Battery Compatibility

Does anyone know if there exceptions to the yellow/star rule for battery compatibility with Makita tools, or any details about what’s different between the tools?

I have a light and drill with yellow bases (BHP452 and BML185) and a sawzall with a black base (BJR182), so I figured I could easily swap the control circuit from the light into the sawzall and get some higher capacity batteries.  Problem is the “control circuit” on the light is three transistors, two diodes, and a handful of resistors which it seems doubtful would affect compatibility, and the sawzall and drill appear to have the same trigger assembly and regulating transistor with no other control circuitry.  All this points to all three tools being incompatible so I’m a bit skeptical about what’s going on here.

I really hope someone knows what’s going on… *cough NERemodeling*

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1. Black base without a star ? Not compatible with a 4 or 5 amp.

2. Check a local dealer if there isnt soms replacement program going on. Makita belgium exchanged older non star tools to a new tool for veeery low prices

Or just remove small plastic block on battery slide that prevents 4Ah battery to slide in. Of course, with taht you dont get “star” marked tool that have battery protection circuit. But its now same as yellow base without star.

I think thing with yellow base was that it was allowed to use old 1.3/1.5Ah batteries. Machines that used too much current for those small batteries had black connector and that block molded in to prevent use of small batteries.

Thanks Pushead.  I was under the impression some electronics kept the tools from working instead of a mechanical block.  That’s a much simpler fix than I though.  Time to get some new batteries then.