There’s Actually a Way to Mix and Match Your Cordless Tool Batteries

When shopping for cordless power tools, you would think that you can just buy the best option of each to suit your needs. But there’s one big problem that makes this much harder (and more expensive) than it should be: battery incompatibility. By design, you can’t just pop a Ryobi battery into a DeWalt tool and expect it to work. Engineering decisions aside, using proprietary batteries allows companies to create a sort of obligatory brand loyalty, forcing you to stick with their line of tools unless you want to invest in a whole new set of batteries for every new tool you buy.

If you’ve been building your cordless tool collection for a while, you may find yourself with four or five different chargers and several batteries cluttering your workspace. And this mess can be Dearbecause you end up buying more chargers and batteries than you might not need if the batteries were interchangeable.

But it turns out that it is, sort of. You can actually swap batteries between brands – you just need the right adapters.

There are two types of battery adapters to consider:

These adapters provide a fairly simple solution to the problem of incompatible battery systems. If you own a lot of DeWalt tools, for example, you can buy a Milwaukee tool without a battery (which will be cheaper) and just use an adapter to plug in one of the DeWalt batteries you already own.

Of course, these batteries were not specifically designed for these tools, so there may be compromises. Although tool performance was found to be broadly similar (and some tools even performed better when using batteries from different brands), for some tools (like grinders and some circular saws) there was a drop in power and performance when using an adapter. That said, you might not notice it if you’re just looking to tackle simple DIY projects around the house.

Another caveat to consider: you may lose some functionality. Some tools are designed to communicate with the battery to modulate power consumption to extend battery life, and using an adapter will remove this functionality. But again, if you’re just using a power drill for basic maintenance tasks, this may not be a big problem for you.

Universal adapters are a good solution if you own multiple brands

If you own many disparate brands of tools, of course, purchasing multiple adapters may not seem like a big improvement over your collection of batteries and chargers. If that’s you, consider something like the Ceenr PDNation Universal Battery System, which provides an 18-volt battery and a series of adapters that allow it to be used in a wide range of power tools, including major brands like Ryobi, Milwaukee, and DeWalt.

For example, you can buy a battery with an adapter for DeWalt tools, then buy a second adapter for the same battery that will work with Makita tools. This means you can standardize on a single battery system for virtually every tool you buy (it’s not a Really universal system, since you depend on the range of adapters they offer, but it’s probably close enough for most people).

As with other adapters, there may be some loss of performance using a universal adapter, but overall it’s probably not a big problem if you’re doing work at home, as opposed to professional work on a job site.