For many years Milwaukee has offered the ability to use their batteries to charge your phone via USB. The current M12 Power Source 49-24-2310 ($27) and M18 Power Source 49-24-2371 ($30) are quickly becoming a staple for pros that have Milwaukee batteries as a great way to charge their devices on the go. This new M12 Power Source Micro-USB 48-59-1202 ($49) goes 1 step further and allows you to charge any M12 Battery on the go.
In the past few years there has been a huge explosion of portable USB battery packs for backups to charge phones, cameras, tablets, etc. We have been taking one of the older M12 Power Sources with us for years when traveling, never know when you might be stuck somewhere and your phone is near dead. The issue however is you are not going to pack an extra M12 charger for travel, which defeats the whole purpose of being compact. Also a perfect solution for the M12 Heated Gear so you can charge on the go, hopefully this will be standard for those kits next year.
This new 48-59-1202 can charge the M12 batteries with the micro-USB connection but clearly this is not intended to be the main source of charging your M12 batteries as it takes much longer. From the chart we saw it is roughly 90 minutes per Ah, so 2.0 Ah charge in 3 hours and 4.0 Ah nearly 6 hours. If you are using the pack as a battery backup and charging overnight no problem but could be too slow to power your tool batteries on the job.
As an alternative power supply this is a very nice option if you already have some M12 batteries. As a car charger or wall charge it is functional, in an airport this would be super handy, pair it with a Anker Portable Solar Panel ($49, Amazon) and you can throw on the dashboard, on backpack, tent, rv, emergency kit and you’re solar charging anywhere with sunlight. For an extra few bucks this micro-USB charging makes a lot of sense, hopefully they’ll do an M18 version as well!
