What's Inside Fake M12 Batteries

Let's pop open some of these knockoff Milwaukee M12 batteries and see what's inside.

M12 "3ah" 1.3 ah battery. Like I said in the video these packs are actually pretty good for what I use them for.

M12 6ah battery.

Thins I Like And Contact Info

[damnitbadger]

watching a Milwaukee being disassembled by a Dewalt....wars have been started over less

[theredscourge]

Dude you should be a voice actor, your voice would be perfect in so many roles. With or without the cold.

[supatim]

I use both fake and real, and you basically nailed it, you can be lucky or unlucky with the fake ones. I have some fake batteries that perform the same as originals, others go flat straight away. The real ones always good - you pays your money you take your choice. I have never had good fake Dewalt only good fake Milwaukee batteries, for some reason.

[ampex]

One thing I found with some knock off 18v Makita batteries was that they didn't have any balancing circuitry. Definitely a fire hazard because li-ion doesn't handle charging in series very well.

[wbfaulk]

You can get battery chargers that you could put those raw cells in that would tell you the actual capacity and max amps. But that would require that you actually desolder the cells from the pack, and the charger/tester isn't super cheap. But if you're interested in pursuing this further, that's probably the way to go.

[sargeinamerica]

Perfect breakdown. We aren’t curing cancer here and since you have all your fingers and no long thumb nails you get 10 points. I will have to deduct 2 points for the simple reason that no one is perfect!!
Carry on, I will be in the area all day.

[coty]

The waitly batteries are actually pretty decent for the money. Project farm did a great video on them and they tested the closest to the OEM batteries used.

[bobloblaw]

I have been using a Milwaukee Toughshell jacket for 3 seasons now, it came with one 2.0 M12 battery that works fine.
Bought two knock off 2.5 M12's for $40 CAD. Up here at the time they were asking $80 CAD for one replacement 2.0 M12 original.

Must have got lucky because my knock offs are holding up. They actually last a bit longer than the OG battery (because they are more Mah).
Good luck to everyone shopping.

[misterj]

I always enjoy a van/truck tour. Interesting to see other guy’s setups.

[RenaxTM]

As it is most of the time with fake stuff, the reason that someone says they're great and someone says they're crap, is because some of them are crap and some of them are great, and most people has a sample of just a few, or just one.
Its always a gamble buying fake stuff from cheap chinese shops, doubly so with batteries. you might get a good one you might get a bad one. but even worse you can get one that seems good and works good for months before it burns your house down.

[americathefree]

Dude I started smoking again just so I can sound like you! You rock!

[lp]

I think general rule with "genuine" vs. "third party" is that genuine is always better 1:1, but other compatible batteries are usually 75% as good. So math is simple - if you can get 3x third party batteries for the same price as single original, then you will be better off. As well in my experience I have both something like 6AH battery for price of 3AH and if our math still applies then the outcome is quite obvious.

In short as long as "fake" batteries are significantly cheaper, they usually represents good value.

[rotorhead]

That was my little bit of experience with the knockoff Milwaukee 3ah, it seemed to go the distance, but one drop on the floor and the casement broke between the top and bottom packs. For the proce difference, I'd be fine buying the cheap 1.5 packs, but lesson learned on the bigger ones, became i know that my tools will take tumbles, so the genuine seems like its worth the money.

[johngaltline]

I'm in the home gamer space with the ryobi tools, but have found it helps to just dig through reviews and find ones that seem like people say they last as long, or nearly as long as the real ones. You'll hear about it on the ones that are trash. For what it's worth, for the people that hate on ryobi, My 20+ year old tools all still work as good as they did new. They probably won't hold up as well if you like to use your drill as a hammer, but if you use it as a drill or a saw as a saw, they last just as long as any of the pro-summer brands. The 20 year old drills got used hard the first 5 years of their life, driving 3 inch drywall screws and pulling them back out building sets for stage plays back in the days before 1/4" impacts were common place.

[billmongiello]

no worries, your explanations were very good...i actually learned a bit

[johnfuhrman]

The Waitley high capacity batteries are a good value for use with lights and such. Others have found that they do seem to have about the same amp hours as the real Milwaukee. Definitely not the best to use with your main tools. Good video.

[downup]

I have used both my Milwaukee 4AH M12 packs and the 5AH HO packs in my M12 impact guns Abe I’ve got to say the difference in performance is substantial. I actually took all my 4AH batteries home and replaced them with the 5AH packs.

[tarstarkusz]

11:10 You couldn't be more wrong. It is incredibly common for cells to be mislabeled. They are very low quality cells that have a fake wrap on them with fake specifications. You will NEVER get 500 charge cycles out of them and they can catch fire. That is the real risk. Though there isn't nearly as much energy in these cells as an ebike battery, the fire is still very hot and energetic enough to catch other things on fire. Putting the battery fire out is near impossible. I charge mine in an old frying pan and never leave them plugged in when I am not around. That way if they catch fire, I can grab the pan and run outside.

[EddieTheH]

The problem with the fakes is that they're usually using cells recycled from old laptop batteries, etc, and some could be on their last few cycles.

[MichaelRBaron]

The higher discharge rate on the aftermarket 6ah battery is a huge plus. You'll get more cycles out of that battery vs the Milwaukee 6ah. Heat kills batteries, and lithium ion is so much more sensitive to that than the old nicads we grew up using.

The slight discrepancy in capacity between the two is because higher discharge rate requires thicker materials for carrying current. There's only so much "oof-da" you can fit in a can, so there's always a trade off between capacity and discharge rate, even with the highest quality components.

Love the channel btw and keep up the good work.