while before anything meaningful happens for this market though. 100w would power a huge range of tools but not all. 240w would be great, work for a huge range of tools with ton of overhead. But the lack probably has a much lower voltage that would need to be up-converted to 48v, then the power switching in the tool needs to handle higher voltage too (which I think is actually not a real concern, could actually help a lot).

But more obviously, it's a question of form factors. Tools have shapes that conform to & support their packs. USB doesn't have any kind of a play here right now, only defines a connector, cable & how data & power are to be transmitted.

It's hard to imagine getting out of this tar-pit. Whose going to start building more expensive packs that spit out standard 48v usb-pd? What hero would do that?

Side note, some day I'd really love to see a much higher amperage USB connector. Usb-d should be able to do like 30a, 1.5kW at 48v. Big ask, but it's one potential exciting frontier I hope "universal" extends into. My other ask is for a longer range 5+ gbps USB4, but that seems maybe potentially harder, I dunno.

[maxerickson]

Does it particularly make sense to link new DC power standards to USB?

Like I expect I'd rather have Bluetooth control over stuff plugged into the wall vs having a combined communication/high(er) power cable.

[rektide]

I'd love for there to be some competition. Absolutely.

This submission is about cordless power tools batteries, so that somewhat affects the scope. In general, cords can be super dangerous & limiting for power tools, so battery based has naturally really taken the heck over, for all kinds of good reasons. Even still, I think the questioning is fine & good, could apply to this segment.

Bluetooth is a bit hard because of pairing. Where-as a physical connection is unmistakable & zero additional effort.

I'd also point out, we're still bloody fucking awful, just dogshit terrible, about using USB. USB-hid has really nice specs for batteries & chargers to offer telemetry. Our wall chargers could report tons of stats on what they think is happening. Our batteries could self report all kind of stats. There's no good reason we have simply ignored the longstanding spec for so long, made such & continue to make such poor use of USB, other than abysmal expectations & abysmal delivery. (well, for a while, usb charging's high power modes only worked if there wasnt any data, and that was a dumb if valid reason).

It would be great to see usb-pd batteries keep winning and wireless telemetry.

[maxerickson]

Oh, the Bluetooth thing was just an aside about not caring about having communications on the same cable as power for higher power devices, I don't think it's very relevant to power tools.

My point was more about not having the higher power delivery implementation tied to a complicated, relatively expensive, high speed data bus.

The reason stuff doesn't do any reporting is that people mostly don't care and it would add some small incremental cost, it's not a big mystery.

[WorldMaker]

> My point was more about not having the higher power delivery implementation tied to a complicated, relatively expensive, high speed data bus.

The reason most DC power delivery systems failed to be general purpose was that unless you pick some not very useful lowest common denominator voltage you need some sort of data bus to request/negotiate/handshake voltage for each device. If you are already building in a data bus into your power delivery lines you might as well give it some speed so that you could run other communications over it, at which point you likely just wind-up reinventing something like USB if you are planning a "simple, dumb DC power delivery standard".

[Tagbert]

Bluetooth is much more complicated than the basic power negotiation on USB-PD.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

At my last job we designed a lot of wireless devices. One problem we saw frequently was that in high population-density areas, e.g., apartment buildings in NYC, Bluetooth was often useless because there was simply so much interference from so many devices in a small space.

Wired communication definitely still has its place.

[JohnFen]

The USB connector is the problem here. For a tool like these, I'd certainly want one that's more rugged than USB-C. Those things are fragile.

[crote]

It could potentially be fixed by overmolding the USB-C connector: keep the connector, but stick it in a little jacket to make it foolproof. A bit like etherCON[0]: compatible, but way more rugged. They actually already have variants for USB-A![1]

There is already a USB-C variant, but that one seems a bit lacking.[2]

[0]: https://www.neutrik.com/en/products/data/ethercon

[1]: https://www.neutrik.com/en/neutrik/products/multimedia-conne...

[2]: https://www.neutrik.com/en/neutrik/products/multimedia-conne...

[JohnFen]

I thought we were talking about USB-C as the interface between the battery and the tool. If that's the case, the connector would be embedded in the battery so it mates with the receptacle when you clip the battery onto the tool. There wouldn't be something you can put a sleeve on (and that wouldn't be necessary as the case of the battery is, effectively, the ruggedized sleeve.)

I have an SBC that mates with an external hard drive in this way. You put the hard drive in an enclosure that clamps onto the base of the SBC and a USB-C connector mates when you do.

That's what needs to be more rugged. It's not just external side-to-side forces here, it's the actual mating and unmating of the connector that needs to be ruggedized. USB-C is too delicate for that, at least in my experience.

You want something that has big, beefy contacts that can handle being connected and disconnected a lot, by people who are not being anything close to careful when they're doing it.

[rektide]

If the battery already had to slide into place, it the jack & plug were already pre-aligned, I think the connector reliability would be absurdly good.

The biggest on the job problem would probably shift away from mechanical stress entirely, & be an issue of degree. Sawdust & gunk getting into the jack or plug.

I agree that a better connector would be awesome. I'd love a high amp big leafy thing.

[tchvil]

As pointed in the article, battery packs aren't that expensive.

When my last of 3 Makita battery pack died I found reasonably priced battery holders with a PCB: https://a.aliexpress.com/_EjvvWY7

10 high current LG 18650 cells per pack.

Plus a cheap but good enough spot welder($65 I can reuse), some nickel strips and I ended up at about the same cost as the original ones on material alone.

[monkmartinez]

No way it was close! I just did this on for a 6AH Makita. First of all, taking apart the pack... for science, the batteries were name brand but not the best and were under-rated capacity.

Second, I shopped around and found LG MH1 INR 18650 3200mAh HD 10A for under $5 per cell. So my 5S2P (18v 6AH+) battery with BMS and new case was less than $70 shipped with damn fine cells.

The cheapest knockoff amazon battery that works with Makita is about $50, but those are seriously sus in both cell type and BMS. Homedepot has the OG Makita 6ah at $200+.

The only thing you need contemplate for DIY is the quality of the BMS. Don't charge batteries when you are not paying some attention.

[StueyGuyd]

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 double the recording time as their 2Ah battery. Right?

Which would you rather buy, a 6Ah cordless power tool battery for $79, or a 5Ah battery for $89? The batteries are the same size and weight. Depending on the application, the 5Ah battery might outlast the 6Ah in use.

You're at the home center and see three power tool batteries on the shelf - all are 18V and rated at 3Ah, but they're different physical sizes. Which is better?

With a bit of research on your phone, you learn that the batteries are built with 5x 18650, 5x 21700, and 10x 18650 Li-ion battery cells, respectively. All three 3Ah batteries are the same price. Does this help you choose?

Power tool battery selection is not as intuitive as looking at a 20W USB charger and simply knowing it will charge devices at a faster rate than a 5W charger. There are enough "what battery should I get?" questions in my inbox and messages folders, as well as all over online forums, for me to believe the confusion has gotten worse over the years as new overlapping technologies were introduced.

Many users don't fully understand that there can be huge differences in power capabilities. A 1.3Ah battery and a 12Ah battery of the same voltage and cordless system are going to deliver very different levels of power. A lot of tool users learn this the hard way. It's not their fault, as a 12Ah battery might be simply advertised as delivering more than 9X the runtime.

With many more options available, I'm sure many users will pair cheaper brand name batteries with pro-level tools and expect everything to work well together. Who will they blame for poor performance? Themselves and their choices? The tool brand? Or the battery brand?

In my opinion, if user experience concerns can be addressed, and numerous technical obstacles flattened, companies "making profits until they get regulated" will be the easiest hurdle to overcome.

If you want to better understand why replacement batteries cost so much, look at different brands' sales and promotions. The Makita XGT circular saw kit (GSR01M1) is $299 right now across authorized dealers, and you get a free extra battery. The same 4Ah battery (BL4040) is priced at $199 to $219, each. So that's $299 for the kit with a total of 2 batteries plus a saw, charger, and tool bag, or $398 for just 2 batteries.

Based on this type of retail math, I'd say replacement battery prices are set to balance out the promos.

[mindslight]

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.

[StueyGuyd]

I'm guessing it has drastically less power and drastically reduced runtime

Yes, pretty much. A lot of people don't realize this and have no reason to assume otherwise.

Let's say you can lift up to 50 pounds, and your friend can lift up to 100 pounds. You are both tasked with moving a pile of 5 pound weights from one spot to another.

You can move (50) 5 lb weights before getting tired, your friend has the energy to move (100). So, you have the energy to move 250 lbs, and your friend 500 lbs.

However, increase the load to 40 pounds. 45 pounds. 49 pounds. If your friend can move 10 49 pound weights before tiring, are you going to be able to move 5? The work being done is 50% of their max effort, but 99% of your max effort. You might give up after 2 despite technically starting with the energy to move 5.

But ultimately they want that control to further their own self interest.

Of course. But given many of the questions I've fielded over the years, consumer education and expectations will be a considerable challenge.

A common battery interface wouldn't be enough - if even possible at this point; there would also have be industry standards in how tools and batteries are characterized.

[glasss]

I appreciate the response. I might just not be the target of your blog, in your given example:

>You're at the home center and see three power tool batteries on the shelf - all are 18V and rated at 3Ah, but they're different physical sizes. Which is better?

>With a bit of research on your phone,

Personally, myself nor anyone I know who uses power tools more than just buying a 12v drill once, would do this research on our phone in the aisle of Home Depot. If I see three batteries all rated the same, it would be a price decision or a form factor one ("bigger must be better"). That could be where my disconnect is - I've never once thought about what kind of internal battery cells are being used.

>With many more options available, I'm sure many users will pair cheaper brand name batteries with pro-level tools and expect everything to work well together.

This happens now across the consumer and business space. I have clients at work who buy a cheaper usb-c dock for their laptops, because why is the Dell official one $250? Some users might run into issues with it while others in their company don't. Some blame the dock, some blame their old laptop, some curse that their company didn't buy them Apple devices. The truth is always somewhere in the middle, sometimes it is the dock but sometimes it isn't. Dell doesn't care - they made $100B last year and they'll just tell you to buy the official Dell dock even if it is your old computer causing the issues.

But I, and everyone I know, would hate it if no one made those cheaper usb-c docks and just limited our choices to the $250 options.

The math behind the market of the batteries also doesn't interest anyone I know. We don't care how / why Milwaukee or Makita runs deals, we're just mad that we're spending so much. More options, and cheaper options, have never been a bad thing in a market.

[StueyGuyd]

>Personally, myself nor anyone I know who uses power tools more than just buying a 12v drill once, would do this research on our phone in the aisle of Home Depot. If I see three batteries all rated the same, it would be a price decision or a form factor one ("bigger must be better"). That could be where my disconnect is - I've never once thought about what kind of internal battery cells are being used.

Even if conducting your research at home and online before buying into a cordless platform, you might encounter similar options and potential confusion.

Here are two Dewalt 20V Max batteries:

https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb230/20v-max-compact-3ah-ba... https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb200/20v-max-3ah-battery

Here are two Dewalt 6Ah batteries:

https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb206/20v-max-xrr-6ah-batter... https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb606/flexvoltr-2060v-max-ba...

Here are two Dewalt 5Ah batteries:

https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcbp520/20v-max-dewalt-powers... https://www.dewalt.com/product/dcb205/20v-max-xrr-5ah-batter...

More knowledgeable users have difficulty sorting out the differences. I used Dewalt as an example, but every brand has their own nuances to understand.

Bigger is still usually better, but not always, as the scale is no longer linear.

Most consumers expect a linear relationship.

>But I, and everyone I know, would hate it if no one made those cheaper usb-c docks and just limited our choices to the $250 options.

There are 3rd party batteries and adapters available on Amazon, ebay, and direct-import sellers.

I would never touch them, but they're there for those who want to buy them.

> I've never once thought about what kind of internal battery cells are being used.

I wouldn't expect most people to.

The main source of confusion is that each cordless power tool brand has battery options across several different technological generations.

Different brands' like-capacity batteries can have different power capabilities as well.

The end result might be that consumers will be presented with multiple batteries all labeled the same, such as 18V 4Ah, with all different capabilities.

People would spend less, but get less and not understand why.

Simply being able to swap batteries around wouldn't be a sufficient fix by itself.

It's like using a micro USB cable with a USB-C plug adapter, and expecting it to charge a laptop at 100W.

[notjulianjaynes]

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_...

[StueyGuyd]

I hadn't heard about that until now, but also am not surprised to see sourcing vary. A lot of time this seems to have as much to do with volume as it does with cost.

A brand has wire strippers on the shelf at Home Depot year-round, and they're made in Taiwan. When they ship promo displays with high volume count of pliers for the winter holidays, the wire strippers are made in China. I bought both, and found the ones made in China to be slightly better quality. Cost could be a consideration, but there's logistics involved with shipping a couple of dozen tools per store x 2000 stores plus online distribution.

I wouldn't be surprised if batteries could be sourced depending on production volume or manufacturing location of the tools they're bundled with in kits.

Cell availability is also an issue. Festool is discontinuing their 5.2Ah battery and replacing with a 5.0Ah battery. I cannot find either in stock anywhere right now. The slight change will give Festool the flexibility to source 2.5Ah or 2.6Ah batteries. It's better to build a 5.2Ah battery that's labeled as 5.0Ah, rather than sell a 5.2Ah battery that only has 5.0Ah capacity.

A couple of brands have had issues with 5S3P batteries not fitting tools that weren't designed for them. Milwaukee, for example, replaced the battery bays of some of their lights when their first 15-batteries came out. I don't think Ryobi ever offered similar.

If Ryobi had new tools that wouldn't fit their larger 6Ah battery, that would be bad.

In my example, I was referencing 6Ah batteries with 3Ah 18650 cells that have higher internal resistance compared to 2Ah and 2.5Ah cells.

Datasheets are tricky.

If I recall correctly, when Milwaukee launched their 5S3P M18 9Ah HD battery, the best 3Ah 18650 cells were rated to top out at 15A continuous discharge current. The best 2Ah cells were rated at 22A. So why would a 5S3P battery with 3Ah cells be any better than a 5S2P battery with 2Ah cells?

I asked the product team exactly this and they mentioned that data sheets are a good starting point, but don't directly dictate real-world performance. What it comes down to is cooling. That, and batteries are regulated so that tool power and performance is comparable across different battery sizes or types of batteries.

Batteries would need to be characterized in terms of max power delivery at a rated temperature. This is very hard to do at high loads, given the cost of test equipment and safety precautions.

Tools would need to be rated as well, something that isn't done at all right now.

I attempted to do that once, but found that maximum power draw depended on the application and work material, type and sharpness of the accessory used, and depending on the tool the type of battery it was paired with.

Look online to see how much dislike there is for the UWO (unit Watts out) unit that Dewalt uses to describe their cordless drills and select other tools. In theory, this is a better measurement for comparing how one drill might perform compared to another, taking into account both speed and torque. In reality, everyone simply wants to know the max torque specs.

I'm not saying it's good to have to buy different brands' proprietary batteries to power their tools, but that - even if possible - a universal battery system will be consumer-unfriendly in other ways.

I really hope I'm wrong.

[lamontcg]

> With many more options available, I'm sure many users will pair cheaper brand name batteries with pro-level tools and expect everything to work well together. Who will they blame for poor performance? Themselves and their choices? The tool brand? Or the battery brand?

I have a DeWalt drill that I bought some years ago. I literally have no idea if the drill performs well or not no matter what batteries would go best into it. My requirements are fairly low, I just occasionally need a drill.

The vast majority of consumers out there that buy a drill for their home don't care about all the performance issues that you like geeking out over. And they don't need to care.

[StueyGuyd]

Are you drilling 1/8" holes or driving in small screws a couple of times a year? The batteries that came with your tool should last many years.

Every type of user wants less expensive batteries and more opportunities to save money.

What about consumers who use cordless blowers? An increasing number of towns and cities have ordinances banning gas engine blowers.

Cordless chainsaws are increasingly popular with homeowners, and their power requirements can be very different from those of a cordless drill.

Every brand now has cordless trimmers, mowers, and more.

A universal interface would all but require most users to start having to geek out over battery selection unless they stuck with their tool brand's options.

Even if all the technical hurdles are knocked out of the way, what's to stop brands from designing their tools to only deliver their full potential when powered by their own batteries? At least one brand already does this.

So you might not care about geeking out, but what happens when you buy the wrong battery and your cordless mower can't cut tall grass when it can with the batteries it was sold with?

[johnea]

Well said.

> "until" they get regulated / legislated into being more consumer friendly, because I doubt they will do it on their own.

In the US though, very unlikely that they will be regulated.