Craftsman 18v vs 19.2

Fred Werring

Well-known Member
Anybody know if Craftsman C3 19.2 volt batteries will fit/work in Craftsman 18v tools?

Daughter bought a house, guy has a mix 18 and 19.2 tools cheap I thought I'd buy to take over there and leave, for when I go over and she says " Hey Dad...."

I'll take a battery with me if I look at the tools, just thought I'd save time

Thanks
 
Correct. They are not compatible.

We had 18V and 19.2V Craftsman tools. They discontinued the 18V tools and started selling the 19.2V tools with completely different batteries.

Replacement batteries for the 18V cost more than the whole starter set for the 19.2V, so we got suckered for a second time!

That's probably close to 20 years ago as well. Even the 19.2V ones are obsolete, replaced by something else.

I'm surprised you have any viable batteries. Those NiCd packs go bad in 2-3 years.

For affordable battery powered tools that are decent, I recommend Ryobi from Home Depot. They've used the same battery plug forever, and now the batteries are lithium so they hold their charge, and last for years. Batteries aren't too awful expensive if you hit the specials during the Christmas shopping season; I bought two new batteries, a charger, and got a "free" battery powered grease gun for $149.
 
That's why I gave up on Crapson battery powered tools years ago. Everytime I turned around they had different tools with different
batteries that were not interchangeable. I've had Ryobi for probably close to 20 years and the new 18 volt batteries will still fit
in my old Ryobi tools.
 
BarnyardEngineering

I should have remembered,I had an 18v Craftsman drill 20+ years ago, then went to the 19.2 for the same reasons you did.

I don't have NiCad batteries any more, switched to the 19.2 lithium batteries maybe 5-6 years ago. Made a world of difference in using the tools. And I can't knock how the tools have held up for me either. Don't use
them professionally, but they do get farm/home/garage use.

And it's not like 20 years ago. If you wanted a battery then, you had to go to Sears. there was no online shopping to speak of. Now there's tons of offshore made batteries to fit these tools, I'd bet there
will be batteries available for a long time. Just checked Amazon, can get a 2 pack of offshore made 5 AH lithium 19.2 batteries for $60. I do find the Craftsman branded batteries seem to run longer than the
oddly named batteries for the same AH rating, but Craftsman batteries are 2.5x the price.

Personally I'm slowly changing my main tools over to Milwaukee. But there's some things don't get used much at all...right angle drill, jigsaw, hedge trimmer..that I cant justify buying Milwaukee, so I'll be
hanging on to the Craftsman.
 
Fred: there are adapters available to enable older 18-v Craftsman tools to be used with the newer 19.2 batteries. I handed off my old 18-v drill to a friend who'd bought one, and it works just fine--the "extra" 1.2 volts does not cause any problems that he's seen, and he's used it quite a bit. You'll have to do your research to ensure it will work with what you have, but as the batteries were always the weak link in the old Craftsman 18-v setups, and now they're rapidly becoming impossible to find, this at least enables you to get some more life out of the tools themselves, especially if you can buy them cheap.
 
I worked for a company that was a division of the company that owned Porter-Cable and Delta power tools before they got sold to Black & Decker. We got BIG employee discount sales 3-4 times a year. Great prices on air tools or corded tools, cordless tools were stupidly expensive. A cordless drill, battery & charger cost more than a Craftsman 4 tool kit with charger and 2 batteries on Black Friday. So I have lots and lots of Craftsman 19.2V tools, still have a couple good Ni-Cad batteries but the Li-Ion are the ones I use. Just so you all know, the Porter-Cable and Craftsman cordless tools all use the same batteries.
The first Craftsman 19.2V drill I bought still works great after about 18 years. Son bought me the impact and matching drill for X-mas 4-5 years ago.
If you take a battery for a cordless tool apart, it has normal "Sub-C" batteries in it like radio controlled cars ran on 20 years ago. You could buy them at hobby shops for a Buck or two for decent replacement cells. There were several brands of good chargers and cell matches, could find bad cells in a battery and replace them.
 

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