Milwaukee is coming out with a new M18 cordless jobsite fan, featuring an 18″ fan blade size and brushless motor.
The new Milwaukee cordless fan is recommended for space cooling and ventilation, and features a reinforced metal base and shroud design for greater durability in demanding environments.
The fans can interlock and stack together for more efficient storage and transport.
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Milwaukee says their new M18 cordless fan “delivers corded performance anywhere on the jobsite” and that it “quickly propels air, allowing for fast and efficient cooling, drying, or ventilation.”
Key Features & Specs
- 18-inch fan blade
- Brushless motor
- 50-foot reach
- 13.5 mph max air speed
- 3400 CFM max airflow
- Stackable design
- 3 speed settings
- Water, dust, and impact resistant (fan does not appear to have an IP rating)
- 360° rotation
- AC power option – works with standard extension cords
- Measures 26.5″ tall x 23.3″ wide x 11″ deep
- Weighs 17 lbs (tool-only)
Runtime
M18 High Output 12Ah battery: 5 hours on high, 23 hours on low
M18 5Ah Battery: 2 hrs on high, 9 hours on low
Price: $250
ETA: February 2024
Discussion
I have seen cooling, ventilation, and drying fans and blowers tethered to wall outlets, and when they’re not, extension cords get strung around all over the place.
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This seems like a welcome addition to the M18 cordless power tool family.
My one question was about the runtime: is it worth it?
You get 5 hours on high with a 12Ah battery, which seems pretty good, and even 9 hours on low with a 5Ah battery. Keep in mind that this is an 18″ fan. Those numbers seem decent to me.
Here’s my next big question: would One-Key connectivity make sense here?
It was maybe 4-5 years ago when a Milwaukee product manager remarked about how much their One-Key lighting products were being used with the app, with remote control and scheduling functions being popular.
Thinking about this has me wondering if and how One-Key might be useful here, especially if there are multiple fans set up at a worksite.
This is Milwaukee’s 3rd cordless fan. It will be joining their M12 mountable fan (0820) and existing M18 jobsite fan (0886), which are both recommended for personal cooling tasks.
Steve
I have the 0886 small M18 fan and I like it. Corded or battery, this offers convenience. I’m curious why the M12 doesn’t have this as I’d probably get one of those as I use the bigger one on my desk. Plus, I can’t imagine a 12V model gets that good of run time over the 18V equivalent.
Regardless, this bigger 18V fan may be worth a try in certain situations…
Steve
250$ price tag seems steep for a fan when you can get a disposable box fan for what 30$ or less? Maybe 100$ for something like this, but not 250…
Stuart
This isn’t a consumer box fan, it’s a jobsite drum fan.
The least expensive jobsite floor fan I could find is a 20″ for $50. Dewalt has one for $112.
Ryobi’s 18V is $169 but isn’t as powerful or featured.
Is it pricey? Absolutely. But it’s not fair to compare it to consumer box fans. The design profiles and engineering priorities are going to be very different.
If you look at the Q&As for box fans, one of the top questions is about noise levels. Here, air movement is the top priority, rather than how quiet the fan is in a living room.
D3t
Is that $30 fan cordless?
MFC
You’re right Steve, $250 isn’t justifiable.
The expensive and better specced Dewalt 20″ fan is $111 and outputs 5000 cfm on high (You can get cheaper fans).
A Ryobi 150 watt battery inverter is $40 (These fans use about 120 watts on high).
That means the milwaukee name and a brushless motor is worth $99 at best, but we know that Milwaukee’s not paying $151 to make and ship each fan.
This is how capitalism works though, so if no one buys it, then they’ll lower the price. If people buy it, then they have no reason to.
Case in point: I went into my local plumbing supply and got two double wall plastic 10″ x 20′ culverts. They used to be $80 each. I was quoted $220 each. I told them I only had $330 cash and he talked to the boss man and said, yeah, we can do that. Wrote me up and out I walked. Before leaving, I said something about how crazy the prices have gotten, and he said, “Yeah, but people keep buying it.”
He’s not wrong.
Daniel
I tried to take my cheap box fan, hook up to the M18 topoff power inverter connected to a 12.0 battery and it only lasted 28 minutes on high (and was only blowing at about half power). So my “cordless” rig wasn’t a legit competitor to this new fan at all. I might have to consider it.
AlexK
I’m a fan of fans, and if I had a business with m18 tools, this would be great. I’m not sure that this has anything new or different in fan technology, so I suppose that the only people that will get this are those that already have the batteries. For the price, I went with Ryobi fans. I have enough batteries. The first one (9 years old?) is battery only, so I bought the dual powered fan when it came out and eventually went on sale. Noisy on high but less then $50 and good mounting options, so for someone on a budget, these are great for me.
The m18 inverter worked great powering a box fan. We are living in a great time for tool technology. My grandfather was a house painter and I don’t think he ever thought that one day he could be working in a room with battery powered, long lasting low heat portable LED lights, fans, sheet rock screw guns…..and a Makita coffee maker?
Daniel Julian
Agree with previous comment that $250 seems high; particularly for tool-only (no battery/charger). That said, I’ll look for a sale coupled with a battery that Milwaukee likes to do regularly.
Also, a bit confused about it being stackable horizontally. Is that just line up side by side? Do they actually hook together in some way?
Luke
I think he meant vertically*
Daniel Julian
Found a pic on Acme Tools. Shows them laid down on face and then stacked for storage.
Stuart
When I read that they stack, I envisioned a vertical stack in a top-to-bottom type of orientation. There’s a tiny image of the fans being in a vertical stack of horizontally-oriented fans.
But you’re right, “horizontal” might only make things more confusing; I took that part out. I’ll work on getting a proper image.
Patrick
I assume it’s a mistake by Acme that this is listed Made in USA? If so, I believe it would be the first M18 cordless tool to be US origin?
Ben
In the specifications section lower down, it says Country of Origin | United States, so that makes me think it’s not an error. I haven’t been able to verify on Milwaukee’s website, Tool Nut, or Ohio Power Tool.
At $250 for the bare tool, it darn well better be made in the USA – maybe with a titanium frame and beryllium-copper motor windings to boot.
Adam
The PackOut Vac is USA made. I believe that was the first cordless tool from them to be made in the USA
A W
My 24″ two speed barrel fan just choked up on drywall dust and failed after a decade of home projects. I was pricing replacements last week and it was looking like I would need to spend $150-200. An extra $50 for the convenience of cordless doesn’t strike me as excessive. Especially given that the Milwaukee is probably engineered to last longer than the direct drive fans I was looking at.
I’ll add that in a remodel environment, I’m often limited by the circuitry in a given location. I’m often unable to run a fan along with a corded saw/router/sander and a vacuum. The ability to set this in a window and create a negative pressure across a dusty room while running other tools has a lot of appeal.
MM
I’m actually impressed by the runtime specs. When I saw the thumbnail and read the title of the article I thought this was either going to have pathetic airflow numbers or it was going to have an incredibly short run time. 5 hours on high? Sounds great to me. It’s also very nice it can run off AC. It would be even better if it could have acted like a charger when running of AC–that would be pretty sweet on the jobsite, or even working in a hot workshop: if you’ve got a fan going near your work area why not have it charge your batts too?
As others have said the price seems high though…there’s not many parts here or anything requiring high complexity and precision like a gearbox so it’s certainly not manufacturing costs responsible for the high price.
Saulac
I suspect that the performance is higher on AC. Not necessarily is a bad thing as long as the DC performance is acceptable.
Nathan
Cordless 18 inch fan is a big deal. Smart to include corded run too.
Hope there is a yellow version of this soon
Will it even run on a smaller battery? I suspect yes even shorter run
MM
I’m sure it will run just fine on a smaller battery. With a runtime of 5 hours on a 12ah battery this is not a very high power machine, it’s under 50 watts, that should easily run on a smaller pack just with less run time.
Nathan
On the one key question I’m a bit surprised that’s missing. I suspect they figure it won’t just walk off. I mean you could tie or chain it down.
Not like a drill or impact etc…
Tecnica
Looks great. I’ll have one I’m sure by summer. Kindof seems like it would have been the ideal candidate for a two battery setup for extended run time. No weight penalty since you aren’t holding it. Maybe there will be a bigger model in route to fight against that Ego misting one. Sure will help my attic project in a few months
Mark M.
I’d be in at $150-ish but no way at $250. That said, tool-battery-driven fans have been a real game changer for me. I have both the M12 and M18 (small) ones, like them both, but the best value are the Ridgid 18v ones. They run a looooong time on a 4ah battery. Have been amazing for hot weather swim meets and when the power has gone out in the summer they will buy you at least an hour or two of not feeling completely miserable.
Doug N
Stuart, can you ask Milwaukee why this fan only has a 1 year warranty? The 5 year Milwaukee warranty on most M18 and M12 products is one of the their best features; it sets them apart from dewalt and others. I hope they aren’t abandoning that.
Big Richard
While it is maybe not the answer you are looking for, their current M18 and M12 small jobsite fans also only have a 1 year limited warranty. So it’s normal for their fans, as to why I can only speculate.
Stuart
I asked specifically about this product and about what determines the length of warranty coverage Milwaukee gives different types of power tools.
Milwaukee said:
Seems reasonable.
Doug N
Thanks for asking!
Jason
Most of that “other” category has 1-year. Radios, fans, jackets, the new propane heater
Adam
Compared to the Ego, seems too high priced. I don’t need misting, but an IP rating would have been nice.
And with those not so stellar runtime numbers, throw in the hybrid power option. As far as One-Key, I’d rather see an oscillating option.
Big Richard
This does have hybrid power, it can be powered by any extension cord.
Raab
I was surprised this was a new item with milwaukee. I’ve had the “air cannon” from ryobi for like 4yrs now and i got it on sale. I assume it’s been out for atleasy 6yrs then. I wonder why milwaukee was so slow to release? Yes its more powerful and I’m sure better built but why take so long? Usually milwaukee comes first then ryobi a year or 2 later releases the same tool or atleast similar. Hmm I wonder if the ryobi group at tti had a patent or something internal that made milwaukee wait. Just speculation anyone know?
Vards Uzvards
I have two Ryobi 18″ hybrid Air Cannons, bought them in the middle of 2020, and I believe they were a new item at the time. They were around $150 back then, and this fall I saw a newer model, for the first time, priced at the same level, and the model I have was selling for $110-120, as far as I remember.
Dominic L
Milwaukee needs to build the a/c plug directly into the fan. Otherwise, we are stuck with ensuring we don’t forget to grab the separate a/c wire adapter each time we grab the tool. Or Milwaukee should build into the frame, a little box or clip area that retains the a/c outlet adapter onto the fan itself. Milwaukee is a fan of a/c adapters for some reason whereas a direct a/c plug built into the unit is one less adapter to bring to the jobsite.
jake
It is built in (see post text).
OldDominionDIYer
I’m a big fan of Milwaukee cordless tools but $250 for a fan does seem ridiculous to me too. Again, I hear the arguments but ultimately, it’s a fan, just a fan.
Ray
This will be an excellent product for me. I change a lot of electrical panels and clearly power is off at that time. Currently I use a Makita DCF300Z a 13 inch fan and it may last 2 hours on a 5.0 battery it oscillates but pretty weak airflow although way better than nothing. Hopefully a 10-20 percent off discount comes around before I need it in April or May. Runtimes are excellent as stated. I will gladly pay full price though when it gets hot!
Randy
Accelerating 3400CFM of air to 13.5MPH for 5 hours would actually use about 10.5Ah at 18V. Since that’s rated on a 12Ah battery 80-90% efficiency sounds about right. It’s nice to see truthful specs.
Jason
This guy maths
jake
Now that sounds like fun. What equations did you use (grin)?
Kyle E West
Milwaukee should make a portable squirrel cage fan!! The fans they have been pawning off to us are not that good…. squirrel cage fans move more air, way more efficiently..please make us one??
Stuart
Different fan styles are for different applications. Maybe we’ll see that type of blower fan next.
MM
A squirrel-cage blower is less efficient at just moving air in a room compared to an axial fan in terms of the amount of energy required per CFM. I suspect that is why most fans are just normal axial fans. In fact, it’s not close. This fan uses less than 50 watts of energy and moves 3400 cfm. For comparison , my local home depot rents squirrel cage blowers for drying carpet. They are rated 3600 cfm–slightly higher–but require a whopping 700 watts, that’s fourteen times the energy for 8% more volume.
The difference is that centrifugal blowers like a squirrel-cage design can generate higher static pressure. That makes them better for applications where the fan is working against some kind of load, like ductwork in an HVAC system or pulling air through a filter, like in a vacuum. But in open air an axial fan is a lot more efficient.
Dust
As someone that has an air cannon I use with an M18/ryobi adapter— it’s nice to have a cordless fan, but I’m not convinced the premium price is worth it most of the time. I’m sure this is better then the air cannon, but it’s a big bulky fan and I personally wish I saved the money and bought a cheap plug in.
Another Bob
I’ve got the small fan so I was kind of excited about this. I especially like that the plug-in cord option future proof’s it. Helps to justify the crazy price.
And then I saw the CFM is only 3400 on high. The cheap $50 harbor freight 20 inch fan is 6000 CFM on high. I realize there’s a balance between longevity and power with battery platforms. Comparing a cheapo harbor freight corded fan to a premium battery fan is not apples to apples but half the CFM for several times the cost is hard for me to justify cordless or not. I guess it’s all relative. You get five times the CFM for only 1.5 times the price of the small fan 🙂
As an aside, generally I think harbor freight stuff is junk. Some notable exceptions are the toolboxes, tarps and this fan. It’s loud, I had to use rebar tie wire to keep the guard from falling off the front. But it’s been rained on, dropped from a second story at least once I know of and had the usual plaster, concrete and God knows what other kinds of dust ingested into the motor and it keeps working. If it finally dies or someone steals it I’m only out $40 with a coupon.