18V or 20V for lithium powered tools?

[mike]

18V or 20V for lithium powered tools? I'm still debating over whether to pitch all my old crap into the dumpster and buy a new set of lithium battery powered tools.

I'm confused about the battery configuration. The Kobalt tools are 24V. I bought one of the $10 packs to repurpose the high-current 18650 cells. I verified that there are six cells x 4V = 24V. OK.

There are 18V tools. There are 20Vmax tools.

4V increments include 16V and 20V. Where does the 18V come from? Some of the 20Vmax tools have fine print about being 20V after charge, but 18V in use??? Many of the batteries make no mention of the capacity. I had to go home and google to figger it out.

Are 20Vmax tools any better than the 18 volt ones? Or did some marketing type get his way and exaggerate at the advertising meeting???

Does it make sense to pay more for 20Vmax tools than the 18V counterpart? Or how about waiting a little longer for the prices to come down on the brushless tools.

I have one Porter Cable 18V battery that I got at a garage sale. Seems to be good, so there's some advantage to going that way. I expect that the

18V battery won't fit the 20V tool.

Another thing I discovered is that the vendors market various combinations of tools. But if you go to Home Depot and look at the Ryobi line, the tools you get in the sets with more tools you don't need appear to be significantly different (better?) than the tools available in the sets with fewer tools.

I had an interesting conversation with the Lowes sales person. He claimed that the demo tool batteries failed quickly. I suggested the tool should shut off when the voltage reached the safe discharge limit. He claimed the factory told him that discharging to the limit drastically reduces battery life. WTF? If the cutoff is low, battery life is drastically reduced.. Keeping them fully charged, reduces battery life, unless you store them in the fridge...and warm them up before use. What's a poor tool user to do? Stay with NiCd?

If I don't replace everything, I still have to maintain all the tools, batteries, chargers that I have now. The whole purpose is to downsize the tool collection.

Too much choice, too little info.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Sure, tipped up they will be 20v but aftr a few seconds of use you will see only 18. Marketing, not real

How cynical of you to thing advertisers would exaggerate.

Yes. I find the 18V to be unnecessarily heavy when doing lighter jobs. I still use my Panasonic 15.6V drill because it is smaller, lighter, gets the job done. Hardly touch the 18v. Don't get caught up in the bigger is better thing.

[philo]

FWIW: I have a Milwaukee, with a small sized 12v Li-ion and two spare batteries. If I run one down and put it on charge, it's sufficient that I would not have needed a 3rd battery.

I do often work it quite hard so I am sure the 16v would be fine.

[Muggles]

I have a nice set of the Ryobi 18V tools plus about 6 batteries. It works for what I need to do.

[Frank]

I have an HD Ridgid 18V drill with 2 batteries. Does all I need and batteries are warranted for life.

[clare]

Except the voltage is 3.7, not 4 for all the currently available lithium technologies. That is 6X3.7= 22.2 volts

5x3.7= 18.5 volts. The advertizing / marketing departments of most of these companies are "fudging" the numbers.

It's like your 6 HP vacuum cleaner.

If you can wait for the brushless it is likely worth it.

Noit unless it's the same configuration as the Porter Cable.

What makes them "appear" to be "better"? And how does the pricing work out. You don't get something for nothing.

Discharging to the limit will decrease battery life on virtually all battery chemistries and constructions - some worse than others.

NiCad us the worst. NiMH is MUCH better. Lithium has the potential to be a LOT better than either. The normal Lithium chrging regime charges to 4.2 volts per cell and holds at that voltage untill the current drops to something like C10. MUCH better battery life if only charged to 4.0 volts, although that does give less capacity per charge.

Give them all to me and buy just the tools you need in the Ryobi One+

18 volt line - share the batteries as they are all the same.

[Gordon Shumway]

Buy what you think you need and feel comfortable working with. A contractor that puts in a hard week every week will not be happy with what a sometime DIY'er likes. If it feels too big and heavy for your needs it probably is. YMMV

[Bill]

But what does "for life" mean in this context?

[mike]

I had that discussion today at HD with the tool guy. He said, if it's no longer available they'll "Probably" give you a new tool. When I pressed him on "probably", he admitted that he had no idea what the policy was...or would by the time I needed it.

I have 60 years of experience with lifetime warranties. Don't remember ever being to get satisfaction on any of them. It's the life of the company...

I once had a checking account that guaranteed 7.5% return on checking balance for life. One Friday, the bank closed. Next Monday, a new bank appeared with the same employees. They offered a smooth transition to the new bank with my old account numbers. Everything was as before, except for the interest on checking accounts.

[Ralph Mowery]

Things like that hapen all the time. The company I worked for had good benefits and pension. They sold to another company. Nothing chnaged at the plant I worked at. It ran 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The pension and benefits changed a lot, for the worse.

Some that had been there less than 5 years just got paid off for the pension, which at that time was not very much. Others had close to 30 years in with the company and found their pension was going to be cut in about half.

I see things advertised on TV all the time with the life time warrenty. I bet those companies are out of business in less than a year.

A friend was suspose to have a 'free' modem for his internet for life. That lasted about 2 years and then was charged a monthly fee like most everyone else.

I don't even think about a warrenty when I buy something, especially a long one.

[Bill]

That's a good story! : )

[Ed Pawlowski]

Did you see how dpb disliked BOA? They did similar things at my bank. They flat out told me they did not care about my measly account.