craftsman 20 volt saga

so a few years back sears had a sale on this 20 volt cordless drill power unit. heads interchange to a grass shear and small hedge trimmer. bought it
for swmbo for trimming around flowers and such. works really good. last year the charger got mis placed. so i called the number on the manual and
ordered a new charger and a couple extra batteries. about 140 dollars. when i got it, they were the wrong batteries and charger, so i returned them.
when i called to return them the lady on the phone said , well the drill is not a craftsman, call this number and get it from them. called and ordered it. in
the mean time, the missing charger was found. then i find out this drill is dis continued. the new charger comes in with a battery, and it wont fit either.
ok fine, i will just pick up a cordless driver for the new battery and charger and be done with it. ( i have 18v dewalt cordless drills and circular saws and
about half a dozen batteries for the dewalt. ). so i ordered this 20v driver that is supposed to work with my new charger and battery. it came in today
and guess what. the batteries are different too. none of the craftsman 20v battery packs are interchangeable. sheesh. really?? heres a pic of the stuff

We sometimes have such wishful thinking that companies will actually engineer a continuum of tooling and connectivity. I am sure we can do better, but there is no incentive. Jim

I have a Black and Decker 20V Matrix driver with the interchangeable accessories.
They are extactly the same and B&D made them for the Craftsman 20V Bolt-On series drivers.

Sears went in another direction with yet another 20V system.
But B&D Matrix stuff is still made (I think).

https://www.blackanddecker.com

They did. That is one of the reasons I started with Makita.
18V

I have 2 of the 14.4 Volt Makita drills, they still work (new Chinese batteries), and a complete kit of DeWalt 20max. The battery issue will plague users for a long time. Jim

Ignore previous link.
Use this one:
Black and Decker Matrix/Bolt On

Say what you want about the Ryobi One Plus system but at least they have used the same battery system for DECADES now. They've upgraded the tools and batteries, but everything is compatible from oldest to newest.

Companies have a vested interest in being different from all others, and changing the systems from time to time. You are stuck buying their products and when they decide they want to do something different, you get to buy all new tools all over again. Otherwise the business would not be sustainable.

Since Sears/Craftsman has everything made for them by others, Sears has to pay their bill or their vendor cuts them off.

Sears was likely behind on payments to B&D so they got cut off and Sears just went out and got some other sucker company to fill the void.

Stanley, Black & Decker bought out Craftsman in 2017. Were selling them through Ace Hardware. Now SBD has picked Lowest as the official seller of Craftsman of which they have a large selection last time I was there.

My local BLAIN'S Farm & Fleet handles Craftsman tools, and some Die Hard batteries. Yesterday morning I'm walking down the center main aisle and there's a Craftsman 20V cordless tool kit or set. I have ALL Craftsman 19.2V cordless tools, 2-3 chargers, couple able to charge Ni-Cad and Lithium-Ion batteries, yes, there IS a difference. SON wanted to buy me combo kit of a drill and impact driver specifically for driving deck screws. I told him to get ONLY 19.2V Craftsman, and surprisingly he did. 19.2V takes 16 Sub-C batteries, whether Ni-Cad or Lithium-Ion. Not sure how ANY company gets 20V, 16-2/3rds batteries. I'm still using the very same first cordless drill I got over 20 years ago. I think that's a pretty good duration for providing a consistent battery design. I see places on-line I'll probably have to buy my next batteries at. I've only got 4-5 batteries now that take a charge, 2Lithium-ion, 3 Ni-cad.

picture sure looks like same stuff i have but in porter cable name, you might check but sure looks like same but my stuff is several years old also. rick

(quoted from post at 13:40:53 02/05/21) picture sure looks like same stuff i have but in porter cable name, you might check but sure looks like same but my stuff is several years old also. rick

Click to expand...

Very likely since PC is a Stanley Black and Decker company.