Has anyone ever bought the cheap knock off batteries for a cordless drill? One of my Makita batteries is dead so my options are: knock off, brand name battery, or buy new tools. I have a coworker who has bout the cheap Amazon replacements before and never had an issue. I’m looking for a larger sample size of opinions.

Yes!

Like you I’m not happy with the price of tool batteries. I am in the DeWalt family so last year I decided to take a chance and pick up some batteries off EBay. They lasted about 2 months before they died. Not worth it, unfortunately.

Neighbor keeps buying the knockoffs and can't understand why he's ordering them every other month

There's a reason some of the batteries are expensive. They won't explode in your hand or catch your garage on fire. There are some sketchy things coming out of China and it's simply not worth the savings. Several tool channels on YouTube have documented the bad.

Mine have been working flawlessly and I am terrible to my electric tools.

Tried it for some old 12V DeWalt and a newer 80V GreenWorks mower. In both cases the generic replacements were nowhere near as good as the originals. Probably not worth it.

Tried a Milwaukee 12v Its fair… still good after a few years but never lasted as long as origional ones.

Someone tested some… Ave or Project farm maybe…
They found them pretty good… only real drawback noted was unlike the OEM they didn’t really work in cold weather… thus they suggested them for home gamers only, pros stick to the OEM.

Link to Project Farm comparison of genuine DeWalt and aftermarket knockoffs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...IHRvb2wgYmF0dGVyaWVz

And another Project Farm video on knockoff batteries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...IHRvb2wgYmF0dGVyaWVz

The biggest problem is that when you buy a knockoff you really have no idea what you're getting. From the research I've done it seems that at best you will get poor performance and lower than advertised capacity. At worst, you could get a dangerous battery that doesn't have the battery management it needs that will burn your house down.

I have gotten knock off from ebay for 18 volt Makita that have been fine. Get the 5 or 6 amp hour batteries as they last longer than the factory 3 amp. One original battery lasted 11 years.

Chinese fake tool batteries are not a place you want to attempt to save money.

Buy once cry once

never pass up the opportunity to buy more tools.

When I ran Dewalt 18V tools, I bought a couple of cheap batteries, and they didn't last.
Then I started buying 20V Dewalt tools and using an adapter for 18V tools I kept.

DEWALT Battery Adapter 18V to 20V,

I'm deep in the 18v Makita ecosystem and have tried pretty much everything out there, unfortunately. Get the best price you can find on OEM batteries and save yourself the grief, it's absolutely buy once cry once for those batteries.

I use Makita, as well. Unpopular opinion: as ridiculously priced as the brand name stuff is, pick one off amazon and go for it.

I have two that I just finished fixing my fence with. Drive close to 2100 screws with them. Worked perfectly and would recommend.

Is it worth whatever risk you perceive there to be? Only you can decide.

I had a dewalt that the battery went bad. I took it to batteries plus and they reworked the battery pack and it was gtg. Much cheaper than a new dewalt battery pack from the box store

I’ve done a Makita 12v knock offs. Not quite the same capacity, but otherwise fine for my needs for that system.

As mentioned, some can be rebuilt.

Like others have said, I bought a couple of knock off DeWalt 18 volt batteries. One worked fine, the other would not hold a charge. I got a spare battery charger, didn't work. Expensive lesson, next stop would be to try Batteries Plus, we have a store in town, although I have to admit, they have been hit or miss regarding service.

I do like the idea of a converter for my 18 volt tools, using new 20 volt batteries. All my tools are dewalt and I never thought they would drop the 18 volt for the 20 volts. Oh well.

Depending on if your Makita series of batteries has a CPU, you may be able to rebuild them.

My most recent attempt was a Sthil 36v pack. Luckily the CPU didn't have a permanent lockout mode.

So it was a fairly easy weld and run it through a few charging cycles.

If it overheats and goes to lockout mode, give it about 10 minutes in the freezer and another charging cycle.

They'll be as good as new for a fraction of the cost.

You guys are convincing me to stick with my corded tools and gas powered lawn tools.

One big problem with these batteries is actually knowing what is factory and what is a knock off.
I own Milwaukee M18 tools and batteries. I bought the battery's with chargers and batterys at the time of purchase.
I'm a home user and many of the tools I bought are for outdoor tools like trimmers and chain saw, weed whackers and assorted heads that fit the system.
Recently I have had trouble getting the batteries to take a full charge. After investigating the problem it appears that the built in battery maintenance system is the problem, a required system for any Lithium battery. The fix is to take the battery apart and check the charge of all the cells, then bring the low cells voltage up to be close to the other cells.
This is crazy that this is what I need to do. These batteries are not cheap. The 18v, 12amp battery I have for the chainsaw cost $250+ not a throw away.
I see Dewalt adaptors that will convert Dewalt to Milwaukee 18v. Apparently the Dewalt battery maintenance circuits are better than Milwaukee.

My garage is full of old power tools that I gave up on. I may have to re-think my power tools and go back to the corded tools or the, heaven forbid, battle of the 2 cycle powered stuff.
If I was making a living with battery powered tools it might be worth biting the bullet and continuing to buy new batteries when they fail. As a home owner the cost is getting too much to want to deal with to replace these expensive batteries.

Almost all my neighbors use landscaping services. I listen to the roar of gas powered engines all day long. There is certainly a reason why they have not converted to a electric fleet of lawn care tools.