Milwaukee Heated Jacket battery location.

[ScottsGT]

Real good Milwaukee
Put the damned battery right where you cannot sit in a chair.

Bought my wife one that she can wear while she is working in the operating room at the hospital. (She's a CRNA) She's very cold natured, and they keep the temps in the low 60's all day long. She sits in a desk type chair behind the sterile field next to the patients head monitoring her equipment.
Milwaukee has the battery pouch right in her kidney location.

Anyone come up with an extension for the power cord so she can put the battery on a belt clip pouch or her front pocket?
If I have to, I'll cut and splice in an extension on the wire. I do things like that for a living anyway.

 

[RivennHewn]

12 volt cigarette lighter adapters are available on EBay,
Not sure if that will help her much sitting in an office

 

[Askme42]

Real good Milwaukee
Put the damned battery right where you cannot sit in a chair.

Bought my wife one that she can wear while she is working in the operating room at the hospital. (She's a CRNA) She's very cold natured, and they keep the temps in the low 60's all day long. She sits in a desk type chair behind the sterile field next to the patients head monitoring her equipment.
Milwaukee has the battery pouch right in her kidney location.

Anyone come up with an extension for the power cord so she can put the battery on a belt clip pouch or her front pocket?
If I have to, I'll cut and splice in an extension on the wire. I do things like that for a living anyway.

My wife is a CRNA also. Your wife must be very cold natured. Mine complains about being cold all of the time at home but I never hear anything about work.

 

[rlitman]

Strange. The pouch in my jacket is on my left side, quite forward of my kidney. If it was by my kidney, I'd be unable to wear it.

You can make an extension cord as long as you want with these:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016XXQYBQ/?tag=atomicindus08-20

Or you can buy a pre-made cord:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FTGH38W/?tag=atomicindus08-20

Or you can buy the above barrel connectors and run them from a 12V power supply of sufficient current, and have her plug in for unlimited runtime (or get the lighter adapter for car use).

 

[Gone Boating]

I'm surprised she can even wear it in the OR.. Our surgical attire policies are very strict as to what outside items can be brought into the room

 

[ScottsGT]

I'm surprised she can even wear it in the OR.. Our surgical attire policies are very strict as to what outside items can be brought into the room

She sits outside the sterile field. They did stop them from wearing the personalized caps and have to wear the standard green now. But she's so small, she could actually wear the jacket under a larger set of scrubs.

 

[TomB19]

Yeah, it's not the best design. It's kind of retarded, actually. I certainly won't buy any more Milwaukee heated clothing.

The thing is, the quality of the hoodie is extremely high. The fabric, the stitching, the construction... excellent. It's well and above the quality you normally see. The cost would not be that bad, even if it wasn't heated.

Two things keep the products from being useful. First, the battery location is tragic. Second, in a cold environment, the heat helps less than just wearing a heavy sweater would. Even when I wear the hoodie under my heavy winter parka, the electric heat is not noticeable in -25C conditions.

Everybody loves seeing it, though. They assume you are swaddled in an electric blanket that keeps you cozy as toast. The number of smiles per hour is high.

 

[Ign]

Didn't the Ridgid jacket have a belt clip setup OEM? I could be wrong.

I'm torn on locations as my Craftsman is in the front (jackets only I believe, hoodie still in the rear). It's obnoxious in different ways and overall I'd say I NOTICE Milwaukee's rear location less, even driving. But changing the front battery is so much easier.

Nothing's perfect, some people are blowing the problems out of proportion here (not necessarily a nurse who sits all day BUT I have to believe it must be the chair as I drive for hours w my Milwaukee gear).

 

[RivennHewn]

Consider what their intended purpose is, working outside.
Seems a perfectly logical place for the battery.

 

[pepgj]

What I want is a heated jacket (Carhartt maybe?) that simply uses standard USB power packs. No more cordless tools for me unless utterly necessary.

 

[kctyphoon]

Are you talking about the heated jacket or the heated hoodies? They are different.. Either way, the Milwaulkee 12v cigarette light adapter is BOTH an 12v power port adapter, and just an extension cord with the correct size plugs if you remove the 12v lighter adapter.. It just pulls apart..

Or, buy the Dewalt hoodie cause you can place the battery in the front pocket OR in the back out of the package. It gives you the choice to do so, and it will also work with the Milwaukee power source and Milwaukee batteries. It uses the same size power plugs, so everything is interchangeable between the two.. The Dewalt hoodie is much heavier (very much like the carhartt heavyweight hoodie) I have 2 of the regular heated Milwaukee jackets, the new black 3in1 that comes with its own unique hoodie (haven't worn the jacket yet, but it's the hoodie that's heated, not the jacket) and the Dewalt heated hoodie.. None of the Milwaukee jackets bother me while driving, and I spend a lot of time doing that for my job..

With the Milwaukee extension, you can even leave the battery next to you somewhere if your really sitting in a chair and not moving around. I also have the m18 power source, and would use that with 4.0 m18 batteries when I was doing snow removal last year with front end loaders that had no heat.

Anyway, what I was getting at is that the battery location in the jackets and the regular heated hoodies are different with the Milwaukee stuff.

This is the Milwaukee cigarette lighter adapter:

 

[rlitman]

... Second, in a cold environment, the heat helps less than just wearing a heavy sweater would. Even when I wear the hoodie under my heavy winter parka, the electric heat is not noticeable in -25C conditions...

I don't completely agree. I will say that the jacket is much less insulating than other jackets I can find that are the same weight/thickness. I'm ok with that, because it's more comfortable in warmer weather when I have the heat off. With the heat on, it brings it back to being kind of warm.

Under a parka, I feel like I can cook myself with the jacket.
Last winter I used it for hours in -20C conditions under a parka, and it served me quite well.

Are you wearing a layer under the jacket? Putting a fleece for example under the heating elements will pretty much make them useless. This needs to be your first outerwear layer for it to work.

 

[purplezr2]

Yeah, it's not the best design. It's kind of retarded, actually. I certainly won't buy any more Milwaukee heated clothing.

The thing is, the quality of the hoodie is extremely high. The fabric, the stitching, the construction... excellent. It's well and above the quality you normally see. The cost would not be that bad, even if it wasn't heated.

Two things keep the products from being useful. First, the battery location is tragic. Second, in a cold environment, the heat helps less than just wearing a heavy sweater would. Even when I wear the hoodie under my heavy winter parka, the electric heat is not noticeable in -25C conditions.

Everybody loves seeing it, though. They assume you are swaddled in an electric blanket that keeps you cozy as toast. The number of smiles per hour is high.

Not sure why the battery location is an issue, Mine is in the back left, doesn't bother me at all. Never really noticed it being in the way. I use mine for hunting. I shut if off when walking and turn it back on when I start to get cold sitting. Works awesome.

 

[kctyphoon]

I spent all last year working outside wearing a tank top, long sleeve shirt, and then black and gray heated jacket with a carhartt hat.. U need to wear less clothes to benefit, and I've worn it in weather below zero..

 

[PoorOwner]

I have the craftsman jacket and it is in the left front pockets, still in front of organs but I have driven, ate dinner out and the location just fine

Imo the best looking jacket compared to others. They run a slim cut too so should fit some women ok
It's built like a $250-$300 expensive sports gear (cycling) etc jacket

 

[scoot86]

Should a bought a dewalt has 3 different spots for the battery