Like Milwaukee’s new M18 Fuel hammer drill, their new cordless drill (2603-22) will also feature a brushless motor. There’s some fancy new tech designed into this drill, most of which you can read about in our Milwaukee Fuel preview, with the bottom line being that the drill is remarkably powerful for its size.
Milwaukee Brushless Drill/Driver Specs
- 7.9″ length
- 4.4 lbs with compact battery, 4.9 lbs with XC pack
- 1/2″ metal single sleeve ratcheting chuck
- 2-speed gearbox: 0-550/0-1850 RPM
- torque: 650 in-lbs with compact battery, 725 in-lbs with XC battery
(Tool-Tech 101: Power tool brushless motors.)
Advertisement
The new drill is available in two kits – with a multi-voltage charger and either 2 compact batteries (2603-22CT) or 2 extended capacity batteries (2603-22).
It is interesting to see that using the extended capacity battery pack results in a 11.5% boost in maximum torque delivery.
The new Fuel drill/drivers are available now.
Buy Now(via Home Depot)
Joe
What does size of the battery have to do with torque it only delivers more run time
Jacked Beanstalk
A larger battery has more cells and can thus deliver greater current at the same voltage.
Stuart
Looking at the specs, using a compact battery results in 650 in-lbs of maximum torque, and using the high capacity battery results in 725 in-lbs of torque.
I emailed Milwaukee about this the other day, but have not heard anything back from them yet.
So, I drew what I feel is a reasonable conclusion. Think about it – when you use a compact battery, you’re looking for the tool to be lighter and more compact. Most users will use high-capacity battery packs when looking to do very heavy-duty work.
I imagine that Milwaukee tweaked the compact battery circuitry such that the current draw is slightly below that of the high capacity packs. Less current draw means longer runtime. This would also result in the slightly lower torque.
I believe at least one manufacturer does something similar.
And it makes sense – you trade a little bit of power that you might not even need, and gain a little bit extra runtime.
Of course I may be way off base with my conclusion, but I won’t know for sure until I hear back from Milwaukee.
Craig
You are on the right track with your comment. It goes deeper than just Milwaukee tweeking the packs electronic circuitry to reduce the Maximum allowable current output. The reason for the different load cutoffs between the cmpact and XC pcs stems from a lithium ion’s cell confguration as well as the limits on a cells safe maximum current output. An XCn battery is just basically 2a compact batteries wired in parallel with one another; theoretically doubling the packs maximum safe current output [also doubling its amp/hr rating] thus allowing the drill to reach its maximum [safe] mechanical torque limit.
Phil
Interesting that Milwaukee have given the new system the capability to alter the power output of the tool depending on the battery type. This is actually good, since it can protect the smaller battery from extreme current draw as well as take more advantage of the larger packs. All of the manufacturers currently offering two different pack sizes in 18 or 20 volts do so in the exact same fashion, the larger (“fat packs”, etc, depending on trademarks) contain double the cells of the smaller packs, with pairs of cells in parallel lined up in a series string of five pairs. The smaller packs are simply single cells connected in series strings of five. This gives the large packs exactly twice the available current capacity as well as power output (watts). Since most tools able to use both sizes of batteries are “tuned” for either size, they tend towards setting their operational limits based on the smaller battery packs. Since the larger packs can deliver more current/power it is not difficult for the manufacturer to add circuitry that “senses” the pack power and adjust the tool output accordingly. Since the brushless motors need to have sophisticated electronic controls to operate the motor, those controls can pretty easily be tuned on the fly depending on available input power.
If the tool has a fixed power limit, using a large pack gets you more runtime. If the tool (the Fuel series here) can adjust the power limits as above, you can achieve a greater amount of tool power, but the runtime will not be as near double as would be expected using a battery with twice the capacity if you are constantly pushing the tool near its limits.
Stuart
I don’t believe that this is a Milwaukee innovation – it looks like Makita may have come up with the idea first. That’s why their 18V line has separate compact and heavy-duty tools.
I was thinking about things in reverse. I can definitely visualize what you’re talking about, and it makes perfect sense! It’s not the compact batteries that result in slightly lower torque, it’s the larger capacity batteries that are reigned in from outputting too much power. Tweaking the controls in the way that they did results in in greater runtime, but not quite 200%, and a small boost in power. It’s like overclocking a portable computer – you take a small hit on runtime but have extra muscle available when you need it.
Thank you very much for your insight and clear discussion!
Joe 'the Pro' Sainz
Phil said it pretty darn well. I might add that some of the manufacturer’s put the electronics in the battery, and let the battery monitor and limit how much current it puts out. The tool just uses as much juice as it has access to. I’ve got a powerpoint slide that shows the slim pack / standard pack pretty well if you’d like.
Joe
How come milwaukee doesn’t have a table saw they might be the only big name tool company that doesn’t esplain to me
Stuart
I just heard back from Milwaukee – Phil hit the nail on the head! Essentially, the “XC effect” and boost in torque results from faster energy feed permitted by the parallel energy cells.
steve
XC batteries will have more torque for one simple reason and it doesn’t really have anything to do with longer run time for the compact battery. It is something very simple called voltage drop. Larger batteries have less voltage drop which means more torque with the same current. Watts output is more since the tool is running at a higher voltage under load on an XC battery.
Stuart
That’s the thing, the XC cells aren’t larger. It helps to think of an XC battery as two compact batteries channeled in parallel.
steve
Stuart, I think you are missing the point. Who cares if the XC battery uses parallel compact battery cells or just a larger cell. The fact is that either way gives you more storage capacity which equals less voltage drop. If you are curious, do just as I did and take a compact battery and an XC battery, put a constant 10 amp load on each with a series of resistors and you will notice that the XC battery has a little less voltage drop especially at startup.
If the batteries are truly a parellel design then it makes good sense that the XC battery would also have a higher current draw available since parallel circuitry allows each cell to output 2 times the amount of current as a single cell of the same kind. One thing I have found out is that the people that are answering your questions from milwaukee probably have no idea how the batteries work. You would need the engineer to answer your questions if you want the correct response. I engineer things for a few companies and it always annoys me that the marketing department answers a lot of questions very wrong. Heck, they even market the products wrong because it sounds better. I have designed simple logic circuits that perform equations and functions, and then marketing tells the public that it is some highly complex computer circuit that is completely cutting edge technology.
steve
I actually just read what phil said above and we are essentially saying the same thing. Voltage drop and amp capacity go hand in hand. Obviously, a product will have more voltage drop if the amp capacity is less. I can see that we said the same thing in different ways and that is why stuart might have confused my first response. I should have said the voltage drop is the reason simply from less amperage capacity, and obviously they have to limit amperage output and therefore voltage drop on the compact battery so they won’t overload it.