The Dewalt Flexvolt stalled.
- Thread starter HolyGrail
- Start date
wildbill23c
Well-known member
Stalled, mine are far worse, batteries won't charge at all. Put battery on charger, it charges or tries to charge for about 5 seconds then says the battery is charged...mind you the batteries are dead so I know damn well they're not going to be done charging in 5 seconds. Tried another charger, same problem. Batteries and chargers are now at D&B supply to have them checked out tomorrow. So far I'm not impressed.
kctyphoon
Banned
So ummmmm... WHERE'S THE OTHER ummmm, THIRTY SIX volts of power everyone thought they were getting?? Hahaha..
Good thing it's got that big battery to extend the runtime.. Oh wait, it's less than half the run time of Milwaukee's 5.0?? Explain to me again WHY people are buying these... Oh, that's right - there's a sticker on it with bigger numbers.., gotcha..
I'd almost bet that Milwaukee's brushed sawzall will cut just as fast as that monstrosity.
Good thing it's got that big battery to extend the runtime.. Oh wait, it's less than half the run time of Milwaukee's 5.0?? Explain to me again WHY people are buying these... Oh, that's right - there's a sticker on it with bigger numbers.., gotcha..
I'd almost bet that Milwaukee's brushed sawzall will cut just as fast as that monstrosity.
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Also, since it has been shown that more power is added to the tool when you go from a lower Milwaukee battery to a higher one, i'm curious to see how much more power the Milwaukee m18 Circular saw will have with the 9.0. A real test IMO would be the Dewalt Flexvolt Circular saw vs Milwaukee m18 Circular saw with the 9.0 battery.
kctyphoon
Banned
Someone should go into the Dewalt addiction thread, and offer free rehab over in the Milwaukee thread.. 
kctyphoon
Banned
Cool video, but the Dewalt is brushless so that doest really apply.
kctyphoon
Banned
The flexvolt batteries are probably just wired with two circuits, each having contact pins on the top of the battery for the tools to engage. The 20v tools will contact the pins giving the 20v circuit, that are the same position as all their other 20v batteries, and more the likely the only difference with the new tools is they make contact to a different set of pins on the new batteries that use this 54v circuit. No real magic..
You can see in the video your not gaining ANYTHING that an 18v platform cannot already do. Your actually getting less since that giant battery will have less than half the runtime while putting out no more power than an 18v.. It's all a gimimick for newly released tools..
I was actually rooting Dewalt when I first saw these tools online - saying it about time they did something big. Guess not..
You can see in the video your not gaining ANYTHING that an 18v platform cannot already do. Your actually getting less since that giant battery will have less than half the runtime while putting out no more power than an 18v.. It's all a gimimick for newly released tools..
I was actually rooting Dewalt when I first saw these tools online - saying it about time they did something big. Guess not..
If it's not putting out more power then it's not using more juice. Look at the watt hours. Likely has more runtime than a Mikwaukee 5.0. The HD9.0 and the FlexVolt 3.0/9.0 will be similar. The lack of adjustable shoe and rafter hook on the Dewalt recip are a fail but the saw itself is a good unit, especially for Dewalt, who can't make a recip to save their lives. The grinder is more powerful than Fuel, and the joist drill has more power than a Super Hawg while being stout like a Hole Hawg. I love my Fuel gear and have thousands worth of M18 but let's not pretend big red is perfect.
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I don't think their perfect. There are things i like about both brands. Competitiveness is good for the consumer. But I did see a lot of unfair Milwaukee bashing when they first introduce the Flexvolt, and this did show a first account, that until you run the tools side by side you never know the benefits compared to the other.
I don't really have a dog in this fight but once the motor safety times out and it starts cutting again the DeWalt seems to cruise through the last 2 sets of nails with less problem than the Milwaukee. You could tell each time the Milwaukee hit a set of nails and once the DeWalt started up again it didn't seem really phased.
kctyphoon
Banned
He says in the video at 54v the battery is only a 2 amp hour battery. At 20v it's a 6.0 amp/hr
You cannot equate higher voltage to more a more powerful tool. The Milwaukee fuel series has already proven that, and their 18v tools cut just as fast as their corded..
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Yes, it's higher voltage and lower amp hour but the watt hours tell the story. The stroke length and stroke per minute are the same, the same work is being done physically, so similar amounts of energy will be consumed. I was hesitant about the 2.0 and 3.0 designations on FlexVolt at first too, but the specs don't lie. You'll have shorter run time on tools that actually use more power, i.e.; 500 extra rpm on the grinder, 800 extra rpm on the circular saw. On tools doing the same thing runtime will be very comparable.
The 15 cell battery also has 50% more cells to distribute the load across so you see less voltage drop when you push the tools hard. It's easy to overheat your batteries on a Fuel grinder or Sawzall. The new 9.0 will have the same benefit. That's also the scenario where the x2 Makita has an advantage over the 18v brushless Makita. They won't bog down so hard when you have more difficult tasks for them. There's a reason I have both Fuel and 20v Max.
The one positive thing coming from all of this is more agressive pricing. FlexVolt has free tool and battery promos from the word go. Milwaukee has significant discounts on tool sets comparable to FlexVolt, ie saws, Hawgs and grinders. They can sling all the mud they want, the customer comes out ahead.
edit: also, when Milwaukee states their solutions outperform corded, you should ask yourself what corded models that's based on. The corded grinder their cordless grinders are based off are 11k rpm. Fuel is 8500. Their corded circular saws are 5800 rpm. Their Fuel models are 5000. Even the cordless hole Hawgs, sure with a specific size but bit its likely faster, as seen at NPS14 but put the bigger self feeds on and you can probably imagine the corded performs better under a heavy load.
The 15 cell battery also has 50% more cells to distribute the load across so you see less voltage drop when you push the tools hard. It's easy to overheat your batteries on a Fuel grinder or Sawzall. The new 9.0 will have the same benefit. That's also the scenario where the x2 Makita has an advantage over the 18v brushless Makita. They won't bog down so hard when you have more difficult tasks for them. There's a reason I have both Fuel and 20v Max.
The one positive thing coming from all of this is more agressive pricing. FlexVolt has free tool and battery promos from the word go. Milwaukee has significant discounts on tool sets comparable to FlexVolt, ie saws, Hawgs and grinders. They can sling all the mud they want, the customer comes out ahead.
edit: also, when Milwaukee states their solutions outperform corded, you should ask yourself what corded models that's based on. The corded grinder their cordless grinders are based off are 11k rpm. Fuel is 8500. Their corded circular saws are 5800 rpm. Their Fuel models are 5000. Even the cordless hole Hawgs, sure with a specific size but bit its likely faster, as seen at NPS14 but put the bigger self feeds on and you can probably imagine the corded performs better under a heavy load.
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Not really IMO, you can see he repositioned his arm on the Milwaukee which cause a slight delay, which he didn't do with the Dewalt.
But were both nitpicking aren't we? From what I was seeing in the forums for the last few months, this Flexvolt should have been trouncing the Milwaukee, not just keeping up with it.
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Dewalt has a history of making terrible reciprocating saws. Milwaukee invented the category and continues to innovate in it. You'll notice a similar trend with the mitre saws. Dewalt was built on radial arm saws. The 780 is a legendary sliding mitre. The FlexVolt takes that heritage and builds on it. The M18 Fuel 10" mitre is a good first kick at the can. Different companies have different strengths.
That doesn't appear to be the result here. Starts at 3:17.
I get about 25 mins hard use on my Milwaukee Fuel Grinder with a 5.0 battery. If the Dewalt Flexvolt Grinder can only get 10 to 15 mins of power now......how much less in runtime is it going to have compared to the Milwaukee 9.0 batteries when that's available everywhere.
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lazer50
Well-known member
Well i read a little @ d ewalt about the flex volt technology.found it interesting but also figured there would be bugs to work out.i have cordless tools from both cos.a reciprocating saw,drill and impact d ewalt and drill and new impact milwaukee.happy with all although the d ewalt are ni cad and sure hope they keep on trucking lol.
He mentions "probably 15 minutes of runtime". He also mentions it has "the power of a corded model" and "it's the most powerful cordless grinder they've used". He also states it's battery life is right up there with the best runtime they've seen on a cordless model. This reinforces what I said about having more power/higher specs *or* comparable runtime.
That said, I've been happy with my Fuel grinder. Still waiting on delivery of the FlexVolt unit lol. Once I've had time with both I'll have a stronger opinion one way or the other.
Quote " The downside to it that we had with this battery, what's currently out the 6 amp hour, we didn't have a ton of runtime to it. In our testing we would find maybe 10 to 15 minutes of solid use and the battery was pretty much dead. "inquote.
Nowhere in that statement did he use the word "probably". He did also state that the tools has a lot of power, but its going to take these batteries down fairly quick.
He didn't say best. He said quote "it does have probably some of the close to the better battery life that we've seen out there" This is far from best, as this doesn't explain my better runtimes with the Milwaukee Grinder.
Why he said this right after he called it a downside......I don't know. Perhaps he was talking about the longer run time you will have using normal 20 volt max tools.
I will agree with you on the power, but the Milwaukee Grinder is no slouch, and I would rather have longer runtime in the long run, IMO.
I look forward to you're opinion on the FlexVolt Grinder. I'm all about real world use, and would like to hear you're results. I rather be wrong then stupid.
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I was pretty poor in my paraphrasing there, sorry about that. I didn't mean to insinuate the FlexVolt had the best runtime, rather that it "hangs with the best of them", not the best, but better than average.
I imagine going forward it will always be a matter of balancing power and runtime. Dewalt is chasing pure power and big numbers, Milwaukee tends to be more efficient with regards to runtime in my experience.
I also agree with you re: runtime. I find the Fuel plenty powerful, and when you're going hard on a Sawzall or grinder you can kill them in 15 minutes. Every extra minute is important when you're trying to keep ahead of your charger(s). The FlexVolt charger being high amp and fan-cooled is one of the smarter things they could have ripped off from Makita. Milwaukee is going to have to be much more generous with their Rapid Chargers with the 6.0 and 9.0 batteries out. You can easily get ahead of your batteries on their standard 3.0 amp charger. The 5.0 ends up taking 100 minutes or so to charge lol.
I imagine going forward it will always be a matter of balancing power and runtime. Dewalt is chasing pure power and big numbers, Milwaukee tends to be more efficient with regards to runtime in my experience.
I also agree with you re: runtime. I find the Fuel plenty powerful, and when you're going hard on a Sawzall or grinder you can kill them in 15 minutes. Every extra minute is important when you're trying to keep ahead of your charger(s). The FlexVolt charger being high amp and fan-cooled is one of the smarter things they could have ripped off from Makita. Milwaukee is going to have to be much more generous with their Rapid Chargers with the 6.0 and 9.0 batteries out. You can easily get ahead of your batteries on their standard 3.0 amp charger. The 5.0 ends up taking 100 minutes or so to charge lol.
Superbec
Well-known member
Ummmm did you copy my post, but change the words to make it yours? Seriously??
Mine
Yours
Seriously??Mine
Yours
Wait....its a bot? $&@:%, I'm getting old.
Strouty
Well-known member
Yeah, I call them thesaurus spammers, they change a few words and that is it.
So I am at least on topic, people are dumb, but dewalt is worse, the 20 volt max **** is just dumb. It would be like pepsi or coke offering you a 20 ounce can with 10 ounces of soda in it. When people complain the answer would be "shake the can and you get more than 20 ounces."
So I am at least on topic, people are dumb, but dewalt is worse, the 20 volt max **** is just dumb. It would be like pepsi or coke offering you a 20 ounce can with 10 ounces of soda in it. When people complain the answer would be "shake the can and you get more than 20 ounces."
A more accurate analogy would be Dewalt telling you they had extra carbonation in their cola than the competitors, and them telling you that's the Max* carbonation. When you pop the tab the extra amount leaves the can, never to return, and when you pour carbonation Max* cola in your glass the nominal amount of fizz in your drink is identical to competitors.
I have to admit, as much as Milwaukee's "50x longer life!" "1000x more fun at work!" claims annoy me, the sheer amount of asterisks you see in any type of Dewalt literature might be even worse.
I have to admit, as much as Milwaukee's "50x longer life!" "1000x more fun at work!" claims annoy me, the sheer amount of asterisks you see in any type of Dewalt literature might be even worse.
TOOL FANATIK
Well-known member
Anyone know when dewalt will be getting flexvolt kit tools shipping again? been back ordered for the last few weeks now.
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Know Wosad
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