Best brand for battery powered tools
 

Long story short, which brand has the best long-term support of their battery powered products, and the best cross-compatibility between devices? I keep my stuff a long time, and I loathe the old style where everything has a different battery.

I want to be able to buy something in 5 years without having to get different batteries for it and end up with the same shelf of chargers I have now. As my current gas/120V/air stuff dies (if it ever does), I'd like to replace it with stuff that uses the batteries I've already got. Which would be, in no particular order:

- lawnmower
- weed wacker
- impact gun
- drills
- leaf vac

These I don't mind keeping 120V, but if the bare tool costs about the same I'd go battery powered:
- sawzall
- circular saw
- angle grinder
- air hammer (do they make electric ones?)
- hedge trimmer

Right now I'm mostly a Makita guy, I've got some really old 120V stuff from them that still works flawlessly, but I've got DeWalt and Black and Decker drills too. I know Milwaukee is quite popular but aside from some drill bits I don't own anything from them. I don't give a hoot about brand names and I don't like paying extra just for a name when it isn't actually any better. I rarely get to work on something for more than a couple hours so being able to quickly charge a battery part of the way is more important than total battery capacity.

This thread doesn't answer your question 100% but could provide some leads on waht you're looking for.

https://www.revscene.net/forums/7170...s-drivers.html

Best longterm support for products would probably be any of the brands with a lifetime warranty. I recently picked team Orange (Ridgid) for that reason. I don't recall if any other company has that sort of support. My use case is also just for small home projects and not a professional trades person or anything.

Definitely more info in the thread bcrdukes linked.

Milwaukee doesn't sell a lawnmower. I checked last week when I was shopping for one, BC I already have Milwaukee tools.

They don't have a leaf mulcher / vac either. But they have a blower and weed wacker.

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Ryobi has the widest selection of tools. Ryobi days is on right now so some good deals to be had. The company that owns Ryobi is TTI and they own a bunch of brands.

https://o73ou3pqkk1lt8r13185v9ju-wpe...s-Imperial.jpg

I should add that the first two things I'll want to get are a lawnmower and impact gun, the second my ancient Craftsman gas mower kicks the bucket. Looking on the Home Depot site the only brands that do both are Ryobi and Makita, with Makita costing about twice as much as Ryobi. Ryobi was also the only one with a leaf vac, not just a leaf blower (which IMO is completely worthless). I could go with one brand for power tools and one brand for yardwork but then I'm into 2 sets of batteries right off the bat which kind of defeats the purpose.

I don't think you are going to get everything with one company. Also you may want a lawnmower which requires like a 7.5 Ah battery to operate for a decent amount of time. But are you going to want to use a 7.5 Ah (large and heavy) for a handheld power drill? Likely not.

If that's the case then maybe stick to one brand for your everyday essential smaller handheld tools that will only really need the smaller 1.5 Ah or 2.0 Ah batteries. And then if you have to branch off for the larger more niche items then that could be a good compromise.


EDIT: The large 7.5 Ah for the lawnmower is a 40V vs the smaller ones for the handtools are 18V. So I don't think you can even mix and match those anyways. But my suggestion still makes sense.

I didn't even know you can get battery op lawnmowers now.

It looks like lawnmower voltages are all over the place. 18V, 20V, 24V, 36V, 40V, 56V, 80V, etc. I noticed the one Ryobi does take two batteries which I assume gives it similar oomph to one of the higher voltage ones. The single battery one is rated for 1/4 acre per charge, which would do my lawn 10 times. Even if they're fudging that a bit I imagine I can at least do the whole yard on a charge.

I'm a fan of Makita. I do need to buy a new set of batteries though, they never go on sale.

If it were me, I'd settle on the big voltage for the yard tools and the mid-
voltage for the hand tools.

Ryobi is like bottom tier for the hand tools but I think their yard tools are decent.

I’ve got the makita cordless weed wacker it’s great

I was going to say other than the mower, what can use higher voltage, but it looks like the leaf vacs are all high voltage. Weed wackers seem split between the two. So I'm assuming I'm gonna be better off with a higher voltage mower.

Which really makes this more annoying, aside from my lawnmower and impact gun all my tools still work fine. And I don't technically *need* an impact gun, I can do everything with hand tools, so I can't really justify buying the impact and batteries for just that.

Makita would be way to go. They have all the tools you're looking for and more. For the lawnmower it uses the same 18v batteries as the drill, but you double them up, thus giving you 36v. So you can get away with using same batteries on all devices. I can't seem to post pics this morning, but Google Makita power poster and have a look.

I bought EGO lawn mower, hedge trimmer and weed whacker last year. Pricey but pretty sweet so far.

It doesn't solve your drill and impact gun issue.

I try to stick one brand. For lawnmower, i have a Dewalt. it uses 4 x batteries. i use 4 x 5ah for better performance . also have the weed trimmer and blower.. no complaints ..if you know someone that works there, they are super cheap. they often have friends and family deals and a 5ah battery is like 50 bucks from the warehouse in burnaby

i also got rid of all my air tools and use a hammer drill to remove wheels from cars now.. and yes, dewalt.

the dewalt family is also large. owned by stanley and owns companies with black decker, craftsman , porter, mac tools etc.

No one has more types of battery-powered tools than Ryobi, plus tons of sales. . I picked up 3 flashlights when they were $9.99 each buy 2 Ryobi products get one free. I also have a Ryobi lantern that has a USB port so I can charge a phone or a battery bank. Just picked up an angle grinder on sale for $59.99. We went with Ryobi tools for the maker space I am a part of with70 plus members. Also, these guys use them.

https://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AAUvwnj3nB...00ffffff-no-rj

Seems like your looking for a lot of Yard care stuff. That I am less familiar with, as my experience with most cordless tools revolves around and industrial or automotive setting. In my realm Milwaukee is king as far as I am concerned. They have the biggest variety of tools, they have a plethora of batteries available which all bubble down to 12v and 18v and are interchangeable. etc.

Even Hilti which I love as company tools because of the warranty and the fleet program, pales in comparison to what milwaukee is offering as far as I am concerned.

Milwaukee also just launched their MX-Fuel line of tools, I am wondering if they might come out with a lawnmower that fits that line of batteries, basically they are much higher capacity batteries to operate ridiculously big load items like a coring drill, a 60lb Jack Hammer, etc.

Debatable.

Quick search - Ryobi shows 225 tools in their cordless line in 2021.

Milwaukee shows 100+ Tools in the M12 line, 200+ tools in the M18 line, and 8 tools in their MXFuel line.

As an example, one of my top 5 cordless tools is my 3/8" Extended head cordless ratchet. Ryobi has no cordless ratchets.

Also this guy likes milwaukee:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gPsA-VNRqwg/maxresdefault.jpg

:accepted:


If I had a list of cordless tools I can't live without, in no particular order:

-Circular Saw (I'd say I reach for the 6.5" one more often, but if you only have one make sure you buy a full size 7.25" model)
-Recip Saw
-3/8" Ratchet
-1/2" Impact
-Drill
-1/4" impact
-angle grinder


The other two that I use all the time but are a bit more specialty, is the Milwaukee Compact inflator (for airing up tires), and the cordless chainsaw. Say what you will about cordless chainsaws, but I'm not a logger. If I need to do substantial work, I have a gasoline saw. But for camping if I just want to process a few deadfall logs for a fire one night, fuck is that cordless saw a lifesaver.

I went with Ryobi as my sister bought me the drill/impact set for my birthday probably 7 years ago. Since then I have purchased the palm sander, angle grinder, large impact, reciprocating saw, circular saw, and will be purchasing the chain saw for camping this week. My dad had a couple of the old drills from Ryobi back when they were blue and he swore by them. I have renovated 3 properties, worked on cars, and beat the hell out of them and not once have they failed. I'm still on my original two batteries that came with the the drill/impact combo.
Still works great:
https://i.imgur.com/Z5lFmKm.jpg

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/ryo...ly-/1001533424

$98.

https://81d489708d4495942781-1b0f6c3...8b8342e71c.jpg

I was just doing some browsing and stumbled upon this company, Badaptor. They make adaptors to mix and match brand batteries for use with Ryobi tools. I was interested in a possible Ryobi product, but already started committing to the Ridgid ecosystem. So this might be a nice accessory to have.

Website: https://badaptor.com/us/

https://i.imgur.com/Fdgkj6pl.jpg

Interestingly, they don't list a Ridgid->Ryobi adaptor on their official site. I did find one on ebay that might have been an older product: https://www.ebay.com/itm/274601236269. However I did snoop FB and Badaptor said the Ridgid->Ryobi adaptor should be officially launching in the summer.

https://i.imgur.com/BcPPrqZ.png

been using the Ryobi stuff for around the house and an portable air compressor.


they work great. Probably a lighter duty work, but has yet to fail me in four years.

Ryobi just introduced all their new tools coming soon

There's a brushless 1/4 and 3/8 extended reach ratchet

Here's their website with the new ratchets: https://www.ryobitools.com/products/...ialty/ratchets