Milwaukee V28 Lithium Ion Batteries Review

    

 

This power tool review is for the Milwaukee V28 Batteries.  These batteries are part of the Milwaukee combo kit we bought at tylertool.com model number 0928-29.  If you are looking for just the V28 battery, the model cat no is 48-11-2830. 

Milwaukee V28 is a Lithium Ion battery. These have the new battery technology that has been introduced in recent years for a variety of uses.  You can read more about the Lithium battery on our battery page.  Most people look at a battery and see a battery, but when you buy a cordless power tool kit, a battery is an important factor.  Besides just comparing one volt to another volt, even though that should be the major factor, you also want to look at the battery closer and that’s what we did with the Milwaukee V28 battery.

The first item we noticed was the weight, very light as with all Lithium batteries.  The weight of this battery is 2.43lbs, compared to the Craftsman 19.2V, which weighted 2.01lbs.  So you are getting more power and a longer run time for only a little more added weight.  We expected this, so not surprising, but it is a big factor and plus for Lithium batteries.

When looking at and using the Milwaukee V28 battery, there were three key items that caught our eye that made this a great battery.  Besides the run time, durability, and power, we also found:

1. The Fuel Gauge - On the front of the battery their is a panel that has four lights.  When you press a button, the lights will light up to show how much power is left on this battery before it needs to be charged.  Four lights and its fully charged, no lights and you need a charge.  Ever since the V28 came out, we have seen some people ridacule this light feature. They state they just use the battery till it needs a charge.  Its just another thing to break. We beg to differ!  We love this feature.  Granted, we don’t check the satus while using the drill or saw, but this is a very handy feature for a couple reasons.  At night before you go home, some of us tend to throw the tools in a pile until the next day or we throw the batteries in a bag and worry about it the next day.  How many times have you seen two batteries sitting next to each other.  You know one needs a charge and the other doesn’t.  Well we always use the wrong one.  We get on the roof and realize that after a couple uses, we grabbed the wrong battery.  With the fuel gauge, you can now just check and make sure you grabbed the right battery.  So this is a feature we love because it saves time and aggravation on the site.
2. Milwaukee has a non slip pad on the bottom of the battery.  This is a nice feature for a couple different reasons.  First, it will help protect your work when you set your battery down on a nice piece of wood.  In addition, it will also help keep your tool in place when you set it down.  A hard plastic bottom on a battery tends to let it slip and fall.
3. We also like how the battery clips into the tools.  The way they have the battery attached ensures the battery stays in place during a fall or drop.  Most professional power tools have some sort of good attachment like this, but it is always nice to see that a manufacturer didn’t over look this.  Once you lock the battery into the tool, you will know it is staying in place.  Some tools have a flimsy way to attach the battery to the tool and these tend to break over time either through use or a fall.  With the Milwaukee V28 battery you won’t have to worry about this.  Another great feature of the battery is when using the Milwaukee V28 Drill, the battery can be locked either way.  This way if you have to get into a tight spot, you can turn the battery around and have it on the back side of the drill.

For our actual battery test we left the battery in the Freezer over night.  Now we wouldn’t recommend this because it can ruin a battery and these batteries tend to be expensive.  We did this to simulate leaving your batteries in your truck over night.  Normally with Lithium Ion batteries, they will not work until they are warm, it is just the way the Lithium batteires work.  The next day we took the battery out of the freezer and let it warm up for about 5 minutes at room tempature.  After 5 minutes the drill ran, but you could tell the battery was still cold and didn’t have full power.  After about 10 mintues in room tempeture, the drill worked perfect.  As you can see by the video we could drive a screw through a solid piece of oak with no problems.

Over all, this is a great battery in terms of design and use.  We are going to continue to monitor the long term use of the battery to see if it continues to withstand hard work outs.  We gave this to a local home builder who will be using it every day until the battery doesn’t hold a charge.  We told him to make sure he leaves the batteires exposed to the outside temperature every night so we can get a good reading.  Considering we are in the Midwest, it will get exposed to the cold and humidity on a regular basis.  We will continue to update this review with the information we receive.  As for now we give this battery our highest rating of 5 blades.

 

 

Milwaukee V28 Lithium Ion Charger Review

         

 

 This is the power tool review for the Milwaukee battery charger we purchased at tylertool.com.  The charger came in the V28 Combo kit model number 0928-29.   The charger model number for just the charger is 48-59-2818.  The over all dimensions of this charger are 5.75″W x 7.75″ L x 3.25″ T.  We didn’t time the charger, but Milwaukee states this universal charger will charge Lithium batteries in less than an hour and NiCad in less than 40 minutes.

We know it’s just a charger, but when Milwaukee built this charger they really did put thought and effort into this design and thought of everything we would want.  First and probably the most important is this charger will also work on your older tools.  While most manufacturers inlcude a charger designed only for the combo kit your bought, the Milwaukee charger will not only charge the V28 LIthium Batteries, but also their 18 Lithium line and their 18V Nicad line.  This will help free up some room on your work bench, which always helps.  Speaking of freeing up some room, Milwaukee also designed this charger so the batteries will lie in the charger on an angle instead of stright up and down.  This means you can hang this charger on the wall to make more room on your work bench.  Milwaukee even thought of this and on the back they have slots that will allow this charger to hang on two screws.  Yes, Milwaukee even lets you know that the screws need to be 3-3/4″ apart, or for you metric lovers 95mm. 

Another great feature of this universal charger is the pass through plug.  We all know how valuable outlet space is in your work shop or on the job site.  Milwaukee designed the pass through plug with this in mind.  You can plug in the two prong plug into your outlet and on the back of the plug, you can plug in another two pring plug, which means you don’t loose sockets when charging your batteries.  Now you can charge your phone or other low amp items.  In the review pictures, you can get a better look of how the pass through plug works.

When Milwaukee designed this universal plug, they really did think of everything.  They thought of giving the user more space and not taking up an outlet.  Overall we give this our highest rating of 5 blades.

 

Milwaukee Contractor Bag Review

         

 

This review is for the Milwaukee contractor’s bag that came in the V28 Combo kit model number 0928-29.  We received this Milwaukee Combo kit from tylertool.com which you can purchase here.  You can also buy this tool bag sepratly which is model number 48-55-3530.  When first looking at the bag you will notice that it is rather large, which is good.  The dimensions are 24.5″ L x 13″ W x 14″ H.  This bag is made out of 600 denier material, so it is water resistant, not water proof which you don’t want for power tool storage.  Never buy an tool bag that is water proof, because your tools will not be able to breath.  If your tools can not breath, the moisture will eat away at your tools. 

One aspect we liked a lot was all the pockets.  On the outside there are plenty of pockets to store hand tools for easy access.  The outside also has two hand straps to carry the bag or one large shoulder strap.  Once you open the Milwaukee contractor bag, you will notice the large amount of room that fits the Combo, with room left over for other items.  On the inside of the tool bag, there are even more pockets to store items.  This is a nice feature, now instead of all your tools at the bottom of the bag, you can easily access them.  With all the tools from the kit plus any additional hand tools you will be putting in the bag, you might look at a weight of 50lbs. at most.  So for our test we wanted to over load the bag and see what happens.

For our power tool test of the Milwaukee contractor bag, we loaded the bag with 2-50lb. salt bags.  As a user, I am not sure anyone will be walking around with 100lbs. of tools in this bag, but it would be nice to know if it can handle this amount of wieght.  After we loaded the bag with this weight, we just picked it off the ground and moved it up and down to make sure the bottom didn’t break or the handles didn’t snap.  We weren’t sure, but the bag was fine and held up.  Now some might say why didn’t you swing the bag around and try to get it to break.  Our response is if you can easilly swing around 100lbs of power tools or have the need to do this, you might want to think about joing the Olypmic weight lifting team!  

 

Our over all review of the Milwaukee contractor bag is 5 blades.  The bag is big and strong enough to carry a lot of tools.  The outside and inside pockets make for easy access and great organization of tools.  This bag comes with the Milwaukee V28 Combo kit we bought at tylertool.com

 

Milwaukee V28 Combo Kit 0928-29 Review

         

         

         

    

In January 2005 Milwaukee was bought out by Techtronic Industries, you can see our article here.  This buyout happened over 3 years ago.  We figured we gave them enough time to cycle their tools through their sales channels and replenish them with the new tools under the new company.  So we wanted to run the tools through a new set of power tool tests and see if their quality has changed.  We bought a Milwaukee V28 Combo kit model number 0928-29 through Tylertool.com for our test.  This article will cover whats in the package and give a quick overview of each power tool.  In the upcoming power tool reviews we will cover each Milwaukee V28 in more detail. You can see our other reviews as they come out here under our power tool review section.

The Milwaukee V28 combo kit comes with a nice assortment of professional power tools.  Below we listed the power tools that come in Milwaukee’s V28 Combo kit.

Hammer Drill- 1/2″ (0724-20)  When we first picked up the Milwaukee Hammer Drill, we noticed this drill had great balance with the chuck and battery.  This is very important so as your hand and arm won’t have fatigue half way through the day.  The chuck is nice, as is usually the case with professional power tools.  It has Carbide jaws with a lock to keep the bits in place.  Milwaukee states this drill has an impressive 600lbs. of torque.  The no load speed is 0-600 and 0-1800 RPM.   The no load BPM is 0-9000 and 0-27000.  When you pick up the drill, it is like picking up feathers as it only weighs 4.4lbs. 

Circular Saw- 6-1/2″ (0730-20) This is a very light saw weighing in at only 7.1lbs.  Very easy to maneuver and fun to use.  The balance on the saw seemed great when we first picked it up.  This circular saw has a 4,200 rpm.

Sawzall- (0719-20) As you all ready know we love the Sawzall, and this model is no different.  Milwaukee took everything they knew about the corded Sawzalls and put this into the V28 Sawzall.  It has the quik-lok blade system.  One thing we will let you know is we tested this against the corded version of the Sawzall and we were very impressed and surprised, but you can read about that in our V28 Sawzall power tool review coming up.

Work Light- (49-24-0185) Milwaukee includes a great work light that will run over 5 hours on one battery.  The head pivots 140 degrees.  Over all the brightness of the light is great, its not LED, so the light is a little yellowish, but nothing to complain about as it will light up any project.  One feature we noticed off the bat was the on and off switch.  There is a nice button you have to move in order to turn the light on.  This is a lot better than the push button switches as push button switches always turn off when you drop them or move them, or they turn on when you toss them in your bag and thus burn out the battery.

Charger- The charger in the combo kit is nice since it charges more than just the 28V Lithium batteries.  This charger also charges 18V lithium and 18V Nicd.  This might not seem important, but we have all experienced when we have too many chargers plugged in and not enough room for anything else.  Now we can use multiple Milwaukee tools, but only have one charger plugged in.  The charger will also charge Lithium batteries in about an hour and Nicd in about 40 minutes.

2 V28 Lithium Ion Batteries - The combo kit comes with two Lithium Ion batteries, a nice feature, since these batteries are expensive.  One item we are looking forward to is the cold test.  Over the years we have heard and read a lot of bad publicity on these batteries, not just the Milwaukee Lithium batteries, but all Lithium batteries in general.  One knock is they don’t work when they are cold.  In our test we will leave them in the fridge over night to simulate the batteries being left outside over night.

The Milwaukee V28 Combo kit also includes:

• Clip-Lok System
• Side Handle
• 6-1/2″ 24T Carbide Blade
• #2 Philips Bit
• Rip Fence
• Contractor Bag
• 2 Sawzall Blades

Overall we love the feel of the Milwaukee V28 System.  We loved it even more when we found it for the cheapest price online at tylertool.com and saved over $100.  We will be putting the reviews of each individual power tool up shortly, so check back under our power tool reviews!

 

Milwaukee’s New M12 Hackzall

 Milwaukee announced today the release of its new M12 Hackzall.  This is a reciprocating saw that is compact and lightweight.  It is designed for small spaces.  This Hackzall is powered by a 12V Lithium Ion battery and will cut over 80 pieces of 1.5″ PVC on one battery.  One nice feature is this Hackzall looks like it utilizes Milwaukee’s Quik-Lok feature, so you know the blade will stay in place.  The trigger is a variable speed trigger, so you can adjust the speed for the material you are working on.

Some of the spec are:

• SPM 0-3,000
• Stroke Lenght - 1/2″
• Weight - 2.6lbs.

We are trying to get our hands on one to test this tool.  Take a look at our power tool reviews to see what we have tested so far.

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