Battery Powered Tools part II

I had to replace a Ryobi cordless drill that someone liked more than me along with a hand full of corded power tools like 3 or 4 3/8" drills and Porter cable recp. saw and some other things.

Being I had a home repair and needed a drill and did not want to drag out drill & cord etc. I wanted a battery drill. Being cheap I did not want to spend big bucks for 1 so I checked out Harbor Freight Tools & Northern Tool.
Ended up at HFT and was going for an 18v drill w/batt & charger. Then was going to get a kit of 3 tools and batt & charger.

Then got looking at the 20v tools and went with a Bauer 1/2" v.s. & reverse keyless chuck that came with 1.5ma batt & charger. I picked up a 3ma battery as a back up.
Down the road I will get a 1/2" impac & 4.5" grinder & recerp. saw.
https://www.harborfreight.com/20v-hypermax-lithium-12-in-drilldriver-kit-63531.html
Now my question and could not find an answer: Bauer does not make a saw at all and wanting to stay with 20v I would have to go with some other manfg.
Do all 20v batteries work with other tools? Say Bauer battery in a B&D tool of the same 20v?

With that said would the same be true with the 18v tools & battery?

BTW the Bauer 20v drill worked great on the repair I had to make. Undoing lag bolts, drilled a lot of 1/4" holes in wood and tighten nuts down on carriage bolts so a lot of swapping 1/4" drill for a 7/16" deep well socket and forward & reverse.
Dave ----

FuzzFace2 wrote

Do all 20v batteries work with other tools?

No.

In a few VERY RARE cases, tools designed by the same company (like B&D-PC-DeWalt) will have the same battery shape & connector.  But you'll probably never encounter that situation.  Just expect that your batteries are specific to the brand name you see on them.

That being said...
A 20V battery is a 20V battery, and it WILL power anything that needs ~20VDC (including some 18V, 19.2V,  & 24V devices).  I can't buy modern Lithium batteries for my old 19.2V Porter Cable tools (NiCds are garbage), but I have a BUNCH of those tools.  So I buy Craftsman 19.2V Lithiums, take the battery packs out of the cases, put them into my PC cases, and solder the wires back on.  But I have to use an adapter to charge the Li packs inside PC cases on the Craftsman charger.

Steve83 wrote

FuzzFace2 wrote

Do all 20v batteries work with other tools?

No.

In a few VERY RARE cases, tools designed by the same company (like B&D-PC-DeWalt) will have the same battery shape & connector.  But you'll probably never encounter that situation.  Just expect that your batteries are specific to the brand name you see on them.

That being said...
A 20V battery is a 20V battery, and it WILL power anything that needs ~20VDC (including some 18V, 19.2V,  & 24V devices).  I can't buy modern Lithium batteries for my old 19.2V Porter Cable tools (NiCds are garbage), but I have a BUNCH of those tools.  So I buy Craftsman 19.2V Lithiums, take the battery packs out of the cases, put them into my PC cases, and solder the wires back on.  But I have to use an adapter to charge the Li packs inside PC cases on the Craftsman charger.

Thanks for the reply.
I was afraid of that and may just get the same make of the 4.5" grinder / cut off wheel tools I have the same batteries.

On your batteries if you did the case swap why cant you charge it in the PC charger?
Is the amp different and will cook them? I would think 19.2v chargers are the same other than the "slots" to fit the battery.
Dave ----

FuzzFace2 wrote

On your batteries if you did the case swap why cant you charge it in the PC charger? Is the amp different and will cook them? I would think 19.2v chargers are the same other than the "slots" to fit the battery.

The actual charger is essentially the same for all packs of the same voltage.  But modern packs aren't simply batteries - the have their own internal electronics that protect & monitor them.  And even older chargers often had diagnostics which used other terminals on the battery packs.  So since the old PC charger doesn't have compatible diagnostics with the new packs, I don't trust it.  And I'm not even sure the new packs will allow themselves to be charged by it since it can't connect to some of their terminals.  DIScharging only requires the 2 main terminals, so they'll run any tool they can physically connect to (which is why the case has to be changed).

Steve83 wrote

FuzzFace2 wrote

On your batteries if you did the case swap why cant you charge it in the PC charger? Is the amp different and will cook them? I would think 19.2v chargers are the same other than the "slots" to fit the battery.

The actual charger is essentially the same for all packs of the same voltage.  But modern packs aren't simply batteries - the have their own internal electronics that protect & monitor them.  And even older chargers often had diagnostics which used other terminals on the battery packs.  So since the old PC charger doesn't have compatible diagnostics with the new packs, I don't trust it.  And I'm not even sure the new packs will allow themselves to be charged by it since it can't connect to some of their terminals  DIScharging only requires the 2 main terminals, so they'll run any tool they can physically connect to (which is why the case has to be changed).

Got it nice to know when I run into the same issue.
Thanks
Dave ----