Makita DC18SF – 4-Port Charger Review

Another review from OZ Tool Talk.

 

This charger is fairly new to the OZ market and is probably the most useful multi-port charger on the market. It holds four batteries and charges two at a time.

 

Charge times from Makita’s website:

 

1.5Ah – 30 mins

3.0Ah – 60 mins

4.0Ah – 90 mins

5.0Ah – 110 mins

 

Good review guys! Nice unit, kinda pricey for me tho

Looks pretty cool I hope others fallow as well.

Do you think the lack of a fan is going to cause problems for the lineup guys? Great review as usual!

Cool review you ozzies. I like the fact that it does 2 batteries at a time and had four ports. It’s the best multi charger out by far. The only bummer is they didn’t also include the fast charge times. That would have been amazing.

The “fast” charger you showed looks different than ours. That 4 port charger is a great idea, you should post the charge times for each battery. Great video guys!

 

Oh, is your one 9A output and fan-cooled? Good idea, have edited initial post.

dwain wrote:

Thanks all!

 

 

what is a ‘lineup’ guy?

 

 

Oh, is your one 9A output and fan-cooled? Good idea, have edited initial post.

Stupid friggin’ autocorrect…..do you think it’s going to cause problems for the LONGEVITY, guys!!!!!! The batteries longevity that is.

dwain wrote:

Oh, is your one 9A output and fan-cooled? Good idea, have edited initial post.

I’m not sure of the amp output but our is a light blue and can charge batteries 1.5ah in 15 minutes and a 3.0ah in 30 minutes. Wasnt trying to correct anything, you guys did an excellent job with the video I just thought it was interesting the difference in chargers. Also the Japanese brands get all funky with tool colors over at Japan. It seems the Japanese brands over there have all sorts of colors of the rainbow for power tools. Like makita is known for the white and teal blue over here but in Japan you can get yellow, green, red, black, pink makita power tools. It’s whacky

ahh no problems. we have the charger you have shown, it sounds like the very fast charger. we sometimes get the black and pink varieties here too, it’s very confusing.

 

With regard to longevity, I don’t think the lack of fan is a problem. As I understand it, the faster you charge a battery, the more it heats up. So you can charge it very fast as long as you can keep the heat down (hence the fan). This is the reason that good chargers will refuse to charge batteries that are already hotter than is good for them. The new 4-port only puts out 2.6A which is pretty slow by modern standards.

Yea white Makita tools tend to be the budget models with 1.5ah batters and the tools are not as powerful. Where as the teal covers all the LTX tools. As to ChrisK’s comment as long as they are not putting as many amps while charging the battery they should be just fine. The only reason for the air cooling is when they do the 9 amps it creates too much heat for the packs to handle and could cause damage that way. Metabo and Makita are the only companies I know that do active cooling. I wonder if Milwaukee might with their 5.0ah packs when they come out because charge times at 5.0ah are getting a little too long