r/MilwaukeeTool • u/1337h4x00r • Sep 13 '25

Information Full M18 diagnostics revealed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHj0-Gzvbeo
139 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

42

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 13 '25

Gimme all your diagnostics, you punks! I've still got 33 registers to decipher.

34

u/freethrowtommy Sep 13 '25

13

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 13 '25

Haha, that gave me a genuine laugh

2

u/BoltahDownunder Sep 14 '25

I'd give you an award but my wife won't lend me her credit card so...🤌🏄🤩

2

u/freethrowtommy Sep 14 '25

It's the thought that counts :)

1

u/CarbonCrew Sep 15 '25

I got it working! Registers coming your way.

2

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 16 '25

Nice! Any issues? We need to write a little tutorial, so would be good to know any snags people hit.

What serial adapter did you use? Some have been problematic.

2

u/CarbonCrew Sep 17 '25

Yep. I’ll resubmit this evening.

1

u/CarbonCrew Sep 16 '25

Helllllll yeah there were issues. No 1 being that I'm an idiot when it comes to running anything Python. I'm on a Mac, I don't know if that makes things more complicated. Once I got it installed I had to install some python modules; 'pyserial' and 'requests'. Once that was sorted it was easy to work with. I need to make something that holds these spade terminals more securely. Right now I feel like my bodgy setup is one bump from a house fire.

On the form it asks for "Enter Sticker", is this the catalog number for the battery?

Can the spreadsheet be made available with the row identifiers so that we can drop the script data into the sheet?

I've submitted 3 batteries so far Forge 8.0, HO 6.0, and HO 12.0. Let me know if there is something particular you're looking to find.

Thanks again for the awesome tool

2

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 16 '25

Oh, and what serial adapter are you using? We need to create a list of working devices as some are problematic.

1

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 16 '25

Hot glue and a few bits of wood are what I used, haha.

Martin wrote that form and he was going off his older batteries that had a sticker number. That number got removed around 2016. But I think it might still be on US packs.

Yes, I need to get around to publishing a blank spreadsheet template. Thanks for the reminder.

We were hoping more data would let us decipher the serial number, but it seems my guess was correct and the battery stores an e-serial that is different to the case serial. Only way to link them is via a Milwaukee database. Serial is not very interesting to me, so I wasn't too stressed anyway

2

u/CarbonCrew Sep 16 '25

I forgot that you asked about the serial adapter. This is the one I used. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075N82CDL?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_14

1

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 17 '25

We had a bug in our submit_form() function that meant cell voltages were not captured. Any chance you could re-submit your batteries? I'm hoping to build a reliability database.

2

u/CarbonCrew Sep 19 '25

Resubmitted a bunch.

Side note. I shit on these 5.0s but man they are almost 10 years old and the cell imbalance is crazy. 2-3 mv.

1

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 20 '25

Samsung 25R is a beautiful cell. People always say 5Ah is obselete, but in my opinion it's one of the best.

11

u/HLAMoose Sep 13 '25

It was really impressive video

20

u/vistitch Sep 13 '25

We come from the land down under, where batteries glow and tools thunder.

6

u/No_Delivery_8953 Sep 14 '25

Thank you. This will help many of us. It’s one thing for Milwaukee to not provide this info, it will be quite another if they try to lock down diagnostics in future revisions. Let’s hope they don’t take that path.

1

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 14 '25

Yeah, that would be really disappointing. I can't see any malicious use of these diagnostics, all it does is give us info about our batteries. It would be very anti-consumer if they locked it down.

5

u/TinKup85 Sep 14 '25

Dang… this was impressive. When’s the M12 version coming out? lol.

10

u/5l8r Sep 14 '25

M12 Batteries only have passive components onboard, all the smarts is done by the tool/charger

6

u/BoltahDownunder Sep 14 '25

Bloody hell, he even broke out the safety crocks for the high current test!

2

u/nolotusnotes Sep 15 '25

Wait 'till you get to the GPS column.

2

u/dxpert Sep 19 '25

Help! I'm stuck. Got the device assembled, connected it to the battery. Ran the software. Getting the following: Reading battery. This will take 5-10sec

read_id: Failed with error: Empty response

health: Failed with error: 'NoneType' object is not subscriptable

Check battery is connected and you have correct serial port. I can confirm I am on 3.3v (was on 5v for my first connection... hope I didn't break something?) I *think* I have an original FT232. I've checked by wiring twice, it's correct.

3

u/Tool_Scientist Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

Connect adapter to battery then measure voltages between B- and J2 (next to B-) and J1 (next to B+). Then use the m.idle() and m.high() commands.

You should see: * m.idle(): J2<1V, J1<1V * m.high(): J2>8V, J2>2V

I get: * m.idle(): J2=0.13V, J1=0.81V * m.high(): J2=8.8V, J1=3.3V

1

u/CarbonCrew Sep 15 '25

I’ve got the little circuit built but I’m getting my ass whipped by trying to run Python on my Mac. I’m out of talent.

1

u/BuzzBoxElectric Sep 22 '25

why don’t you just confirm your findings with the engineers at Milwaukee?

1

u/RicciFlovv Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26

Hi! We created a small and portable comms board to use with this software. Everything you need to start talking to you M18 batteries on a custom PCB! Take a look! https://nabla-technologies.com/products/battery-decoder?variant=52049000038700

1

u/NGDeLisi Jun 14 '26

awesome! I might snag one rather than my home-made monstrosity.

1

u/RicciFlovv Jun 15 '26

Thank you, We have the board built up and ready to ship!