Do we have a Milwaukee tool expert here

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Big Dad

Big Dad

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Have a various selection of other brands , and I'm tired of the mess of different batteries/ chargers , etc . . thiking about swapping to one brand .

want to make sure I buy the right ones, I'm sure there is a difference ?

I see they have this starter kit

Home Page - Runnings
 

Up here Home Depot/Ridgid offers lifetime warranty on batteries and tools. No Brainer to me.
Mom just had me check her Toro cordless leaf blower...no workee...used approx 3 times.
Battery caput, replacements is $250 :rofl:
 
Big Dad said:
Have a various selection of other brands , and I'm tired of the mess of different batteries/ chargers , etc . . thiking about swapping to one brand .

want to make sure I buy the right ones, I'm sure there is a difference ?

I see they have this starter kit

Home Page - Runnings
Click to expand...
Be careful what you buy! I had a cordless Dewalt impact driver go bad on me about a month ago, and when I went into Home Depot to get a new one I ran into the Milwaukee/Dewalt guy (yes, one Rep, two brands), and he told me under his breath to NOT buy one at HD, as both Milwaukee and Dewalt have "Consumer" quality units, and "Pro" quality units, and HD only sold the "Consumer" units.

Do your homework.
 
I love Milwaukee tools, never had one fail.
IMG_1765.jpeg
 
I've got Milwaukee tools and they are fine. They have a very good selection which is a consideration. However I won't pay there ridiculous price for batteries and buy knock-offs from Amazon.
 
So, you need to address the scope of your work. These are on the light duty side of milwaukee. The grinder is about the only thing I would use from that kit. Hacksall is cool too. Milwaukee has promos constantly. When I switched, I got the higher end drill impact combo kit, and it came with a free tool(4 1/2 grinder) 1/2 impact came with free 3/8 m12 ratchet. The other promo was buy bare tool and get 8ah forge batt. I bought the circ saw and sawzall. The circ saw they give you is a little dinky thing. I feel like you really have to be paying attention to buy a normal size/direction saw when it comes to cordless
 
We use them in a more Industrial setting, and they are in the shop daily. Sometimes it's operator error but it's usually some cheap plastic or pot metal part Milwaukee uses. I'd be pleased to never see another one in my lifetime. Especially their jig saws. JUNK! I'm with Steve @4spdragtop. Rigid all the way. Pick up one of their drills when you are at the store and then pick up the same caliber of a Milwaukee. You can tell just by the weight the Rigid is tough.
 
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ProjectBazza said:
Be careful what you buy! I had a cordless Dewalt impact driver go bad on me about a month ago, and when I went into Home Depot to get a new one I ran into the Milwaukee/Dewalt guy (yes, one Rep, two brands), and he told me under his breath to NOT buy one at HD, as both Milwaukee and Dewalt have "Consumer" quality units, and "Pro" quality units, and HD only sold the "Consumer" units.

Do your homework.
Click to expand...

This also applies to refrigerators, washers, dryers, etc. Any home appliance bought at HD or Lowes is a product built to be sold only by them.
 
mopardude62 said:
This also applies to refrigerators, washers, dryers, etc. Any home appliance bought at HD or Lowes is a product built to be sold only by them.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Yep. Not only that, they offer no parts, service, or repair after the sale. We bought our appliances from a local family owned business that services what they sell.
 
ProjectBazza said:
Be careful what you buy! I had a cordless Dewalt impact driver go bad on me about a month ago, and when I went into Home Depot to get a new one I ran into the Milwaukee/Dewalt guy (yes, one Rep, two brands), and he told me under his breath to NOT buy one at HD, as both Milwaukee and Dewalt have "Consumer" quality units, and "Pro" quality units, and HD only sold the "Consumer" units.

Do your homework.
Click to expand...
Where would be someplace to buy the “pro” version?
 
I have Ridgid and Milwaukee. I like Ridgid best for the lifetime warr, like Steve said. Also, here I get 10% veterans discount at HD and Lowes. You havee to sidn up and here you have to show dd214.
 
Backally said:
Where would be someplace to buy the “pro” version?
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The Rep sent me to Acme Tools. Not sure if they’re local, or nationwide, but I still have the old (broken) impact driver, and I could post the model number for both if you’d like to compare them online.
 
ProjectBazza said:
The Rep sent me to Acme Tools. Not sure if they’re local, or nationwide, but I still have the old (broken) impact driver, and I could post the model number for both if you’d like to compare them online.
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That would be great, Thanks!
 
Haven't ever ponied up for Milwaukee power tools. Usually just stick with DeWalt. However, big fan of the Packout system. Well worth the expense to me.
 
As abodyjoe mentioned, there are adaptors. The most common battery is the DeWalt. The DeWalt pin-out is compatible with more than just DeWalt, and many of the adaptors will adapt DeWalt to your Milwaukee (or other). We found inexpensive casings for DeWalt where you add your own 18650 lithium batteries and make your own battery pack. It even comes with a crude Battery Management System (BMS) board. If the tools themselves are still good, you can even tear the battery packs apart and rebuild them (we do that all the time here). Go go Lowe's or Home Depot (or Menards, etc) and they should have a battery recycling bin. Grab several of the packs, tear them apart, and you have spare parts. Test each battery cell, toss dead ones, and reuse good ones. We make some decent money servicing local guys fixing their "dead" batteries. YouTube has several videos where guys are rebuilding their own packs successfully, if you care to do the search.
 
I know a lot of people that are happy with their Milwaukee tools, regardless of where they were purchased. I also know at least a dozen people who work at Milwaukee as mechanical, electrical, and firmware engineers. They are all accomplished engineers and from the discussions we’ve had, Milwaukee uses sound design principles and tools and their quality/reliability group is not an afterthought. I know these folks because I worked with them before Milwaukee hired them away from my company. I was a design assurance engineer for a large automation company in SE Wisconsin. For the record, I have Rigid battery tools , bought for the warranty. I regret that decision as they aren’t any cheaper and the tool selection is severely limited compared to the red brand. Knowing what I do, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy Milwaukee and I’m considering selling my orange and replacing with red but at this point in my life, I don’t think it would pay so I’ll just buy red as I need to and use battery adapters.
 
Backally said:
That would be great, Thanks!
Click to expand...
Here’s the “consumer” impact:
IMG_2209.jpeg


Model DCF845.

And here’s the “commercial” version:
IMG_2210.jpeg


Model DCF860.

For size comparison, here are the two side by side (the light ring is missing from the DCF845):
IMG_2211.jpeg


Yes, the Commercial unit is heavier, but the heavier battery balances it out quite nicely, and you don’t really notice it.

Anyone want to buy a dead impact driver? :lol:
 
These days it’s all about increasing market share across all price point/classes which ultimately waters down the quality that is no longer in the product to be at the lower price point.

Decades ago Mercedes was considered a luxury car brand but that meant the larger middle/lower class buyers couldn’t afford to buy the cars. Instead of keeping the brand reputation/image, Mercedes decided to chase all class segments and initially launched the with C class in the 1990’s. Now Mercedes has so many different model classes to try to fit a vehicle for pretty well any customer desire. Consider all the 1970/80’s Mercedes still running around 3rd world countries which have harsh environments all these years later. Think any Mercedes from the mid 1990’s onward is still in service in those same countries even though they are 20 years newer than the over engineered Mercedes from the 1970/80’s?

Of course the tool manufactures are going to have customer grade drill and a contractor grade drill. That wouldn’t have been the case 30 years ago but the tool companies are like the car companies….. chasing the market share across all price classes. Only thing that means is the brand reputation the company rightly deserved (through building perhaps over engineered products with a resulting higher price to reflect that cost) is no longer true. Now pretty well anyone can say “yup, I own a Mercedes (or insert company name of an over engineered product here) too” even though it’s not the same quality the brand was known for decades ago.
 
I use Milwaukee and also fitted three shops with them for the City of Eugene we have had great luck overall with very few failures. And out of the couple of failures we had at least one was due to extreme abuse. I use them and would give them my endorsement. I also believe they're batteries to be the best .
 
Dart Frog said:
I use Milwaukee and also fitted three shops with them for the City of Eugene we have had great luck overall with very few failures. And out of the couple of failures we had at least one was due to extreme abuse. I use them and would give them my endorsement. I also believe they're batteries to be the best .
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure I met you at the Briggs car show in Springfield a month or so ago. I was drooling over your 70 dart.
IMG_2157.jpeg
 
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