Milwaukee has come out with yet another new LED worklight product – an M12 Underhood LED worklight, meant for automotive work.
It sounds redundant for me to tell you it’s an underhood worklight and then describe it as being for automotive work, but that’s to avoid any confusion as to what it’s designed for.
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Runtime is said to be 8 hours when paired with an M12 4.0Ah XC battery pack. The worklight features Milwaukee’s TrueView accurate color technology, and an extending clamp.
The clamping bar can be extended from 47″ to 78″, allowing it to attach to the hoods of all kinds of cars and trucks.
The underhood worklight can be rotated, slid, and even removed from its clamping attachment and then hung from its stainless steel hook. The hook was designed for mounting underneath the car for hands-free use.
The LED housing is made with an aircraft aluminum frame and impact-resistant polycarbonate lens. The lens is also chemical-resistant, helping it to stand up to common automotive fluids.
I’d guess that the power handle is also designed to stand up to automotive fluids, but Milwaukee hasn’t commented about this specifically.
This isn’t a “pack in your tool bag” kind of light, but it does look like a good shop solution.
I wonder how well it would handle being clamped to a long shelf of cabinet, aimed downwards.
It doesn’t look like it’ll fit in tight spots, but the underhood work light looks reasonably slender with the lamp removed.
The hanging hook looks functional. I wonder if Milwaukee considered adding a magnetic mount.
Specifications
- 600 lumens light output on low, 8 hrs of runtime with 4.0Ah battery
- 1350 lumens light output on high, 4 hrs of runtime with 4.0Ah battery
- Weighs 4.63 lbs (bare tool)
- 47″ to 78″ extendable clamping length
- “FinishGuard” hook
There will be a kit, 2125-21XC, which comes with the light, (1) 4.0Ah battery pack, and a charger, and also a bare tool option, 2125-20.
Pricing: $250 for the kit, $200 for the bare tool
ETA: June 2017
First Thoughts
There have been a number of times when I wish I had something just like this – a cordless wide-area worklight that could just be clamped to the hood of my car.
Who’s buying one of these under-the-hood LED light bars when they come out?
Brian
I actually posted for one of these in a blogger’s giveaway where they asked for light ideas. I even linked them to the one I have been eyeing. http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-professional-folding-led-light.html
I wish this folded and was cheaper.
Ross
I’d love to have one of these, but the price for the bare tool seems a little ridiculous.
Steve
Yep. Plus, I find overhead lighting useless when you need to see down into narrow spots….a headlamp and snake light with a magnet are far more useful. Actually, the Milwaukee lantern seems more useful for accurately directing light, plus it’s compact.
fred
Seems like a nice addition to the M12 lineup. There a quite a few competitors to this – even one from HF for $35 (or $28 with a 20% off coupon) At $200 to $250 – this one seems to be at the high end of the price range – the other costly one I could find was this:
https://www.amazon.com/CPS-CPS-TLWL132R-Rechargeable-Underhood-WorkLight/dp/B015095GQ8
With many others priced below $100
Ed S
Seriously?
I have an Astro rechargeable (usb) with dimmer wheel that has hook and mag-base (see SMA video on YouTube for more automotive repairs with this light and its brothers).
What we need is Ford/GM/Others to put a strip of weather-proof LEDs under the hood and run off the battery that is there (and it charges while driving!).
Have to disconnect the battery? No problem as there will be a modular switch/connector for just UHL (UnderHoodLamp).
A clever person would just wire up a set themselves. See LED strips.
Now, to make sure it isn’t on while parked (hood-latch switch) or moving (ignition+ transmission sensors engaged).
Right?
Doresoom
It would be awesome if vehicle OEMs would put light strips under the hood as a standard option, but I doubt it will happen. Most drivers don’t do their own maintenance, so it won’t be a selling point for the majority of the market share.
RKA
Exactly, they don’t put adequate lighting in the trunk, not a chance they care about this end of the car.
Garden hose
They phased out the under hood lights years ago – it wasn’t a selling point, only a convenience at inconvenient times.
I wonder who this is geared toward. I could see it being an awesome AutoZone rental tool, but it’s hard to imagine a large market for a tool both niche in usage and in season.
Kyle R
Yeah, I am sure it works great and I would like it but $200 for the bare tool seems nuts. $125 maybe and I’d be in.
RX9
Agreed. $250 is insane, especially when Snap-on (which is almost always the most expensive) makes one for $185.
I’ll be glad to buy one, but only if it drops below $120.
Jason
Milwaukee has been reaching a little too high with their prices lately, but they will lower them when they notice they are not selling well. They lowered the price of the Radius lights when they were not selling.
Doresoom
Same with the Rocket Light and the Stand Light.
Garden hose
I think it’s called skimming or something, it’s a common marketing tool where you charge high at the beginning to get those that will pay a premium to pay it then lower the price to slide it more to the bottom right on the supply demand curve.
RX9
Overpriced, but I’m glad to see that Milwaukee is still creating stuff for mechanics.
Gordon
The hexagon bumpers are always nice for fine tuning the light and keeping it out of your eyes. But it looks like the larger battery is going to cause issues with its larger rectangular base.
I think it’s a nice idea, but as other’s have said the price is way too much.
RKA
What I don’t like about the other options I’ve bought into over the years are the connector for the charging cable and often a suspect internal battery that will flake out on me in a few years. So I would pay more for one that lives on a battery platform I already use and trust. And of course, the price will come down, especially for these niche lighting products. I suspect we will see it for under $150 in a year or less.
One thing I don’t like is the packaging. I understand they want to offer the flexibility to use the light elsewhere without the mount, but for all purposes it’s form factor precludes that. It’s far better to offer and integrated mount with a light strip in a shallower package (still need the ability to rotate and aim the light) so I’m not hitting my head on this thing every 2 minutes.
Stuart
I’d guess that part of the housing is meant to serve as a heatsink. LEDs can put out a lot of heat and fail prematurely if there’s not enough thermal dissipation.
The Beta LED light I reviewed a while back was very thin, but flimsy.
https://toolguyd.com/beta-led-work-light-review/
Durability and sturdiness, needed for a several foot-long light stick, requires mass.
msergiob
looks like a light saber…
JC
Wait til price drops which might be holiday season so maybe other deals will be available to makeveryone it extra affordable. Why an Led light kit cost as much as m18 fuel hammer drill kit I just don’t understand.
Koko the Talking Ape
For what little work I do on the car, my headlamp works great, especially under the car, where there is little space to get a good angle on a typical work light. The light from the headlamp is always exactly where I need it to be. The lack of shadows gets a little weird.
For the price of this thing, I’d get 3-4 M12 stick lights. Less light total, it appears, but more portable and versatile. I would need that number of battery packs, of course. This big light stick needs only one.
Mike H
I have an underhood light that gets turned on every morning (right after the coffee maker) and is one of the last things off on my way out the door. It’s LED, runs off 120V and it has its own drop from the ceiling so the cord is never in the way. By and large it’s recognized as a “professional” brand and it cost a little more than a hundred American pesos.
I avoided getting a battery powered model because it gets used so often I’d never make it through a day without smoking a battery. If I used it less than fifty hours a week, for shade tree type stuff, I suppose I’d consider going battery just as a matter of convenience. But there’s no way I’d go there for two fifty. There’s no way I’d go there for one fifty. And I say that as someone who’s already neck deep in the red kool aid.
If you’re using this everyday, there’s high-end field-proven devices out there for less than half the cost. If you’re a road tech, this includes battery models with perfectly respectable run times. If you’re using this for unplanned maintenance events on the family wagon you’re better off, imho, ordering a no-name $15 headlamp on the interwebs and having decent illumination wherever your your face holes happen to be aimed.
Richard
Polycarbonate will not stand up to brake cleaner or carb cleaner.
glenn
My car is 50 years old and supercharged so the bonnet is frequently up. This would be good but not at that price, as it will end up being @ $300+ for the bare tool here in Aus.
Will just stay with my M18 stick light, which is more than adequate at @ 1/4 of the price.
T
From my experience, these large underhood lights are only useful 25% of the time. They flood the bay with light but shadow like crazy, which doesnt help – point source direct lighting is much more useful when doing real work. Sure, it may help when changing an airfilter at dusk, in a cave… The high price greatly outweights it’s utility in that aspect.
The other 50% of the time, you are under the vehicle, where this is somewhat impractical due to size and mounting design. If not pointing upward, above your eye line, it will blind you while working. Heck, magnetic bases are getting to be semi-useless, more and more non-ferrous alloys being used in vehicles, especially on chassis components. So, once again, smaller pointsource lights with flexible mounting or headlights would be more pratical.
Jerry Wyatt
I rarely work on my vehicle at night and I mean rarely, plus the price is too high.
Jeffrey
Maybe when it hits $100ish.
dk
I got a hold of one to test out. I think it’s great Milwaukee finally came out with an underhood light tool.
https://youtu.be/Et3n3oAYqnU
Greg
It’s a great idea, this type of light. I’ve run the gamut of underhood LED lights and they all eventually fail because of the internal battery or the charging system fails. I’ve fixed a few that have failed via the internal battery but it takes time etc.
I’ll wait til the holiday season and I’m sure this will be much cheaper or bundled with some other tool I will need to get. I would buy this immediately if some changes were made. If the lens was made out of glass or something other than what it is I’d be much happier. Even if this increased the price I would buy it. The current plastics are just not going to hold up to all the chemicals I use under the hood. Also if it had an IP rating I would be strongly moved to buy it at any price.