18V 9.0Ah Replacement Battery with LED Display Compatible with Makita BL1850b BL1860b BL1830b BL1820 LXT-400 18Volt Cordless Tools

This is going to be a somewhat long review.I bought this really wanting to like it, hoping it would be a viable battery that could provide nearly double the runtime of the 5.0Ah Makita battery. Since I'm currently without work, I figured I'd spend a day with the battery and see what it's made of.Build Quality: At least a whole cut below the Makita batteries. The Makita packs have a polycarbonate shell, making them pretty damn tough and rugged. I'm not sure from what kind of plastic this pack is made from, but it's "less". You can see and feel the difference in the type of plastic used for the casing. More on that in a minute.Fitment is not great. I had to force the battery onto and off of the various tools I tested the battery in.Low amperage test:I decided to first try a low draw test to compare it to one of my 5Ah Makita packs. The battery showed up with about 30% charge according to its onboard indicator. I gave it a full charge, used it a bit, and topped it back up until the Makita rapid charger said it was full.I performed this test using Makita's wonderful little blower tool. With a fully charged pack, I ziptied the trigger at somewhere between "2" and full power and let it sit. The blower ran for 1 hour and 29 minutes before the battery indicated that it was at 0% remaining. Listening to the blower, it seemed to run at less than the prescribed power level for nearly the last half hour of its run. I stuck a volt meter on the battery right after running it and it was at 13.7 volts, no load.OK. Now I tried the 5Ah Makita pack on the blower at the same setting. The blower ran for 1 hour 23 minutes before the battery indicator was flashing one bar. The blower ran at the prescribed speed/volume for all but the last five or so minutes of the test. I took that pack off and checked the voltage, it was down to a concerningly low 11.1 volts unloaded.From that low draw test I concluded that:A. The built in meter on this battery errors on the side of caution, hoping the user will check it to prevent overdischarging the sub-par cellsB. It is unable to sustain constant current even at a higher voltage even in relatively low-drain toolsNext I let the batteries sit a bit and charged them up.This pack, the 9.0Ah battery, charged for a total of 1 hour and 43 minutes. The on-board indicator showed 100% after about an hour and 15 minutes but the charger did not show a green light until 1:43. My Kill-a-watt showed that this process consumed 1.6KWHThe 5.0Ah Makita battery hit the charger for a total for 1 hour and three minutes. It took up 1.0KWHAlright. Since the Makita pack was drained further down ultimately from this first test, it makes sense that the power required to charge it was not quite where I'd expect it to be; I probably could have let the pack suffer a little longer on the blower tool, but I did not want to risk over-discharge.Next test, high drain usage.Since I'm not exactly being paid to do this, and it's already taken quite a few beers to test the battery this far, I decided instead to compare it to Makita's 2.0Ah "slim" battery. The test was drilling 3" holes through 1 1/8" thick "lumber".With the 2.0Ah Makita battery, I was able to drill 8 holes before the battery showed 2 remaining bars. The battery and the drill were warm. The drill stalled several times for each hole cut.Using the 9.0Ah nonsense jumbo-pack I drilled a total of 16 holes and the battery showed 90% after completing this task. The battery did not feel warm. The drill stalled just the same, several times per hole cut. At this point the hole saw was getting pretty warm. Test was done using a pretty good quality hole saw and the XFD12Z drill. I ran out of wood to cut holes in at this point.For fun, I drilled a hole using the Makita 5.0Ah battery - the drill still stilled a couple of times during the cutTest results: Inconclusive, erroring on the side of this battery not being worth it.If you like:* An oversized, no-name battery with a fancy LCD display* no real performance gains to speak of* buying stuff that's not as good as OEM* A really tight fitting battery* Looking dumb in front of your friends and wasting timeThen this is the battery for you.Due to beer, at one point during this test the 2.0Ah Makita pack took a dive from about armpit level onto the concrete from atop a toolbox. The battery was retrieved from behind my work bench and was fine, no isssue. I'm not sure the outcome would be the same if this 9.0 Ah battery with inferior plastic casing took a similar spill.I will try this battery in the grinder, chainsaw and circular saw and see if practical use deems this battery worthy of its GIANT "9" printed proudly on the outside of the cheap plastic housing. My guess is that it will not perform any better than the smaller, more manageable Makita packs rated at nearly half the amp hours.Again, I went into this optimistically. I know that the 18650 cells used inside these packs can be rated at 3,000mah. I realize that this is 15 cells, in series and parallel to provide the rated current - it all theoretically adds up. I know OEs typically shy away from the highest rated cells as they may have longevity issues and instead use the 2 or 2.5 Ah cells unless they charge a premium (as in the 6.0Ah Makita packs) for ones where they cherry pick only the finest, highest testing cells. It's absolutely possible that another company could produce a pack at this rated current and would also deliver very high drain performance due to the reduced internal resistance due to the cells being in parallel and series.... however it does not look to be the case, just yet another over rated, oversized third party battery that does not stand up to the GIANT claims and deserves its relatively bargain price.Will I keep it? Sure, why not, for as long as I can unless it's determined without a doubt within the return period that this is a complete waste of money.My suggestion is to stick with the Makita 5.0Ah batteries.Picture 1 - Drill with this battery installed. Yes, pretty goofy.Picture 2 - not pictured, more holes

I received this battery and wow it looks incredible! I put it on the charger, then used it in my makita weed whacker. Let me just say that this battery seems to have an endless amount of power. I did my whole yard and I was still at 60%! I would highly recommend getting this battery.

I run a mobile mechanic business and this thing has no problem running the sawzall or grinder for as long as I want to use it. then after it sits at night it goes back to 90%. I've only charged it once and I've used it hard three times and easily about 10. Also it does work on the charger 😁👍. Unreal now I'm looking for the same name brand in Milwaukee tools. Here I go...

These are junk they don’t run my chainsaw it quits and lights blink you shut it off turn it on and it runs about 40 seconds and does it againToday I tried it with my circular saw and smoke was rolling out of the battery and the saw had no powerI hope they back these up

I used this battery the other day ripping and cutting for about five hours and it held up the whole time I don’t know about the life of it yet haven’t had it long enough it so far it seems up to the job

Good replacement for makita battery. Charged quickly with good run time.

I use these for my kids power wheels ....Great upgrade .... batteries last a long timeAnd make it fun for the kiddos

Sí me gustó mucho