Hercules 12Ah Battery Tear Down is SHOCKING!
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- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2022
- Hercules 12Ah Battery Tear Down is SHOCKING!
M18 12Ah Teardown for comparison: bit.ly/3PSq9xM
HF Hercules 12Ah Battery: bit.ly/3JwkkVj
Thanks again to HF for sending this battery for.... um... "testing"?
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Хобби
It's not that the HF battery is hella cheap. Just that most of the others are hella over priced. The manufacturers know that they have you by the jewels and can pretty much charge whatever they want for battery packs once you're invested in the platform. What's sad is that they're probably all made in the same ChiCom factory.😑
This is true. The cells themselves are relatively inexpensive, and the electronics really don't cost much either.
You're paying for the name and the warranty mostly.
Eh. The others (at least at the high end) have a long qualification process for their battery packs (shocks/drops/hot/cold/damp/high speed charge/deep discharge/etc), aggressive sampling of cells as batches come in, plus their business is focused around the people (mostly professional tradespersons) who they're trying to keep as a customer for life, so you're paying for that. If pretty much anything bought at HF fails during use often enough to be identified as a design or manufacturing problem, whoever bought it will be kinda annoyed, but the world at large will be 'eh, it's HF' (or Kobalt, or Ryobi, or Porter Cable, or whatever the Menards store brand currently is, or...). But if a Makita or Milwaukee or Bosch or Flex or (higher-end) Dewalt starts blowing up unexpectedly under the same circumstances, there's a bunch of contractors (you know, the people who buy more expensive tools and batteries based on the assumption they're going to keep working for a long time) are going to be looking at the toolbox and thinking 'uhhh...'.
I'm not denying for a second that batteries are the blades of their razor business, I'm just saying you're paying for some intangibles and sunk costs when you're buying that brand name.
Well said 😁
Harbor Freight has quality items, some suspect, but so does every other business.
I was watching Project Farm compare jacks. The Snap-On was/is $1,000.00 and the Harbor Freight Daytona jack was/is $280.00. They where virtually identical, from look, weight and function. Buy 1 Snap-On or buy 3 Daytona's? Hmmmm...
Depends on if I'm using them a bunch of times every day and plan to be using them a bunch of times every day for years. People in the trades don't pay the extra money for 'stronger' or 'faster', you pay it for 'buy it once and keep using it forever', which is something that the review sites seem to miss (and I realize it's hard to make a review video where you use something for its intended purpose multiple times a day for years).
You're the man for doing this. Hopefully Harbor Freight & Hercules recognize how much you help their brands
Those are good quality cells. Harbor Freight has definitely stepped up the game with their Hercules tools.
People have taken apart the so called name brand batteries too. But their non name brand cells.
Thanks for taking one for the team. Glad non of those cells exploded on you. You and your family stay safe.
That news jolted me. I appreciate your spark of curiosity and ingenuity. It's good that you keep up on current events. I'll tell you watt, you'll get no resistance from me! After that little exercise, I believe you truly can Shine On! Time to meditate - Ohm! Ohm!
That’s a real joule of a comment
Lol...Thanks guys, I needed a laugh.
@@denoftools I got a real charge out of that pun!
Ohm my God, will this ever stop?
@@rickt140 Nope, I’m turning the Amps up to 11!
I can see battery adapters picking up in price now.
They should pay extra for those Milwaukee tool adapters. Those guys love wasting money
@@straycatnip sorry people like quality. But honestly couldn't find any Hercules to Milwaukee adapters on Amazon anyone got any ideas?
@@chanceharmon6491 people like the color red more than quality. Ebay, etsy is where you find adapters, not Amazon.
@@chanceharmon6491 I’ve had bad luck with Milwaukee 12 volt packs - I don’t think I’ve had one last more than a couple years before they start kicking errors out on the charger. I’m trying some Amazon generic ones now and they seem to be holding up better.
That is actually why I watched this video!
I think that is absolutely awesome when people tear apart tools and such, especially batteries, it's so helpful to know the nitty gritty of what ur buying, especially since I have a number of Hercules tools.
Thanks for doing that, it's so appreciated.
Total thumbs up, bear. 🐻
The real question now is why does Milwaukee and dewalt charge so much h extra for their battery packs.
GREED
Because they can
It's because they make most of their profit with the sale of batteries and not so much with their tools. A few years back I had an issue with a new printer. The Mfg. sent me a replacement printer and didn't want me to return the defective unit. I thought it was strange, not to do so, but realized they didn't want to lose me as an ink cartridge customer.
@@corin164 Exactly.....and that is why printers like the Eco Tanks from Epson are more expensive, the business model shifted back to charging for the device and less for the ink (because so many people were looking at cheaper 3rd party options for ink). I miss my old printer and continuous ink system.....the amount of money I saved on ink was ridiculous (it was in the thousanda of dollars).
@v8packard. Indeed. When people stop paying these prices, the price of their products will come down as will the quality. They have corporate profit margins that need to be maintained.
I bought the 8AH battery when I bought my Ultra Torque impact (also got the dual charger as well). I am a hobbyist, wont use this stuff for any type of production work, still I am VERY happy to see the quality of the batteries! Thank you for taking us in for a better look!
What??! Where do you live? We haven’t seen a single 8ah in Ohio yet so I got the 12ah with my ultra torque(which was also the first UT in Ohio haha)
@@tylerfraker7716 I live in Central California, the HF near my house had a couple of 8s and 12s on the shelf. Guess they are still working on distribution. 👍
I think that the real answer is that Harbor Freight is selling these batteries at a modest profit while MIllwakee wants to make ALL the money every time they sell a battery.
I think you hit the nail on the head. No pun intended. And even though I’m not a fan of cordless tools. If I ever do buy another, it will probably be Hercules.
I think HF is selling these at a very good profit. As a business, that's what they should be doing. Other companies are selling these at monster profit. The strategy helps drive the sales of their lower capacity, lower cost batteries. Imagine if the battery lines didn't have proprietary connections. The competition would be unreal.
In defense of Mil/DWT and other major manufacturers, they have in house designers that actually design the tools. They then find a manufacturer to make their tools, incorporate QA etc. Harbor Freight does neither. HFT goes to the same Mfrs. then gives them parameters of a tool (including cost) with limited QA.
@@corin164 I love Milwaukee I just can’t afford them.
@@v8packard I was just thinking about to write you can usually buy same batteries at a fraction of the cost on line . Not sure about these if they new they are constantly adding stuff to prevent this . They shouldn't be ripping people off to begin with
"WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE NOW?!?!?!" 😹😹😹
Love all your tool vids
Thanks for taking the hit on the battery. May pick up one of the impact wrenches, battery, and charger even though the other stuff I have is dewalt.
I would bet money Harbor Freight sends these to Jeff free of charge.
ThBks for this, now I have that information to pitch to my customers!
Yay! More things I want that dont exist in my country
1:44 I thought you said *dont* die lmao
Fantastic! And yes I do believe that you avoided that warranty, but if you never posted the video and you put it back together I think you would be just fine
One of your best! Cuts right to the chase! Thank you.
Cuts right to the chase. And the sparks...
Nice bearproof feature! Those are good batteries, I’m sold
I have been impressed with Hercules. I got their cordless angle grander and, as I always do, I popped it open to make sure the bevel gears had enough grease, and they did. So did the needle bearings on the drive. NEEDLE BEARINGS. My old Dewalt had a nice bushing. Yay Hercules. Oh, and thank you for sacrificing your battery pack in the name of learning.
Interesting. The only big downside to my old Bauer light was the battery, which was easily remedied with a swap. I was discouraged by the new Icon light not having a replaceable cell, but maybe they are using good ones in them ?
Damn HF is getting pretty good ! I have their titanium 200 unlimited. Been running pretty strong so far. Have tons of their bauer tools and they've held up over the years. Planning on snagging their ultra torque here soon.
I had to double check and make sure I was subbed. Dude you're great for doin this for us viewers.
Thank you for your service!
Wow. That is excellent for the price. Surprised to see the Samsung 40T 21700 cells for sure. I am surprised at how much covering on the pack though. Heat kills. I always hope to see lots of air flow through the packs. Maybe with the large capacity 3P the heat doesn't build as quickly as with smaller packs since less pull on each cell?
@ the den of tools I can’t find it. If they had a brushless 1/4 hex driver I might get something but I can not find any info on when or if they will release such a thing for Hercules. Any ideas??
Good job Bear. Shine on
Hey big bear, we just received our factory refurbished generator for the five hundred bucks. Looks smells like it is brand new and never run. I will run it soon. The factory outside box was printed with the words factory refurbished on it. Thanks for the tip. I had been watching for a Cosco sail but this was way better!
Thank 🙏🏽 you for doing this my next Buy 😂
Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to discharge the battery before taking it apart?
I'm assuming HF/Hercules does the kind of volume needed to get cells directly from Samsung.
One of the problems with the knockoffs is that there's a huge problem with people buying junk cells, putting a new label on them proclaiming them to be name-brand high capacity (not hard to do when the label is printed on heat-shrink tubing), and reselling them as the real deal (or, if you're feeling cynical, you might suspect the people making the junk cells are mislabeling them at the factory); because the battery pack is only as good as the worst cell, buying a knockoff becomes a game of chance.
The benefit here is that there are currently only a few places making 21700 cells, and all of them (at least for now) are quality cells.
Really, an OEM can end up with counterfeit Samsung cells with fake shrink wrap labels. We should call them Trump cells.
@@tonymanero5544 But they're NOT rewraps in these batteries...
Unless they're extremely high quality ones, because they match up perfectly with what the Samsung graphs and datasheets state for the cells. I've tested both the 18650 AND 21700 versions of the batteries, and they BOTH contain genuine Samsung cells.
@tonymanero5544 you misspelled Obama and Biden
@@anthonybarker9123 Meh, no, the same counterfeiters could just shoehorn some generic 18650 into a larger casing just as some have done in the past with 18650 and other sizes.
Just saw this beast today. Glad to see they went big
How well do these packs work? I have a non tool application where I'm using a pair of Ryobi 9ah packs and those things are getting hard to get and expensive. Thinking maybe I should switch this device over to these Hercules batteries when I wear out the Ryobi.
Seem to work great but they have not been out that long. That said the cells in them are top notch.
That spark slow mo effect was cool Jeff
Hello again Jeff and Mrs. Bear 🐻
Thank you for another Great Video 👍 I hope your OK after the shock 😲 Again thank you
I was waiting for the smoke, but I got treated to the spark.
#WINNING!!!!
Can it be adapted to fit Makita LXT 18V ?
Much better than I expected.
I’m not afraid of HF stuff. Plenty of it in my garage. If you take care of your tools and don’t use them for unintended purposes, they last a long time.
I am very curious to know it the 21700 cell is packed with a 18650 battery packed inside the cell case like all 26650 do.
The best in the business, that's why there is a 5-year warranty on these batteries.. they are simply the best battery cells that you can buy.
Not really true! They are cylindrical cells. Flat stacked cells are much better and will last 4x as many charges. The Milwaukee Forge batteries are that type. Dewalt also has them. They are also more money. But to say HF are the best is not accurate. They are good!
Jeff, be careful; we do not want to lose the tool bear. Battery packs are like ink cartridges to printers - money machine!
How many WH (watt hours) in that battery and will it fit Milwaukee tools?
Jeff….have you done a similar video for the Bauer batteries as well? I’d be interested to see.
You are the man. Thank you for that😊
That was funny but I'm glad you looked into these
Sparks and Blood... Another good video!
Thank you and good to know.
I can't believe you're not using Icon or Pittsburgh tools on that!!! Hehehe
Well this ain't no AvE teardown but it's definitely informative and you definitely let the smoke out. RIP to that battery.
The Bauer batteries also use Samsung cells. I had one opened up once and was impressed to see what cells they were using.
No longer I believe
Is there a adapter over to milwaukee
Lookin' good there, jeff!
I have to say that this line of tools seems to be pretty decent for the price. My batteries have held up pretty well thus far but being lithium I assumed they ran mid-grade cells. I know other companies have as well. My intent was to replace the cells with my own when the batteries died. It's nice to see that these are a higher-quality cell though. My last set of cordless was ni-cad and was junk (but cheap). I do plan on buying a few more tools and a couple extra batteries at some point.
Great video that's what we needed! To show how cheap a battery can be. I'm not surprised to see quality Samsung cells in Hercules as harbor freight is going with quality just like the older blue batteries.
All major brand batteries 🔋 are way over priced. Only time to buy them is with the bogo deals then they go down to the price they should be at.
Hey Jeff man what are you doing with that beat up battery? I ask to know how much you would want for it as I could use some of those cells for an old snap on cordless ratchet I’m trying to “restore” or rather upgrade from nicd
Sorry I’m probably gonna rebuild an Ebike battery with them
Does anyone know of a Hercules to M18 battery adapter?
1:42 🙃😜 Keep an eye out for deals of the week for some insulated tools, and a discharge tool. Cool video.
Those are nice cells, I use them a lot, to power stuff
You can replace the cells in these. But if you want to you have to have a mini spot welder to put the tabs back on the batteries. You can try to solder them but you risk damaging the nice new cells you just bought.
"Don't try this at home." It's too late for that. By the way, the batteries are usually built with quality cells. It's the boards that will shed components due to heat under load. I treat 18650s with due respect every day.
Nah, the boards always hold up just fine. It's the CELLS that count. Cheap cells=underperforming, crappy battery.
21700 Samsung batteries are very good. Even their 18650 batteries are stellar. Thanks for the breakdown.
useful bit of information. wish batteries were more interchangeable. i'm hesitant to use my milwaukee battery to dewalt tool adapter because i'm not certain how it's going to impact longevity. in any case, i look at battery prices like how cheap can it be in a bundle, because any brand is pricey if you just buy the battery straight up.
I wish they were too. Purchased a new to old dewilt adapter, but made my own dewilt to B&D adapter because none exist. Even tho the same company owns them. Keep in mind to unplug the batteries after use because some tools self discharge.
@@PBVader You did this too? I thought I was the only one. But yeah keeps your old tools running instead of buying a new $200 saws for light trimming jobs.
@@jamesklingler1098 sure did. Got tired of the old over price b&d nicad quick after the dewilt adapter and a 5ah lithium put them to shame. We probably have a similar thought process: who throws good tools away? I smoked a b&d quantum pro hammer drill, but it still works so is my backup.
Not necessarily. I got a two pack of Ryobi 4Ah and charger for $100 and it was during Ryobi sales days so got a bonus 2 pk of batteries free with it.
SO, the way I work that is, I bought one tool kit with a battery, bought several bare tools 'cuz I didn't need a bag or case and charger for every tool, then the deals on the batteries. It all worked out very affordable, though I don't pretend to need 12Ah cells for 18V tools so there's that. Maybe if I had an 18V leaf blower or mower, something that not only sucks down batteries but tends to need to be used for 20 minutes or more continuously, and by continuously I mean away from the charger and spare battery that you dont' want to have to lug around with you. In a shop you can just reach over two feet and grab a freshly recharged battery to swap in 10 seconds.
Jeff took one for the team on this one.
Thanks sold me!
That put a good ole' spark in your life Bear! 😉
Still can't figure out what I touched that made that circuit.
Dang bear, glad you didn't fry yourself, momma bear and the cubs. Thanks for the breakdown
Bear moves quick. LOL
I have not seen the inside of another company’s batteries, how does it compare. Since the discussion attached to this video have mentioned Milwaukee, do you have a video with the inside or a Milwaukee battery? The way the Hercules was constructed, does the white case hold in more heat? Are the electronics cheaper? The black case, based on the statement of fibers within the plastic, they wanted the case stronger than just plain plastic.
Just check out some other tool battery review videos. They aren't exactly rare. There was nothing especially good or bad about the batt in the video, except the PCB was small enough that it looks like it either has restrained current capacity or instead that the design moves part or all the BMS circuit to inside the tool. There are pros and cons to that design decision.
Frankly I wouldn't give it another thought, as it is usually more important to pick the brand based on the tools themselves and the batteries are equivalent as needed to power them.
Finally! A proper tool review. Not just another unboxing video and someone looking at the spec sheet. I can't handle anymore videos of people doing a tool review by checking how many little nips of wood you can cut with a saw. I want to know if the batteries are safe to use, because that's far more important.
Umm, I hate to break it to you, but a battery teardown is not a proper tool review. For example, it's not the tool, and as it relates to batteries, there was no runtime or current capacity performance tested. I'm not suggesting that this disappoints me or anything as it wasn't the intended scope of the video. Just sayin', your standards are really low if you consider this a "proper tool review".
Red, I see you found the self-correct feature!
You know who wouldn’t void the warranty?? Red!!
This jeff guy really needs to let the bear do this stuff. 😂
They should make a car jumpstart tool for it lol
Hello, Mr. King;
Thank you for all you do.
You may've voided your warranty but you gained $120 worth of used batteries.
I enjoyed this video, even the sparks were good (would've freaked me out, tho).
BTW, over the last 20 years or so I've had at least 1 charger & 5 Ni-Cad batteries die.
I think all the cordless drills still work, even the 1 I took apart.
Looking online I see where guys have replaced the Ni-Cads w/ home-built lithium battery packs.
But it looks like you need a BMS to make it work right, & not burn the house down.
Which is why I haven't tried it yet.
That & I don't know much about the BMSs.
I found some on amazon but they don't look like they're very good based on the reviews.
Do you know much about them?
Can you find & rate some?
I'd really like to find a simple, easy-to-use BMS so I can build some cordless drill replacement battery packs from the old pack cases.
If you know what I mean.
Have a GREAT day, Neighbor!
Check out AvE (Arduino vs. Evil) on RUclips. His BOLTR (Bored of lame tool reviews) videos. He goes in-depth in a always funny, but not always wholesomely funny, way. He does a lot with batteries.
Harbor freight just sold a few thousand after this video. I'm sure they'll warranty that battery 😂
I’m hoping that’s the one they sent him, fantastic marketing haha they definitely owe him another
Meh I'm not so sure about that. I mean it is usually the bottom feeders that get the HF brands, even if they are not bad at all for their prices, and I don't see a substantial % of owners forking out $140 a pop for a battery. Hopefully I'm wrong, would much rather see the market devote its share of Li-Ion cells used for tools instead of it all being diverted to and wasted on EVs.
Nice, sparky
Holy shht. That's the bear? Cool my man ✌🏽
Would like to see the same teardown of the new Bauer 12ah battery soon.
Yikes . Smokey the bear almost started a fire
Ya I mean looks like for individual cells I can get them for $6 on the internet I assume there is shipping but also I'm sure they are buying thousands at a time so probably getting them much cheaper but it's what 5s3p so 15 that $90 so $140 seems about right to me although I don't think they have any real high demand tools so I think going with something around 5Ah would have probably costed about the same maybe not rated for as many amps but I don't know that they would be maxing them out and have a 15Ah battery or if they are the 4.8ah like a 14.4 but I think that's something Milwaukee should do too especially for like lights also they could do 3Ah 18650s for that stuff too
A 3 minute 28 second video that just plain KICKS A/SS! Thank you Mr Bear! Yeah... can't wait for the sh/it talking snap-on/ milwaukee folks to chime in. HAHAHA!
Yeah, "What's the excuse now"?
sparks made my toes curl.. cool ! may take year to recoup your money in views lol thanks was a fun video!
Danger Will. Glad nobody had to call 911
Question folks, whats the best price you've seen for the 12AH extreme performance Herc battery? I'm thinking of purchasing one tomorrow, but trying to determine if its best to wait for a sale. Currently $129.99. Thanks!
just had to hammer drill into some concrete today at work and we didn't have a generator for our giant corded rotary hammer so we had to use our drills. my buddy tried his dewalt and it couldn't get more than 1/4" in (it was some older concrete) so I pulled out my hercules that I didn't even know had a hammer mode on it and that thing drilled in the few inches we needed no problem
Too many varaibles went unmentioned so I'll just say this: Dewalt's higher end drills, in good working order, run circles around anything that Hercules makes. Fact.
At the same time, makes no sense to keep using a contractor grade drill if it is broken or the battery is shot, but maybe just as you didn't realize your drill had a hammer function, your friend didn't realize that he hadn't set his to hammer mode. It happens.
How can you not know what features your drill has?
Yes Milwaukee batteries are over priced how do you think they get the money for R&D. I didn’t see any cushioning in that outer shell though for drops and vibration. was pleased to see glass reinforced though
Dang I was kind of hoping you would touch on whatever they got going on inside that battery that makes it to where you can't use other batteries in it. I've got every brand and many types of power tools and they all pretty much run on 24 volt kobalt. Even the 18v metabo and Ryobi. Everything's went smooth for years button I attempt to make a Hercules work with a DeWalt or kobalt did not go well. Write on the box it says *intelligent electronic communication " next to a picture of the battery like it is a feature implemented for us. Yea right
thanks, df
1:41 outstanding!
Those are excellent cells they put out 30 amp the ones in rigid tools put out 15
Now this is great tool content
Same goes for the Hercules 20v 5ah packs
Try to get batteries once your tool is a few years old, often unavailable as my True value drill demonstrates
WOO scared me too
What software do you use to make your bear videos? I can’t seem to find anything through my searches. Greatly appreciate it good sir. 👍🏼🇺🇸
I doubt he'll tell. Its part of his brand
@@klinkster1955 he didn’t create the software. It’s readily available. I’m just out of the technology loop and don’t even know what keywords to search for.
When is tenacious d gonna put out a new album?
Might of voided warranty but now you have 10 toys to zap the cubs and momma bear with.
Nice job Sparky. Or is that Sparky the bear? 😛
People are shocked to find out how bad an electrician I am
Nice video,Sparky....
his handy work is always comedy gold
Sounds like the fire department was ready for you
THE BEAR GOT SHOCKED!!!!!!!!!! 😆 😅 😂 🤣😆 😅 😂 🤣😆 😅 😂 🤣
Hahaha.... That was awsome. This made my day. Just like something I would do.