Will we ever see something like B&Ds battery packs standardized so I can have a whole rack of them and use them with everything?
Seems nuts to think about if we didn't have AA/AAA batteries and every company had their own standard...
Will we ever see something like B&Ds battery packs standardized so I can have a whole rack of them and use them with everything?
Seems nuts to think about if we didn't have AA/AAA batteries and every company had their own standard...
24 comments
If you standardized them, it'd be a race to the bottom and China would win.
Maybe the EU would have that kind of willpower (like they did with micro usb) but it'd be politically impossible in the US, and every company from computer to power tool manufacturers would lobby against you.
Sometimes a 12volt tool looks good (lighter), but so far I don't have any. If I ever do I'll be comparing all the brands (and their catalog) to see which I think is best, already having Dewalt 20 volt tools gives them no advantage (My dewalt radio can take 12 or 20 volt batteries, but that isn't enough of an advantage)
I wonder if there's a market for battery adapter-shims? (then they'd start doing HP-ink-level shenanigans, if they're not already).
Looks like CharlesW answered my question before I asked it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41507481
https://x.com/andykreed/status/1741888763083604090
https://tool-kit.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/power-tool-br...
Amazon has usually had the tool without a battery and charger but many more sellers had the tool with battery and charger and those were actually cheaper due to sale prices or due to the tool only not being Prime and having high shipping cost.
So I've ended up with the 3 batteries and 3 chargers for my 4 Black & Decker cordless tools. (It's only not one for one because the first purchase was a bundle of a string trimmer and hedge trimmer with one charger and battery).
I'll probably need to buy an oscillating multi-tool next summer and am thinking of going with something other than Black & Decker. That way the next time after that when I need a tool (probably a paint sprayer) my chances will be twice as good that I can find one unbundled that matches one of my existing battery systems.
Or you hold off on buying other tools because you want to be in a different battery/tool family.
There are convertors for batteries though, so I should probably consider that.
I happen to be a manual razor shaver and I found your analogy to this field rather interesting. Safety razor is a standardized market where all blades will fit all razors, and yet
1. You don't see anyone selling their own proprietary blade size. 2. China doesn't actually win this market. A few well-known brands that I've used: Feather (Japanese), Merkur (German), Astra (Turkey) and now I'm trying some Indian blades.
[1] https://theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-...
Is China not making most of the world’s batteries at this time? I don’t think this is a reason not to standardize.
When you have bare cells, anyone can make them, and within a few years it'll all just be Amazon Basics or Costco batteries inside everything.
When you add a plastic enclosure around those cells, suddenly it's a Makita or Milwaukee or whatever brand battery that their manufacturer can tightly control.
I'm not arguing against standardization, BTW (as a consumer I'd love to be able to pop my headlight 18650 cells into my laptop or power tool), just saying that it's extremely unlikely because the financial forces against it are way too strong. And in the land of the free, our regulations are anything but. No way industry would let this happen, and no way our government is strong enough to unilaterally force it through.
I've owned bluetooth speakers and handheld fans that run on a single 18650. For many other product categories, the reasons they don't are mostly counter to the interests of consumers, but market demand doesn't seem to be strong enough to change this.
They are not soldered. They are spot welded to bus bars. The distinction matters because the long duration of heat from a soldering iron will destroy Li-ion cells. A spot welder delivers more heat over a shorter time. This doesn't damage the cells.
Any hope for removable, replaceable inkjet cartridge standards?
The GGP poster has never in their life ever seen the traditional interchangeable standard double blades and razor, can’t even conceive that it was and is an option.
Many people in the future will never in their life ever see interchangeable AA/AAA/C/D cells, and won’t be able to conceive it was and is an option.
But for consumer commodities like cordless drills, there are financial incentives toward bespoke interfaces protected with intellectual property laws.
The main gripe i have is the greenworks started adding DRM on one of the pins so I can't run in reverse: my large non greenworks 40V battery cannot power any of their tools.
Milwaukee M12 tool batteries are a little different, their cells are not protected from over discharge internally (the tool uses 3 pins to monitor). So this is something to watch out for.
A standard battery would be ideal. 4.2V fully charged cells are everywhere and if protected, series/parallel configurations could cover so many bases and eliminate a lot of waste.
Where could we pressure a few cross platform uses? So far it's been eBike/Lawncare batts for me. Pretty safe if you respect the discharge/charge rates.
Imagine being the developer tasked with implementing such anti-consumer crap.
I'd like to think I'd flip off my boss and quit on the spot if I were they. Thankfully, I've yet to be handed such an opportunity.
*This is also true for Dewalt 20v.
We're engineers/designers from France, and we've built the Ultimate DIY Battery that you can repair and refill!
It works with 90% of the bikes/motor brands on the market, so I assumed that some people here might be interested, if they got a non-functional batteries but they still want to use their e-bike?
We believe that everybody should have control about stuff they own, and we should fight against planned obsolescence!
Here are a few videos about our founder on the battery itself, why we built it, and how to assemble it:
- What is the Gouach Battery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsuW1NPkvNk
- Presentation of the pack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLoCihE0eIA
- Presentation of the fireproof and waterproof casing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDJpt7RDbRM
Here are the juicy bits: https://docs.gouach.com
We'd love some feedback from the e-bike DIY builder community
Oh, and it's launching as a Kickstarter in September and there is an offer for early-backers here https://get.gouach.com/1 for a 25% discount on the battery!
You can follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/gouach.batteries to get the latest news!
1. cheap bastards hoarding broken tool packs to tear down and make a pack with mixed cells. The hard part here isn't welding it's testing and sorting the cells by ir and capacity.(edit: me)
2. People building very high performance bikes at 72-100 volts and very high amperage, likely not using 18650s.
In both cases I'd be curious to know if there's a difference in maximum current between a welded pack and your clamped design.
I’m assuming that those commercial battery packs have a good BMS and temperature control, basically preventing most fires. Then, at the same time I saw those rugged charging boxes. Would regular customers benefit from a more sturdy battery design like yours?
Distrust any BMS that has a charging port that is separate from the discharge port. Handle undervolt/over current on the controller, or if you wanna be really bootleg a plain old fuse and a voltmeter you watch manually.
I'm still in the process of building a ebike battery, but these are things I've learned from disassembling a number of different packs. The exception is Milwaukee 20v seems to handle protection on board pretty well.
There exist case adapters that allow you to use e.g. a Makita battery on a B&D tool; you can find them on Amazon. As long as the voltages are close, they work. (Don't use adapters for charging! Only use them for powering equipment.)
If you know what you're doing you can even replace the cells in the case yourself. But I must emphasize the caveat above; this can be incredibly dangerous if you are not an expert. Even if you are a seasoned EE, you might not know enough to be messing with high-energy stores that cannot be shut off.
You don't really want to restrict yourself to just changing batteries because chemistries improve (e.g. LiFePO4, NIBs) etc.
https://www.protoolreviews.com/20v-max-vs-18v-battery-power/
Regarding adapters, I have been replacing them with USB-C-to-barrel connectors and even got three devices off a single GAN charger. I have been trying to find the pitfalls of this but it’s awesome in theory!
I know this is going to be perceived as controversial but so far it’s the only way I’ve seen good things happen (eg: gdpr, digital markets act, usb-c everywhere - iPhones included)
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
We can still get a ~ 30% discount since we don't have to pay, say, the apple tax anymore.
It works well, I leave it in one tool (blower) we use a lot.
But I think theoretically mixing them might increase the chance of a fire or tool damage because the packs are different. Something something current cutoff, low voltage protection, no idea in practice if it's a real problem.
Battery tools are amazing and getting more Star Trek every year, try not to get the EU to slow them down too much.
edit: If you're talking about putting battery packs in series, (2x 20v packs for a 36/40 volt tool for example) an ideal diode might work: https://product.torexsemi.com/en/technical-support/techfaq/d...