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ToolGuyd > Power Tools > Cordless > New Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight and Other New M12 and M18 LED Lighting Products

New Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight and Other New M12 and M18 LED Lighting Products

Aug 3, 2015 Stuart 18 Comments

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Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight

At the recent Milwaukee new tool media event, one of the products that really awed me is their new M18 Stand Light, which is a collapsible tripod-based LED worklight with extending head.

The new Milwaukee M18 LED Stand Light stands at 4-feet tall when first deployed, and can be adjusted to a height of 7-feet. Milwaukee boasts that it has a 5-second setup time, and that it delivers 2,000 lumens of TrueView “high definition” color.

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Update: I originally said it has a 5-second startup time. It’s actually a 5-second setup time. Once you’ve got the tripod deployed, a push of the button and the LEDs turn on instantly.

See More: All of Our Milwaukee 2015 Media Event New Tool Coverage

The other M12 and M18 LED cordless worklight were interesting too, you’ll see those discussed further down in the post.

Also: Milwaukee TrueView LED Lighting Technology Explained

Milwaukee 2130-20 M18 LED Stand Light

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Fully Extended and Lit

Like a giraffe, the M18 Stand Light has a long and slender neck. Unlike a Giraffe’s neck, this one goes straight up and down and doesn’t flex. The lamp head can pivot though, from one side to the other. It can only be aimed downwards at a slight angle, but that doesn’t seem to be a real limitation.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Fully Extended

Here it is fully extended. There are two quick-release adjustment collars that allow for telescoping extension.

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Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Lamp Head

The lamp head is pretty beefy, with some creative LED positioning. There are 3 LEDs is 1 LED in each of the 6 reflector pockets, and 6 in between the reflector pockets, giving the Milwaukee M18 Stand Light a total of 24 12 LEDs.

Update: I originally zoomed in on the photo and counted 3 LEDs in each recess. But there’s only 1 in each recess! What I was seeing are the reflections of the diode in the super highly polished reflector facets!

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Closed Front View

Although the proportions are distorted and way off here, you should be able to see the two red-latched quick release collars that allow for quick extension and retraction of the LED lamp head post.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Closed

You also get two handles – one fixed horizontal carrying handle, and the sliding vertical deployment handle that has a pushbutton for unlocking and setting up the tripod.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Deployed Base

The legs don’t just fold out, they slide down and out. This seems to give the tripod quick and sturdy stability. I guess the simple design allows allows for quick cleaning of muck, dust, and debris.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Bottom of Base

Here are the tripod legs, along with some random peoples’ legs.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Held Up

The product manager gripped onto the Stand Light by the vertical sliding handle, which is pretty evident that it’s not just for deploying the tripod legs but can be used as a carrying handle. Not that the M18 Stand Light is heavy, it’s actually rather light.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Battery Space

Do you see that gap, between the M18 4.0Ah battery and the bottom of the battery compartment? That’s there so you could opt to use one of the new M18 High Demand 9.0Ah battery packs. It won’t make the LED worklight shine brighter, but it will extend runtime by quite a bit.

It looked to me like the Stand Light was mainly made of aluminum and plastic, with some other materials mixed in. It felt really portable. All that it seemed to be missing was a carrying strap.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Side Carrying

Also worth mentioning is that the M18 Stand Light can be stored vertically or horizontally. It’s a little thicker than competing models (most notably the grayed-out Pelican), but far from what I’d consider bulky.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight vs Pelican Light

The Pelican 9420 RALS LED worklight, shown here but grayed out (check price via Amazon), is a great product. But Milwaukee’s has a more flexible battery pack. Pelican’s is proprietary and can really only be used with the worklight. But to be fair, Pelican’s replacement batteries are reasonably priced at $45 each.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight vs Pelican Illumination Comparison

Milwaukee’s M18 LED Stand Light can be extended much higher than Pelican’s tripod LED worklight, and also has a somewhat more uniform illumination beam. The color is also warmer (whiter/yellower), and fits into Milwaukee’s “TrueView” LED lighting family, which should result in accurate and mostly true-to-life colors.

Milwaukee M18 LED Tripod Worklight Foot Anchor Hole

The bottoms of the tripod legs have holes, presumably for fastening the light to a floor to ensure that it stays put.

I would compare the Milwaukee Stand Light to Stanley’s LED tripod worklight, if not for the Stanley’s consistently negative user reviews.

Milwaukee Broken Steel Halogen Worklight Tripod Stands

Someone at Milwaukee had fun destroying a bunch of generic halogen tripod worklights. While the halogen lights are going to be much cheaper, an LED lamp head runs cooler (but still hot, that’s why there’s a heatsink) and longer, and without having to fiddle around with finicky replacement bulbs.

Milwaukee M18 LED Stand Light Knocked Over

I don’t remember if it was a product manager or another attendee that knocked over the M18 LED Stand Light, but I’d like to think it was a product manager saying something like look how durable it is, *push*. It went down with a bounce and didn’t even flicker.

Price: $249
ETA: Sept 2015

Buy Now(via Home Depot)

Milwaukee 2360-20 M18 TrueView LED Flood Light Worklight

Milwaukee New TrueView LED Family

The whole Milwaukee cordless TrueView LED lighting family was in attendance!

Milwaukee M18 TrueView LED Floodlight

This is the new M18 adjustable high performance floodlight worklight, which has a pivoting lamp head and both M18 and AC power options. For AC power, you can attach any properly-spec’d extension cord.

Milwaukee LED Worklight Heatsink

It’s got a 12 LED lamp head, with each diode seated within its own reflector.

Milwaukee M18 TrueView LED Floodlight Lamp Head and Heatsink

Yes, that’s quite the heatsink. While specifics aren’t available yet, or maybe I asked and forgot the answer, the floodlight worklight likely puts out a LOT of light.

Milwaukee M18 TrueView LED Floodlight Light Spread

There looks to be a small hotspot at the center, but the illumination pattern is surprisingly uniform, or at least more uniform than I expected.

Milwaukee M18 TrueView LED Floodlight Multiple Shadows

One thing I don’t like about multi-element lights is how they can create multiple shadows in some situations. So don’t get any ideas about using these for photo or video purposes, unless maybe you add a high-temperature diffuser in front of the LED matrix.

Price: $149
ETA: Nov 2015

Buy Now(via Home Depot)

Milwaukee M12 LED Spotlight

Milwaukee M12 TrueView LED Spotlight

Ooh, and an M12 high output LED spotlight too? Sweet! It’s so new that it wasn’t equipped with a proper LED. I turned it on, expecting to see an intense and highly focused beam of light. Instead, it was a weak strong yellow light. The product manager admitted that they equipped the prototype with what they had, and that the production models will surely be impressive.

I did like the design of the lens assembly, and remain optimistic that the production models will be as powerful as expected.

Price: TBA
ETA: Sept 2015

Milwaukee M18 LED Worklight

Milwaukee M18 TrueView LED Worklight Standing Up

I thought I had posted about Milwaukee’s small M18 worklight before, but it seems I hadn’t. Sorry about that. It’s a tough little guy, with a hexagonal body shape and cushiony roll cage design. You get 2 light output modes, and multiple positioning options.

Milwaukee M18 TrueView LED Worklight Back

You can slide it onto straight conduit, hang it from a screw on the wall, hang it from the carrying handle, or adjust it on the floor. Rest it sideways, on the roll cage, however you want.

This model is $99 via Home Depot, which suggests the new adjustable LED floodlight worklight will be priced a little higher.

ETA: Available Now

First Impressions

If you couldn’t already tell, I am very, VERY excited about the new M18 LED Stand Light. The other new Milwaukee LED lighting products looked decent too.

Which of the new Milwaukee cordless LED worklights are you most interested in?

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Sections: Cordless, Flashlights & Worklights, New Tools Tags: LED worklight, Milwaukee M12, Milwaukee M18, Milwaukee NPS15, tripod flashlightMore from: Milwaukee

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18 Comments

  1. BikerDad

    Aug 3, 2015

    The absolute first requirement I have for any worklight is a simple one that SOOOOOOOOOO many seem to fail.

    Will the head hold it’s settings? If it won’t, it’s junk. If the F$@%$ head flops around and won’t keep pointing where it’s pointed, then everybody involved in the engineering, production and distribution of that worklight should have it shoved up their …

    Based solely on their appearance, it looks like the Stanley unit is of the same general design as the legions of junk lights I’ve encountered in the past. Putting LEDs into the head doesn’t do a damn thing to fix the basic craptasticness of that design. This Milwaukee Stand Light looks like somebody finally got a clue. I really don’t want to go into another 18v platform, but between this and the failure of DeWalt to come up with a brushless circular saw…

    Reply
    • Stuart

      Aug 3, 2015

      I can’t find a good photo of the Stand Light’s lamp head pivot, but there *should* be a way to tighten down the fastener, or at least I’m with you in hoping that there’s one.

      Reply
    • Bill

      Aug 5, 2015

      BikerDad, I feel your pain as I too have invested heavily in the Dewalt 20V Max line and while I like their products they appear to be standing still when compared to what Milwaukee has been doing as of late and I’m getting frustrated fast.

      Reply
  2. Michael Quinlan

    Aug 3, 2015

    For my use, the stand light is too bulky to justify the truck space it would take up. I really like the currently available M18 flood light, but I think it’s a little high priced. Hopefully the price will drop a bit when the newer models become available.

    For smaller lights, I’ve not seen anything that comes close to the usability of DeWalt’s 12v light.

    Reply
    • Stuart

      Aug 3, 2015

      Have you seen Bosch’s 12V LED worklight (https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/bosch-12v-led-worklight-vacuum/%3C/a%3E%29? It’s very good – full review coming sometime soon.

      Reply
  3. SawdustTX

    Aug 3, 2015

    Yes! Been waiting for an a Milwaukee “Q-Beam”. Kinda surprised it’s M12, not M18, and hopeful it’s a very bright, very focused long range beam.

    Reply
  4. Mr. X

    Aug 3, 2015

    I’d really like to see a powerful light like Milwaukee is showing here, but with a SOLID clamping mechanism to connect to a joist in an unfinished basement.

    I do a lot of heating system control work and the equipment is often located in such an environment. A light like this would be perfect.

    Are you listening, Milwaukee?

    Chris

    Reply
  5. logan

    Aug 3, 2015

    With everything they’re coming out with, a truly cordless workplace seems very possible.

    Where’s the cordless bench grinder with a magdrill base that takes 18v batteries?

    Gonna be an awful lot of batteries to keep track of.

    Reply
    • fred

      Aug 3, 2015

      That’s probably part of the marketing strategy – gets you to have lots of batteries – so you are even more wedded to the platform. Not a bad thing – as long as the other tools meet your needs.

      I wonder how they’ll perform outdoors in the cold – an application where we used to rent portable lighting.

      Reply
  6. Dennis

    Aug 3, 2015

    I love the tripod design. I just fear that it will come with a hefty price-tag.

    Reply
  7. Pablo

    Aug 3, 2015

    Why wouldn’t they just put a 5/8″ nut on the bottom of a head so you could use it with the variety of standard utility tripods out there?

    Reply
    • logan

      Aug 3, 2015

      So they can sell you a base and make more money, of course!

      Reply
  8. brian

    Aug 4, 2015

    I would love to see these brands come out with a battery “plug”, for when you would prefer to run the tool off a cord, or at least have the option.

    Put the inverter in the empty battery housing, or put a brick inline over by the plug. It would be a great accessory option.

    Reply
    • BikerDad

      Aug 4, 2015

      Inverter in the battery housing would make more sense. Smaller package, you wouldn’t have to worry about having space at the plug for the wall wart, etc.

      Reply
  9. Toolpig

    Oct 8, 2015

    I can’t wait for these lights to drop. I absolutely LOVE the m18 flood lights!

    Reply
  10. Owego

    Oct 13, 2016

    If the 2360-20 can run corded, why can’t it charge a battery. If the 2360-20 can be corded why cant the 2130-20 be corded?

    Reply
    • Stuart

      Oct 13, 2016

      The 2135, similar to the 2130, has a built-in M18 charger.

      Reply
  11. Jeff

    May 31, 2017

    Just picked up the M18 stand light with charger and 5.0 battery on clearance at Home Depot for 125 plus tax, Great Deal. Very fast setup and light does not appear to flop like all the other craptastical lights I have owned! Set it up in back yard which is 110 ft long by 105 feet wide and it clearly lit up approximately 50-60 percent of yard, nice work Milwaukee!

    Reply

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