i hope this new forged 12.0 can keep the cells balanced. The old non forged 12.0 and 8.0 and 9.0ah were horrible or at least had a horrible bms because after a short amount of time there were always at least one back of cells there were really out of balance killing the total capacity of the whole battery pack. Happens to all of the old 12.0 /8.0 high output m18 batteries as well as the really old 9.0ah. I use to have to take apart the batteries and manually charge the low voltage cell manually with my RC charger to get the battery to normal working condition and this had to be done every 5 or so charges. Never had this problems after hundreds of charged with the m18 5.0 or high output 6.0 also all my super old ryobi batteries all still charge and balance great.
I had the same experience. All 3 of my 12Ahs and 1 8Ah went out of balance. All my lower capacity packs are mostly in balance (less than 0.05V). Currently testing the Forge but there's no datasheet for the chip, so I'm trying to decipher the i2c messages.
I cant wait to see a video of this battery being time tested to see if it balances better. I have already purchased one and if balancing is a issue i will be returning these to milwaukee and switching brands altogther. I dont appreciate a company selling cleary faulty batteries for 249 dollars.
Probably another 1-2 weeks away. I haven't been able to get the datasheet, so I've had to resort to intentionally unbalancing the pack and then seeing if it brings itself back into balance. Unfortunately it takes several days for the pack to fully settle after charging.
Awesome video! Thanks. Although hopeful about the higher passive cell balancing capacity, I do think it is unfortunate that the upgrade is very minimal, as you were rightly worried about. It is unfortunate Milwaukee did not go for active cell balancing and that cell balancing is limited tot 5 resistors only, as this means only every group of 3 cells are balanced but that we din't get better cell balancing with 10-15 cell balancing, which could greatly improve battery health. It does look like the board could be replaced a bit easier which would make replacing with a better third party board possible. With non security screws on the side I get a sense the battery is potentially more repairable than the current HO batteries, which is good to know.
Thanks for the inside look. Do you know if they're using off the shelf cells for these batteries? The new dual battery chainsaw makes some bold power claims, 6.4hp or 4,700W on two of these. That would mean each pack is putting out 130-150 amps depending on the voltage sag. Whew!
Ampace JP40. They're supposedly good for 140A per cell! In short bursts, obviously. This video shows a cell holding 3.3V @ 100A, so 330W/cell. 15 cells would be ~5kW for a single pack. Pretty sure you'd be melting the battery case near the terminals at that power level, though. ua-cam.com/video/myyvEsYiXNk/v-deo.html
Also, in some of my other videos on my main channel, I've taken the old High Output 12Ah up to 158A and it was holding 16V, so 2.5kW. ua-cam.com/video/XNKlEHLwldE/v-deo.html
I'll be furious if it doesn't. It's a significant redesign and change of chip. If this doesn't balance, it can only mean that they want their batteries to fail early
i hope this new forged 12.0 can keep the cells balanced. The old non forged 12.0 and 8.0 and 9.0ah were horrible or at least had a horrible bms because after a short amount of time there were always at least one back of cells there were really out of balance killing the total capacity of the whole battery pack. Happens to all of the old 12.0 /8.0 high output m18 batteries as well as the really old 9.0ah. I use to have to take apart the batteries and manually charge the low voltage cell manually with my RC charger to get the battery to normal working condition and this had to be done every 5 or so charges. Never had this problems after hundreds of charged with the m18 5.0 or high output 6.0 also all my super old ryobi batteries all still charge and balance great.
I had the same experience. All 3 of my 12Ahs and 1 8Ah went out of balance. All my lower capacity packs are mostly in balance (less than 0.05V). Currently testing the Forge but there's no datasheet for the chip, so I'm trying to decipher the i2c messages.
I cant wait to see a video of this battery being time tested to see if it balances better. I have already purchased one and if balancing is a issue i will be returning these to milwaukee and switching brands altogther. I dont appreciate a company selling cleary faulty batteries for 249 dollars.
Probably another 1-2 weeks away. I haven't been able to get the datasheet, so I've had to resort to intentionally unbalancing the pack and then seeing if it brings itself back into balance. Unfortunately it takes several days for the pack to fully settle after charging.
What other tool company balances their cells?
Awesome video! Thanks. Although hopeful about the higher passive cell balancing capacity, I do think it is unfortunate that the upgrade is very minimal, as you were rightly worried about. It is unfortunate Milwaukee did not go for active cell balancing and that cell balancing is limited tot 5 resistors only, as this means only every group of 3 cells are balanced but that we din't get better cell balancing with 10-15 cell balancing, which could greatly improve battery health. It does look like the board could be replaced a bit easier which would make replacing with a better third party board possible. With non security screws on the side I get a sense the battery is potentially more repairable than the current HO batteries, which is good to know.
Thanks for the inside look. Do you know if they're using off the shelf cells for these batteries? The new dual battery chainsaw makes some bold power claims, 6.4hp or 4,700W on two of these. That would mean each pack is putting out 130-150 amps depending on the voltage sag. Whew!
Ampace JP40. They're supposedly good for 140A per cell! In short bursts, obviously. This video shows a cell holding 3.3V @ 100A, so 330W/cell. 15 cells would be ~5kW for a single pack. Pretty sure you'd be melting the battery case near the terminals at that power level, though. ua-cam.com/video/myyvEsYiXNk/v-deo.html
Also, in some of my other videos on my main channel, I've taken the old High Output 12Ah up to 158A and it was holding 16V, so 2.5kW.
ua-cam.com/video/XNKlEHLwldE/v-deo.html
Looking forward to more content on reverse engineering these new batteries. It will be another round of shame if these indeed do not balance.
I'll be furious if it doesn't. It's a significant redesign and change of chip. If this doesn't balance, it can only mean that they want their batteries to fail early