Convert Ryobi 18V to Milwaukee M18

James -

I needed a new weedeater for this season and started to look at the Milwaukee String Trimmer 2825-20ST. I already am in the M18 battery line so this was a logical choice, however this thing is a beast. It would have been way to heavy for my wife, let alone overkill for our yard. I did find a nice Ryobi P2030 however that is mainly plastic and looked perfect for our needs.

So the plan is to convert the weed eater to accept M18 packs. The M18 Milwaukee batteries do not have a low voltage protection (LVP) built in, they require the tool to provide that and other features via 'fuel'. So my plan was to add LVP in the pack.

Materials:
Ryobi to M18 adapter - Echoyee for Dewalt & for Milwaukee to Ryobi Battery Adapter
LVP -  Digital Low Voltage Protector Disconnect Switch

Rip apart the adapter to check out how this is going to work. As you can see the adapter directly connects the positive and negative terminals without any regard to LVP. There is a USB device that is also branched off of the terminals but that doesn't matter for the tools use.

I cut, soldered and extended the wires from the terminals spades then connected it to the LVP board.

As you can see its a tight fit, however it does all fit. One thing to note you need to program a low voltage shut off on the controller. I chose 17.6 volts as that is about 1 bar on my 5AH batteries.

I just got this going tonight and the testing is still in progress. Ill update this article if anything changes. But that's all you need to do if you want to add M18 to some Ryobi products. One note do not charge with this adapter on the ryobi charger. I now have access to the entire Ryobi line of tools which are generally cheaper, and sometimes cater to more home gamer markets which is fine with me. Looking forward to their hotglue gun, cordless flashlight.

There really should be one single interface for batteries that are 18v, 12v, 36v etc. This should be standardized here just the amount of waste from having all these vendors with their own systems is dumb. I get they want to lock you in but come on TTI you own both Ryobi and Milwaukee..