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Milwaukee m18 fuel blower with m18 forge 12.0 battery and rapid charger $180.11 BMSM hack - $180.11
$180
$399
54% off
Home Depot
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Blower kit with 12.0 forge battery is on special buy for $299 and still qualifies for buy more save more. So add the kit and enough other things to bring your cart to $1106 and it should show a savings of $500 and total of $606 before tax. I added the mid torque impact at $249, the compact 3/8 impact at $229 and the rocket tower light at $229. The blower kit should be $180.11 before tax.
https://www.homedepot.c
https://www.homedepot.c
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Blower kit with 12.0 forge battery is on special buy for $299 and still qualifies for buy more save more. So add the kit and enough other things to bring your cart to $1106 and it should show a savings of $500 and total of $606 before tax. I added the mid torque impact at $249, the compact 3/8 impact at $229 and the rocket tower light at $229. The blower kit should be $180.11 before tax.
https://www.homedepot.c
https://www.homedepot.c
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41 Comments
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I would personally say this would be more of a deal for resell purposes. Keep the battery sell the blower and rapid charger on FB marketplace. You could probably get 80-100 for the blower and like 30-40 for the rapid charger. Giving you a 12.0ah for like $50 after everything is said and done. Not bad if you're willing to put in the time and effort to resell.
I would personally say this would be more of a deal for resell purposes. Keep the battery sell the blower and rapid charger on FB marketplace. You could probably get 80-100 for the blower and like 30-40 for the rapid charger. Giving you a 12.0ah for like $50 after everything is said and done. Not bad if you're willing to put in the time and effort to resell.
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I would personally say this would be more of a deal for resell purposes. Keep the battery sell the blower and rapid charger on FB marketplace. You could probably get 80-100 for the blower and like 30-40 for the rapid charger. Giving you a 12.0ah for like $50 after everything is said and done. Not bad if you're willing to put in the time and effort to resell.
One of the benefits of using the Classic™ view is not seeing the upvote/downvote nonsense. Shame they're getting downvoted though. I think they make a good point, but it probably varies (1) from person to person, and (2) from tool to tool. We all have different expectations. Some of us have experience with gasoline equivalents, so might use that as a frame of reference (I don't personally).
I will say that my Makita XBU02Z is a beast (2x18V). I know that specs don't always paint the full picture, but comparing specs they seem pretty on par. Makita XBU02Z 473CFM/120mph, Fuel 3017-20 500CFM/120mph. If they perform pretty much equally, I'd probably say this Fuel blower is great.
Then again, to the other poster's comment about higher voltage equipment --> Makita's XGT 40V blower is even more powerful (565CFM/142mph).
Anyway. F*CK Milwaukee either way. They made the deliberate choice to not add cell balancing to their batteries or chargers (unlike Makita, which has been doing it since LXT). Not even the new "Forge" batteries have balancing. What a joke. Thanks to this anti-consumer choice, I've had to manually rebalance two 8.0Ah and one 12.0Ah packs myself. There are LOTS of YouTube videos and Reddit posts from others describing this well known failure mode (and how to mitigate it). Great work, Techtronic Industries (Milwaukee parent company), GFYS. No more Milwaukee for me. Only Makita
Why not? Part of me wants to agree with you. I just ordered a Makita fan, but I ordered it along with something else because buying them both brought the fan price down to $130 from $170. So I went to the store, picked up both, and asked them to please keep/return the other item. I did this for the LXT Grass Shear also. Both "extra" items happened to be items that will be going back to the manufacturer, not just to a Home Depot warehouse (They were RTV, Return To Vendor). So it's a bit wasteful perhaps, in that respect. Plus the waste of shipping those two unwanted items to the store, only to ship them back. But the unwanted products were unopened. No loss there.
On the other hand, this has been going on for years. People have been referring to these Milwaukee "hacks" for ages (same for Makita and maybe other tool brands). I can only assume that HD and the tool manufacturers analyze their sales data. It wouldn't be difficult to spot a pattern of people buying two items and returning one. I think I remember reading a comment from a user here in the past few weeks where they described talking to a Milwaukee rep about this. And how it wasn't a surprise at all to the rep.
If it falls within the bounds of the store's return policies, I don't see how it's problematic. I'd be curious to know why you think these posts shouldn't be allowed. Is it just the posts, or the idea of buying ~$1k of crap and returning ~$800 just to get a deal? Genuinely curious.
I will say that my Makita XBU02Z is a beast (2x18V). I know that specs don't always paint the full picture, but comparing specs they seem pretty on par. Makita XBU02Z 473CFM/120mph, Fuel 3017-20 500CFM/120mph. If they perform pretty much equally, I'd probably say this Fuel blower is great.
Then again, to the other poster's comment about higher voltage equipment --> Makita's XGT 40V blower is even more powerful (565CFM/142mph).
Anyway. F*CK Milwaukee either way. They made the deliberate choice to not add cell balancing to their batteries or chargers (unlike Makita, which has been doing it since LXT). Not even the new "Forge" batteries have balancing. What a joke. Thanks to this anti-consumer choice, I've had to manually rebalance two 8.0Ah and one 12.0Ah packs myself. There are LOTS of YouTube videos and Reddit posts from others describing this well known failure mode (and how to mitigate it). Great work, Techtronic Industries (Milwaukee parent company), GFYS. No more Milwaukee for me. Only Makita
I have read some people have been unable to use this strategy, and are sometimes required to go in store to pickup and return. This wasn't the case for me. Especially after waiting a bit before seeing the cancel button become active, since it gives some error when I clicked it within the first 10 minutes. I hope others can replicate as well.
After placing the order, I went into my Account Dashboard and clicked on Cancel Items for the items I did not want. Received several error messages until I could cancel them.
The blower + battery were not canceled due to being at a different pick-up location, and the total balance readjusted to $180 + taxes on the order details. The item is now available for pick-up while the other items were successfully canceled before anyone had to go look for them and make them available for pick-up.
I hope this helps!
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Thanks! Yeah I agreed, very interesting. Apparently the integrated circuit on the BMS board has the ability to do cell balancing (it's listed in the data sheet for that chip). I think that particular IC is made by Texas Instruments (like so many great ICs are). Anyway, Milwaukee obviously chose not to use that functionality. There's a Reddit user "Tool_Scientist" who has done quite a bit of in depth analysis of batteries and chargers in general. Along with other Reddit/YouTube users. I'm talking about deciphering the I/O between the batteries, chargers, and tools. Sh*t like that. Reverse engineering the M18 "Redlink" protocol. Impressive sh*t.
Once my first 12.0Ah battery started only charging up to 3 out of 4 bars, I started trying to find out WHY. That's when I learned that it's because one or more of the groups of cells had fallen out of balance with the others. In the case of my 12.0Ah, two of the five 3-cell groups were at 3.1V or something. While the others were closer to 3.6V-3.8V. So the charger goes green, but the on-battery indicator only ever lights up 3/4. I used a separate 18650/21700 Li-Ion battery charger to manually charge those groups up to be even with the others. NOW the battery lights up 4/4. I printed a little label on the battery with the date and which cells I rebalanced. They'll fall out of balance again eventually, with use, and I'll have to rebalance them.
If you look at Makita LXT batteries, they have three large terminals/connectors, but also 7 more smaller connectors (inside the yellow plastic piece)! All of those "extra" leads are used by the charger to balance cells (or groups of cells). My XGT batteries appear to have 6 distinct connectors. Two separate, and then two pairs of two connectors in line. XGT batteries also do cell balancing.
It's important to remember that cell balancing can be done by the battery as well. It's either done by the charger, or by the BMS board of the battery.
Anyway. I guess learning that the TI chip has the ability to balance, but Milwaukee obviously made the decision not to implement it really pissed me off. ESPECIALLY because the 8.0Ah and 12.0A batteries are notorious for falling out of balance! And it happened to my 12.0Ah and two 8.0Ah batteries of mine with VERY LITTLE use. If I'd never had this issue with my batteries, I might never have learned that they didn't balance cells. Milwaukee might have rectified this glaring omission with their Forge batteries, but NO LOL. Would they do that? F*ck the consumer. So, f*ck them. I have a lot of Milwaukee tools and lights, bought over the years. But I won't buy any more. Adding to my Makita collection now, and slowly selling some Milwaukee items. LXT and XGT FTW.
Plus, whenever I'm in HD's Tool Rental section I always see a lot of Hilti and Makita. I don't see ANY Milwaukee, LOL. They rent out quality tools that are going to perform, be reliable, AND be easy to source replacement parts for. NOT saying Milwaukee doesn't make good tools. My M18 Fuel 3/8" and 1/2" impacts are beasts, and the 3.0Ah HO batteries kick some ass. And I've had an M12 3/8" impact in the trunk for years now. I've just decided I'd rather support Makita, based on this battery discovery for starters. Plus, Makita = Makita. While Milwaukee = TTI, which owns Ryobi, Hoover, Homelite, AEG, and numerous other brands). It's hard, but I'm sticking to it
Related:
"THE REAL OWNERS BEHIND ALL THE MAJOR TOOLS BRANDS"
https://www.slashgear.com/1570606/real-owners-behind-major-tool-brands/"
"Makita is one of the sole major tool brands still owned by its parent company. The Makita company was established in 1915 as Makita Denski Seisakusho in Nagoya, Japan.
Read More: https://www.slashgear.com/1570606/real-owners-behind-major-tool-brands/".
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