Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Power Tools). This thread is read-only.
Man, they are pushing the battery updates super fast now it seemed like the 3.0-1.5 amp hour era lasted for years now we get new tools/battery upgrades yearly now like the Iphone. Milwaukee needs to get out a fuel powered hole hawg.
Hitachi already has them in Europe but not here. Bosch just released 4.0 batteries not too long ago.
Be careful what you wish for DR. Milwaukee will follow suit and you’ll be wearing Work Chinos and designer Milwaukee Capris.
I do hate having warm ankles!
I know right? Plus my ankles get so milky white so that’s why I wear Bosch Work Capris! Oh my Gosh. Please Lord protect us from the sensitive next generation and their incredible choice of fashionable work clothes!!!!
I think we should just man up and wear kilts all the time.
No because Metabo have had 5.2ah Batteries out since 2013 Bud.
Hey Wayne!! 5.2 baby! That’s screams “world of lowly humans…I am a MAN. Feel the power of my Power Tools! Shake in my presence!!!” That’s what we need over here for Pete sake! Why do we not have those here?
You got me there Wayne I just don’t consider Metabo a major player in the states, but yea they have had the 5.2 ah packs for awhile now.
I wonder what the charge times will be On 5.0 packs?
You hardly notice the difference between charging the 3ah and the 5.2ah.
I gladly wait a bit longer for the battery life I get from the Bosch the Metabo and the Dewalt stuff because Makita may charge quickly but they also go flat quickly and also end up in the trash quicker as well.
But these people at Metabo are just ramping it up more and more and are now brushless as well.
Am a big fan of this manufacturer but not exclusively as I have many others from the other players 🙂
Metabo and Makita decided to go with active cooling when charging which allowed them to charge faster and not heat damage the pack. I wonder what is causing the high failure rates on Makita battery packs. It’s pretty bad if you google about it you find tons of posts.
They are spending most of their funding on research and development of the perfect Señorita Makita. Thank God! Who cares about the batteries when you have that 🙂
I think Bosch previewed 5.0 batteries at the World of Concrete this year. I had a status update from toolbocbuzz.com on the 21st say,”5.0 batteries coming this Spring from Bosch Tools!!!” I”ve been looking through the internet to find pics or video, but haven’t find anything.
Here is what toolguyd said about them.
Nice find!
Wayne Burgess wrote:
You hardly notice the difference between charging the 3ah and the 5.2ah.
I gladly wait a bit longer for the battery life I get from the Bosch the Metabo and the Dewalt stuff because Makita may charge quickly but they also go flat quickly and also end up in the trash quicker as well.
But these people at Metabo are just ramping it up more and more and are now brushless as well.
Am a big fan of this manufacturer but not exclusively as I have many others from the other players 🙂
I wish Lowes would pick up Metabo. They could use another pro grade tool option. Home Depot has Dewalt, Bosch, Makita, Ridgid, and Milwaukee. Lowes only has Dewalt, and Bosch, Hitachi makes a good tool but they just don’t seem to be all that popular and the lineup of tools is small compared to the other companies. The new Porter Cable 20v stuff is better than the old stuff they carried.
The only place I have seen Metabo is at a locally owned Hardware store that also sells Festool and Makita. I’ve only seen the grinders though. For cordless I’ve only seen CPO and the odd item on eBay. Wayne is dead on too about Bosch and Metabo and has obviously quite a bit of experience with those tools and they’re so popular over in the UK. It’d be nice to see those come this way.
Bigger ah is not always better. Weight, charge time, etc. all come into play. Ask Dewalt and Milwaukee about 36v tools back in 2005.
i disagree. 5 years ago you’d have been stoked to get 2ah of lithium battery in the size/weight of the current 4.0ah. Yet we have 2ah in tiny slim batts.
and the chargers can be updated. Bosch currently has two chargers, one at 2ah and one at 6ah.
I think the next big innovation will be faster charging. If they can manage to keep the charger cool and the battery as well that will enable faster charging.
I wouldnt mind buying a new charger for quicker charging on current batteries
I think my 4.0 batteries take about an hour, so a quick charger would be real nice!
Krane wrote:
Bigger ah is not always better. Weight, charge time, etc. all come into play. Ask Dewalt and Milwaukee about 36v tools back in 2005.
The size and weight of the packs won’t change they are just able to fit more energy in the individual cells. Not to say that there shouldn’t be concerns about the new batteries. You can hit a wall on how fast you can charge a Lithium battery. I know that’s an issue with the Testa model s even on the super chargers they can only go so fast I don’t think we are close to that on power tools yet, but heat is going to become an even larger issue to deal with. I’m concerned about what could happen if one of the packs catastrophically failed you could be injured from an pretty big explosion or flame. The 28-36v tools had issues like you mentioned, but at the time seemed like a good idea because 18v tools didn’t have the power do certain tasks like cutting. Now 18v tools are meeting or beating even the corded version of the same tool. The only corded tools you really need on most jobsites is a compressor, Mitersaw, and table saw and maybe a circular saw the fuel circular saw its pretty dang close to beating a corded model and the Fuel Sawzall is just awesome it’s amazing how good it is we demoed out a building using maybe 8-10 charged 4.0 packs and we took out a lot of material with it.
You know what would be really sweet in the charging pad that you can get for some Android phones. Some type of converter to attach to your batteries. Bring that pad along and seat the battery on the pad while it’s charging. Then, Milwaukee, Bosch, Dewalt, Festool, Metabo, Makita, Ryobi – who cares? Pad and converter for everyone.