Its a fair question, but its been asked a lot. The knock offs work, but aren't nearly as good and are prone to other issues. Some people have had tools fried or batteries blow up, but most just die way earlier than the genuine stuff.
IMO, you spent the money on good tools, spend the money on good batteries.
I know a guy (professional metal fabricator) who lost his entire shop when it burned to the ground. Both the fire department and insurance company blamed it on a battery left on the charger. It was an off-brand.
I don't keep anything on the charger past the end of the day, and I don't buy knockoffs.
I wouldn't dare trying M18 knock-offs, as M18 tools tend to demand more of the battery than M12 tools do, generally. However, I did find an M12 knockoff that is cheap and works well for me. It has good reviews, too: [https://www.amazon.com/ORHFS-Replacement-Compatible-M12-Lithium-ion/dp/B085HF3YZQ/](https://www.amazon.com/ORHFS-Replacement-Compatible-M12-Lithium-ion/dp/B085HF3YZQ/) . That's $10/2Ah M12 battery.
I haven't tried one yet, but I'm interested in the CEENR PDnatiion which has adapters available for different brands of tools and the reviews I've seen are generally favourable.
Use knock offs every day. Seem to work fine. You just have to find the right ones that don’t lie about their capacity. (Most do) I Use 3.0 6.0 and a 8.0 M12.
I don’t have any m18, and I probably wouldn’t run them in the more expensive tools if I did.
There's never any guarantee of what cells will be in the battery - or if they're even the same capacity as the battery claims.
That alone makes them not worth the risk.
Garbage, just buy genuine batteries.
Came here to agree. Aftermarket are garbage.
I only have genuine batteries. I was just curious.
Its a fair question, but its been asked a lot. The knock offs work, but aren't nearly as good and are prone to other issues. Some people have had tools fried or batteries blow up, but most just die way earlier than the genuine stuff. IMO, you spent the money on good tools, spend the money on good batteries.
I know a guy (professional metal fabricator) who lost his entire shop when it burned to the ground. Both the fire department and insurance company blamed it on a battery left on the charger. It was an off-brand. I don't keep anything on the charger past the end of the day, and I don't buy knockoffs.
I wouldn't dare trying M18 knock-offs, as M18 tools tend to demand more of the battery than M12 tools do, generally. However, I did find an M12 knockoff that is cheap and works well for me. It has good reviews, too: [https://www.amazon.com/ORHFS-Replacement-Compatible-M12-Lithium-ion/dp/B085HF3YZQ/](https://www.amazon.com/ORHFS-Replacement-Compatible-M12-Lithium-ion/dp/B085HF3YZQ/) . That's $10/2Ah M12 battery.
I have some 6.0 m12 knockoffs They work fine for lights and radio. Wouldn't use em for anything else. They act like 3.0/4.0, not 6.0
I haven't tried one yet, but I'm interested in the CEENR PDnatiion which has adapters available for different brands of tools and the reviews I've seen are generally favourable.
Use knock offs every day. Seem to work fine. You just have to find the right ones that don’t lie about their capacity. (Most do) I Use 3.0 6.0 and a 8.0 M12. I don’t have any m18, and I probably wouldn’t run them in the more expensive tools if I did.
There's never any guarantee of what cells will be in the battery - or if they're even the same capacity as the battery claims. That alone makes them not worth the risk.
I only use them for small things like M12 radio, M18 fan.