On 22/10/2020 22:21, AJH wrote:
On 20/10/2020 00:45, John Rumm wrote:
On 19/10/2020 21:12, AJH wrote:

I thought the advantage of Makita cordeless tools was that they all
shared the same battery type yet when I was presented with a Makita
BUC122 chainsaw with no battery I couldn't fit the one from a drill,
it seemed to start sliding in but then reached a hard stop. Are there
different types of Makita 18V battery fittings?

Yup

There was a time when they introduced the 4Ah and higher capacity
batteries that they made a slight change to the fittings.

IIUC the logic was that the newer batteries used of an extra pin
position to allow more communication between tools and the battery
management system in the new bats. This is not present on the old tools.

(Also the new batts can supply higher peak current, which not all the
old tools may be able to handle)

You can just remove the tab on the tool that blocks the new battery
being inserted - but you will need to take care to not discharge it
too far since the battery monitoring and low voltage cut off won't
work, and you could end up bricking a battery if you take its terminal
voltage too low for the charger to want to charge it.

So moving forward - not an issue, all LXT batts and current tools
(like DUC prefix chainsaws) should play nice together.



There's no chance the owner will buy a new saw so if I advise her to get
the correct replacement I suppose she won't be able to use the charger
for the modern drill battery??

Not sure if it would be a problem with the charger - since its the tool
that has an extra tab in the battery slot that prevents the insertion of
the new batteries. The new charger won't have the tab either.

My worry with this type of top handle saw is that they tempt people to
use then one handed and a kickback can then easily rotate the saw around
the one hand and cause damage. The tip guard supplied by Makita is off
the saw because her husband would have used it when climbing with a
harness, the only reason to use a top handle saw.

Yup top handle saws really want to be used with both hands whenever
possible. (in fact there is a good argument to only use them for aerial
work, and switch to a back handle one for any time your feet arr on the
ground).


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/