I thought the advantage of Makita cordeless tools was that they all shared the same battery type yet when I was presented with a Makita BUC122 chainsaw with no battery I couldn't fit the one from a drill, it seemed to start sliding in but then reached a hard stop. Are there different types of Makita 18V battery fittings?
ish ...
What's the Ah of the battery that wouldn't fit?
Thanks for that, I haven't taken it all in yet but will delve deeper tomorrow evening.
Yup
There was a time when they introduced the 4Ah and higher capacity batteries that they made a slight change to the fittings.
IIUC the logic was that the newer batteries used of an extra pin position to allow more communication between tools and the battery management system in the new bats. This is not present on the old tools.
(Also the new batts can supply higher peak current, which not all the old tools may be able to handle)
You can just remove the tab on the tool that blocks the new battery being inserted - but you will need to take care to not discharge it too far since the battery monitoring and low voltage cut off won't work, and you could end up bricking a battery if you take its terminal voltage too low for the charger to want to charge it.
So moving forward - not an issue, all LXT batts and current tools (like DUC prefix chainsaws) should play nice together.
Hmmm The buc122 is listed as LXT so should play with "usual" spec Makita batteries?
I wonder if one of those lesser 1.5ah "look like LXT but actually not" is afoot....
All the batteries carry the LXT name, but the newer ones are marked with a D and a star. The older LXT tools had model numbers prefixed with B, and the newer ones D.
The smallest LXT batteries are 3Ah
How new is newer? I have a mix of older 3ah & "newer" 5ah batteries, all play interchangeably with everything I've got... from a new twin 18v linetrimmer, back to an old LXT flashlight.
I have yet to experience this "battery block"
Yerss. The 1.5ah *lookalikes* were sold as part of cheaper B&Q style makita drill kits - they look like shallower LXT batts but aren't & don't fit - G series rings a bell...
Ran into this problem with Bosch. Bought an 18v cordless strimmer on the basis that I have several 18v bosch tools and batteries but the 18v garden range uses different 18v batteries. Had to buy a battery and charger. PITA as the run time on these things is quite short so having 4 X 18v batteries would have solved that problem. I do have a Stihl Kombi engine with its associated strimmer but thought the cordless would have been handy for the small quick jobs. Gave it to SWMBO to play with
I understand the 4Ah battery was introduced in 2014. So I would guess that is the approx date of the change.
And generally you should not see it unless a battery is on its last legs or is abused in some way. However draining one "too far" might do it. Generally the BMS ought to deal with that, but usually it will co-operate with the tool, so without that comms it may not handle all situations as well.
I use a couple of adaptors to allow me to run my old NiMh tools from the LXT batts. The same situation exists there. So far I have not had a problem, but then again I don't run bats down to the "last drop" anyway.
G series is a different battery platform altogether. They are aimed at non pro use, and are all only 1.3Ah
Not quite, I have a BL1820B (2Ah) bought last year to have a small/light one for the impact driver, and I think they used to make a BL1815N (1.5Ah) too.
They did indeed. Available s/h on eBay if anyone really wants one :-)
Unless your tools are very early LXT ones, then you wont. Models starting with a D will run on any battery,
You can get third party batteries in the makita format. They usually lack much in the way of battery protection anyway, and will probably fit all tools.
I sit corrected... it looks like they have actually introduced new lower capacity cells.
There's no chance the owner will buy a new saw so if I advise her to get the correct replacement I suppose she won't be able to use the charger for the modern drill battery??
My worry with this type of top handle saw is that they tempt people to use then one handed and a kickback can then easily rotate the saw around the one hand and cause damage. The tip guard supplied by Makita is off the saw because her husband would have used it when climbing with a harness, the only reason to use a top handle saw.
photos of batteries/charger/tools?
Not sure if it would be a problem with the charger - since its the tool that has an extra tab in the battery slot that prevents the insertion of the new batteries. The new charger won't have the tab either.
Yup top handle saws really want to be used with both hands whenever possible. (in fact there is a good argument to only use them for aerial work, and switch to a back handle one for any time your feet arr on the ground).
I've not seen photos of the "non-star" batteries, but here's how to adapt tools to let them fit ...
Yup that will work, although with the caveat of taking care not to over drain the batteries in case the lack of battery management comms causes a problem.
Thanks for that Andy and John, I've passed the link on. As the modification is only to the saw it's worth trying just to make sure the saw works before investing in a new battery/
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