Black & Decker HPB18-OPE, Unofficially the Better..
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Unofficially the Better Battery, but…
Black and Decker has at least 7 versions of the Slide 18v battery pack. You have no guidance which is better than the other as B&D absolutely refuses to publish the ampere rating or number of contacts of any of them.
Battery identification is poor: Every battery I have seen is marked “244760-00.” What good is that in identifying the battery? There are some molded-in numbers but B&D absolutely refuses to tell you what they mean.
On the blister pack for the HPB18-OPE you read “25% more power than the standard battery*” Finding the “*”, it says “Compared to the HPB18.” Both are the same price on Lowes shelves. B&D absolutely refuses to divulge how these two compare to each other or the FireStorm series.
A Factory Store manager has said two Firestorm versions were once better but have been downgraded this past 12-18 months and are usually worse than the HP18 units. B&D absolutely refuses to divulge any history of the FireStorm 18V batteries.
These batteries will connect to three types of chargers. One will charge the battery in 9 hours, another in 3 hours, and the last in 1 hour. Between the battery and charger combination, severely reduced battery life will result if the battery is left on the charger longer than 2 days. On another the degrade occurs only after 30 days. The third does not damage the battery in any length of time. You are left to guess which combination is optimum and which is a disaster. B&D absolutely refuses to divulge which is which.
I have many hours into trying to make heads or tails out of this, including several contacts on the phone, and e-mails with B&D, ditto plus in person at a factory store and factory repair station. The B&D Factory Stores and Repair Stations concur with my view that B&D is extremely arrogant, totally wrong in their attitude, and show no willingness to change.
Update (5/18/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen. I also found some auctions for this item here.
The featured review for this product, Black & Decker HPB18-OPE 18-Volt Spring Loaded Slide Pack Battery For 18-Volt Outdoor Cordless Power Tools Lawn & Patio, was written by D. Charles.
The average rating for this item is out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.
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Tags: 18 v battery, 18 volt battery pack, 18v, 244760-00, batteries, batteries battery packs, battery, battery pack, battery packs, black and decker, cordless blower, cordless broom, cordless lawn tool, cordless lawn tools, cordless leaf blower, for cordless blower, fs180bx, rechargeable batteries, trimmer, weed eater
Posted on: April 30, 2010
Filed under: Reviews
Reviews (3)
Andrey G. Nikolayev
March 19th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Regular battery
B&D doesn’t really tell you the whole story about their batteries…
In my experience, this battery has 1.5 Ah cells, and unless HPB18 to which it is compared to has 1 Ah cells (which I doubt) it cannot have 50% more capacity. 25% is more likely and it was marketed as such for a while.
Adding to other review, I think I figured out number near the battery lock. First, you have manufacturing year and week along with some letters. And then there is three digit number, which tells you cell manufacturer (first digit) and capacity (two last digits). This is what I encountered:
412 - 1.2 Ah cells marked BD (most likely specifically manufactured for B&D) - usually FS18B and HPB18 batteries, but also some 244760. These cells are actually short Sub C (or 4/5 SC) and B&D puts plastic pad inside the battery, so housing has the same exterior size.
115 - 1.5 Ah cells without manufacturer identification
415 - 1.5 Ah cells marked BD
515 - 1.5 Ah cells manufactured by HANYU
All these are marketed as FSXtreme, HPB18-OPE, FS18BX and 244760
421 - 2.1 Ah cells manufactured by BYD - high capacity “Silver Series” FS18SBX. BYD is actually well known Chinese battery manufacturer, nice chunk of whose shares was recently purchased by Warren Buffett.
D. Charles
April 7th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Unofficially the Better Battery, but…
Rated 1 stars.
Peter Dykhuis
April 17th, 2010 at 2:11 am
Addictive and Fun
As one reviewer indicated the interchangeability of the batteries makes the entire Black and Decker 18 volt line very addictive. I find myself looking for tools that work with the batteries.
As for the batteries themselves the big positive is the interchangeability. There are two significant negatives. The first negative is that the charger that comes with the batteries and the tools is a dumb charger that does not tell you if it is complete or not. This is annoying. The second issue is the batteries are slightly anemic. Not bad since they are interchangeable but still a little more power and longevity would be nice. Don’t worry though. Black and Decker has a silver series of the batteries that purports to be 40% longer life.
Overall a great system and one I am please with.
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