Milwaukee’s eagerly-awaited dual voltage multi-charger is now available and making its way to workshops and job sites. Part of the appeal of the charger is its ability to charge three 18 volt batteries simultaneously, then sequence to the three 12 volt batteries in less time than the standard sequential chargers that come with the cordless tool kits. This is a considerable advantage over any sequential or single station charger.
According to the product description on Milwaukee’s web site, “the M18™ & M12™ Rapid Charge Station is the fastest charging solution in the industry. With the ability to Charge 6 Packs 4X Faster, the station charges three batteries simultaneously while charging each pack up to 40% faster. “
There is an important qualification to those claims, however. The greatly increased performance is available only to the newer, updated 18v battery packs. If you don’t have the newer 18v batteries you will see somewhere in the neighborhood of a 10 minute shorter charge time, albeit for three batteries at once.
My first test was of the 12v batteries that I had run down in my heated jacket. The three were fully charged 9 minutes sooner than a single battery on a standard charger. Not the increase in performance I expected, but by virtue of being done simultaneously, an advantage. The second test was of three 18v batteries, also depleted by the heated jacket so I could count on a similar starting point. Those batteries, although by no means old, took 1 hour, 12 minutes to charge, 11 minutes faster than my standard charger. (times 3, of course!)
As this was not what I was expecting, I contacted Milwaukee before writing about my results. I received this explanation:
“Your charge time is accurate. We upgraded all of our M18™ battery packs to accept an even faster rate of charge prior to the M18™ & M12™ Rapid Charge Station launch. Our “charge (3) M18 XC batteries in 37 minutes is based on the upgraded 3.0Ah pack.”
“The generation of M18™ batteries prior to the upgrade take a slightly slower charge rate. An upgraded 4.0 pack would take about 47 minutes to charge, but an older 4.0 pack would take about 72 minutes (about 20 minutes faster vs our standard chargers).”
So my charger works as designed, but there are at least three levels of performance one can expect, depending on which generation of batteries are in one’s tool box. All of those levels are higher than with the standard chargers.
The Rapid Charger is easily bench or wall-mounted, and has a pass-through plug meaning that it can be powered without reducing the number of available receptacles in the shop or on the job site. I like having it centrally located in the shop with the standard chargers going out to the field with the tools if necessary.
As I write this, I realize that the 7¼” circular saw is my latest acquisition, so I should see if I can determine whether or not it has either of the two battery upgrades. If so, I’ll compare charge times and include them here.
-dvl
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