Last week, Milwaukee Tool hosted their annual media event, the New Product Symposium (NPS), at which they offer sneak peaks of all of the new tools they’ll be releasing throughout the year. The biggest news of the show was the release of their new M18 12.0Ah battery, which uses new 21700 cells and is more powerful and efficient.
Construction Junkie was at the event and I will be following up soon with a full recap of our favorite tool announcements. But, before I publish the recap, there was one thing that I thought deserved its own article.
Since the release of the M18 platform in 2008, Milwaukee has pledged that their tools and batteries would be compatible with each other. Other brands like DeWalt and Hitachi (soon to be Metabo HPT) have introduced “flex” batteries, which offer higher voltage output but are also backwards compatible, but Milwaukee has stuck with the M18 platform for 10 years.
The release of the new 12.0Ah M18 battery caused some logistical issues. The physical size of the battery is a good bit larger than their current biggest battery, the 9.0Ah, see picture below. Because of that, the new 12.0 battery will not be able to fit in certain tools.
Well, the owners of those tools don’t have to worry about compatibility, because Milwaukee is offering free service upgrades to the following models that were manufactured prior to 6/1/2018: 2787-20, 2788-20, 2771-20, 2122-20, 2130-20, 2135-20, 2361-20, 2145-20, 2146-20, 2360-20. By visiting Milwaukee’s eService center at https://www.milwaukeetool.com/eService, you can register your tool for the upgrade without paying anything. That’s pretty cool.
Below, you can find some additional information about the tool models listed above. Many of them, as you’ll see are in Milwaukee’s impressive lineup of lighting solutions, which many users would love to take advantage of the increased runtime with the new 12.0Ah battery.
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Milwaukee M18 Transfer Pump (2771-20
Milwaukee M18 Utility Bucket Light (2122-20)
M18 Cordless 2000-Lumen ROCKET LED Work Light (2130-20)
M18 Cordless 3000-Lumen ROCKET LED Work Light & Charger (2135-20)
M18 18-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless 1300-Lumen LED Flood Light (2361-20)
M18 Cordless 4400-Lumen RADIUS LED Compact Site Light (2145-20)
M18 ONE-KEY Cordless 4400-Lumen RADIUS LED Compact Site Light (2146-20)
M18 Cordless 3000-Lumen ROVER LED AC/DC Flood Light (2360-20)
M18 FUEL Brushless Cordless 1-1/2 in. Magnetic Drill (2787-20)
M18 FUEL 18-Volt Lithium-Ion Brushless Cordless 1-1/2 in. Lineman Magnetic Drill (2788-20)
Last summer, Hilti announced that they had developed their first exoskeleton designed for construction tradespeople in a partnership with Ottobuck, a prosthetics, orthotics, and exoskeleton provider. Earlier this month, Hilti officially released the exoskeleton, announced more details, and published its retail price on their website.