Any thoughts on the value of this cordless jigsaw

[Andy Burns]

I see that next year Makita are to launch an "XGT" range of 40V tools/batteries, presumably they'll gradually phase out the 36V dual LXT tools?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They'll be needing shutters on the battery and charger connections soon. ;-)

[invalid]

A fully charged 18V LiIon ryobi battery is about 20V not 18V.

I expect they have just decided to use the same number of cells and quote the fully charged voltage.

[Andy Burns]

20V vs 18V is the USA vs UK marketing trick, but "rounding up" from 18V to 40V would be quite a trick, doubling the number of cells, and *then* counting 4.0V/cell rather than 3.7V quite possibly, Milwaukee already produce 60V packs.

[Andy Burns]

Seems they'll be 10S packs, rather than 5S/2P packs ...

[DJC]

Is that really 40v or just a rebranding of 36v in the same way that Bosch rebranded 10.8v as 12v?

[Andy Burns]

makita don't currently make a 36V battery, their 36V tools use 2x18V batteries, so it's a reconfiguration of the batteries to higher voltage (but lower current)

yes at the same time the marketing dept has convinced them to use the max. voltage instead of nominal voltage

[Terry Casey]

No different to the 1.5V zinc carbon cells we all grew up with which were really 1.4V for most of their working life.

[TMH]

Probably because they are stolen.

[ZakJames]

Nope, most are sold that way now. Even by aldi. No real point in having a new charger and battery with every cordless tool when you buy more than one tool in a manufacturer's product line.

[John Rumm]

There is a big market for "body only" tools these days, since many people will buy into a battery platform, and then share it between all their tools.

I buy body only versions of any new Makita (models numbers suffixed with Z) kit for just that reason.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Until you decide to expand that collection, and discover they've upped the voltage on the current system. ;-)

[Andy Burns]

I don't see that they're (Makita) going to make any 18V tools incompatible with the current system, new 40V tools will need different batteries, it remains to be seen whether they introduce [m]any new 2x18V tools.

[John Rumm]

Even if they introduce a new higher voltage battery, it would not make any sense to discontinue the current 18V range since its vast (the largest range of 18V tools from any manufacturer). Even if they stopped producing them, they would just open up space for a massive clone market.

Plus Makita seem to keep battery platforms for a considerable period[1]. Their first cordless tool was released in 1969, and the current remaining range of NiCd/Nimh tools are still using the same battery connector, and a modern charger could still charge that original battery.

[1] If you gloss over those first LiIon tools that can't use some of the the higher capacity LCT batteries now available.