Milwaukee batts?

[docnjoj]

Besides Ping, I am considering Milwaukee, and a while back bought 6 18 volt and 3 28 volt adapters. The cost for 2 18 volt batts is about the same as 1 28 volt one, but should give a higher voltage. Whats a body to do???? Any guidence would be greatly appreciated! Either way it will be around 9ah to start.
otherDoc

 

[pwbset]

The cost for 2 18 volt batts is about the same as 1 28 volt one, but should give a higher voltage. Whats a body to do???? Any guidence would be greatly appreciated! Either way it will be around 9ah to start.

I was noticing that as well since the toolup.com $80 is no longer good for the v28s. :? Kinda just boils down to physical space... if you've got the room why not just go with the 18v'ers? Same cells... just 5 of them instead of 7 (20.8v hot off the charger I predict). Keep in mind too that unless you're bypassing the BMS on discharge the pack LVC will trip around 7.8ah... not 9ah like advertised.

 

[docnjoj]

Good to know about that low bms trip point. Thanks pwbset!
otherDoc

 

[bigbirdlover]

So... are the Milwaukee lithium 28 volts a good fit, or bad idea? I've been looking at these too, mainly because they offer a low cost connector option, but I don't want something I have to bastardize, I need to leave them intact for warranty & tool use.

 

[pwbset]

There are members here that have been riding these batts for a long time now. I've got about 100 cycles on mine since June 9th climbing 1,600ft during my commute to work (my build thread if you're bored). They have no shortage of power when you need it. I'm finding that they are 2.3ah of useable power at high loads (7-10C+) and around 2.6ah per pack under light/medium loads (1-3C). Their advertised 3ah is at 1C down to 2.5v, but the on board BMS cuts power to the pack around 3.4-3.5v/cell to maintain cycle life. The warranty is ridiculously generous.

 

[ejonesss]

that can be said about all tool batteries.

i was thinking of going dewalt nano and after some looking around it looks like it is possible to harvest the mating connector from a charger or it's next cheapest tool "the flashlight" so if you intend on using for the tools as well or to keep so if the battery fails before the warranty is up you can return it for repair (hopefully the stock bms board does not record the usage so dewalt can connect it to a diagnostic computer and determine if it has been used for anything other than tools and void the warranty).

So... are the Milwaukee lithium 28 volts a good fit, or bad idea? I've been looking at these too, mainly because they offer a low cost connector option, but I don't want something I have to bastardize, I need to leave them intact for warranty & tool use.

 

[Jay64]

So... are the Milwaukee lithium 28 volts a good fit, or bad idea? I've been looking at these too, mainly because they offer a low cost connector option, but I don't want something I have to bastardize, I need to leave them intact for warranty & tool use.

Yeah, I have the full 28v tool set and used them on a regular basis for a few years on my race team and as a handy man. Then I used them on my ezip for about 9 months. I didn't have to bastardize them one bit to use them on my ebike. The connecting blocks are awesome.

 

[docnjoj]

Hey Jay! Did you set up with diodes? How many packs and what configuration did you run? I bought the connector blocks while I was in Milwaukee about a year ago! I have 3 for the 28 volt batts and 6 for the 18 volt packs!
otherDoc

 

[Jay64]

No, I did my build a while ago. After I did mine Fechter mentioned the diodes mod, which sounded great, but mine was already working so I figured I would stick with it. I only had two 28v in parallel too, so I think that helped. I heard that once you start going with 3 there might be an issue, but I don't remember if that was if they were in serial or parallel. But I heard the diode mod works really well.

 

[pwbset]

But I heard the diode mod works really well.

Yeah.. using the diode mod for 3s @84v and it's been great since day one. In parallel you can rack together as many as you want as long as you keep it 2s. Can't remember who... maybe jondoh... but someone was running 2s5p for around 56v13ah. That's starting to get heavy though at 25lbs+.