Since I already have a few M18 cordless tools I purchased a M18 power source for the heated jackets too. The jacket comes with the M12 power source but I do not have any M12 tools.
My review of the the M12 cordless black heated jacket (2395):
Starting off with some pictures.
In the picture I have set the main heating zone to high heat(red), and the pocket heaters are off.
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| The back of my swivel chair is a perfect fit for this size L jacket |
I have a FLIR IR (infrared) camera that shows where the heat is located in this jacket. The heating element is quite smaller than I though it would be. Good thing I had a IR camera on hand for this. It seems the padding of the jacket spreads out the heat when it is actually worn, because when worn it feels like a much larger area is being heated.
This is how it looks like from the back. You can see the battery pouch more easily from the rear. The rear of the jacket also has a much larger heating area in the center.
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| You can actually see the heating wires here. |
Next I turned the jacket inside out for a better view of the heating elements for the inside of the jacket..
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| You can see the outline of where they mounted the heating element. |
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| looks a lot different from the diagram on the box |
The front right side
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| The shape of the heater wire are a lot easier to see from the inside |
The front left side
The jacket comes with a M12 power pack that also provides a USB port to charge phones and stuff.
This is what the battery pouch looks like from the back.
This is what is inside of that battery pouch.
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| The USB Port |
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| The M12 battery I use for this |
The way I route USB cables inside the heated jacket
The jacket has 2 heating zones with 3 heat levels each. Milwaukee says that it can last up to 6 hours, that must be on the lowest possible setting. Because when I set both zones to max heat I get less than 2 hours of heat on the M12 battery it comes with. But with the M18 XC batteries, they last much longer on max heat. I actually never had the M18 XC batteries run out on me while working outdoors so I do not actually know how long they last.
So far this winter I have used this jacket in all types of weather. But I found out that the lowest temperature I would want to use this as the primary jacket would be 30F, any lower and the heating ability would not keep up with the cold. When I wore this under a down insulated jacket it was fine in single digit weather.
Now the picture review of the M18 power source (49-24-2371) for use on the Milwaukee heated jacket.
Unlike the M12 power supply this one has a On/Off button, if this is left in the on position it will very slowly drain the battery.
This is how much larger the M18 compact battery is compared with the M12 one. It is both taller and wider but about the same length.
The XC sized M18 battery is huge compared to the original one as seen here
This is what the battery pocket looks like with the M12 power source that comes with the jacket. Looks nice, smooth, and unobtrusive right now... lets change that.
Unlike the M12 power supply this one has a On/Off button, if this is left in the on position it will very slowly drain the battery.
This is how much larger the M18 compact battery is compared with the M12 one. It is both taller and wider but about the same length.
The XC sized M18 battery is huge compared to the original one as seen here
This is what the battery pocket looks like with the M12 power source that comes with the jacket. Looks nice, smooth, and unobtrusive right now... lets change that.
This is about how far you need to unzip it to replace the M12 battery.
The battery pouch is expandable for the M18 batteries.
With the M18 compact batteries you can close the top of the pouch. But the bottom does stick out a bit.
With the M18 XC batteries you can not close the top of the battery pouch, even in the expanded position it is a very tight fit. I do not use the XC battery that often for this jacket because of this.
Overall the M18 power pack is really useful if you are already using a bunch of M18 batteries to power your tools, but I would not buy it just for heated jacket use. It is a lot more bulky the the M12 batteries and sometimes gets in the way, I would just buy more M12 batteries if all I use the batteries for is the jacket.
And now a quick picture review of my wife's M12 Special edition women's heated jacket (2339):
The women's jacket only has one heating zone and is actually quite a bit different from the men's jacket in how the heating elements are placed. There is no heating elements in the chest area for the women's version.
I assume the chest placement of the heating element would not be as efficient if the woman is wearing a bra that would insulate the body from the heat, so here you see the heating elements are placed diagonally on the sides.
With the M18 compact batteries you can close the top of the pouch. But the bottom does stick out a bit.
With the M18 XC batteries you can not close the top of the battery pouch, even in the expanded position it is a very tight fit. I do not use the XC battery that often for this jacket because of this.
Overall the M18 power pack is really useful if you are already using a bunch of M18 batteries to power your tools, but I would not buy it just for heated jacket use. It is a lot more bulky the the M12 batteries and sometimes gets in the way, I would just buy more M12 batteries if all I use the batteries for is the jacket.
And now a quick picture review of my wife's M12 Special edition women's heated jacket (2339):
The women's jacket only has one heating zone and is actually quite a bit different from the men's jacket in how the heating elements are placed. There is no heating elements in the chest area for the women's version.
I assume the chest placement of the heating element would not be as efficient if the woman is wearing a bra that would insulate the body from the heat, so here you see the heating elements are placed diagonally on the sides.
