At NPS17, Milwaukee’s recent new product showing, one of the many surprises of the M12/M18 session was Milwaukee’s new M18 Compact Heat Gun. They are claiming it’s the world’s first 18V cordless heat gun, and from what we’ve seen, they’re right.
This is the world’s first 18V cordless heat gun, as there already are some other higher voltage battery-powered heat guns on the market, such as the Steinel BHG 360 – a 36V product.
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Milwaukee says that the new cordless heat gun could be used for setting heat shrink tubing, warming and fixing imperfect PEX connections made in colder ambient temperatures, defrosting pipes, and a lot of the other applications one would normally use a corded heat gun for.
Lets take a quick look at the specs:
- Temperature: 1000°F
- Guarded Nozzle
- Ladder Hook
- LED Light
- Length: 6.35″
- Weight: 3.2 lbs
- ~20 minutes runtime (presumably with a 5.0Ah XC pack)
- Bundled with hook and concentrator nozzles
Milwaukee redesigned the layout and heating coil to make the M18 compact heat gun smaller than their corded heat gun. Besides making it smaller, they claim the M18 heat gun heats up faster, in half the time of their corded heat gun, has the same max temperature of 1000°F, and can perform over 40 heat shrink connections on one battery charge.
The compact heat gun will stand up on it’s battery, or you can hang it on the ladder hook. It also features a guarded nozzle that prevents the metal barrel from damaging surfaces if it gets knocked over.
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Even with the guarded nozzle, they made sure the compact heat gun stayed compatible with their existing heat gun accessories. It can accept any of the attachments they sell for their corded heat guns.
So the Milwaukee heat gun accessory assortment (49-80-0300) should work with the compact heat gun. The set includes:
- Hook Nozzle (49-80-0292)
- Deflector Nozzle (49-80-0293)
- Air Spreader Nozzle (49-80-0294)
- Air Reduction Nozzle (49-80-0297 )
The top and bottom attachment look pretty much the same from this angle. The top one is a spreader and the bottom is a deflector. Here’s a picture of the deflector.
You can see that it’s designed to spread and redirect the heat. Its stated use is to “deflect the air away from glass when stripping paint or softening putty.”
The Milwaukee M18 Compact Heat Gun will be available starting September 2017. You’ll be able to buy it as a bare tool (26-88-20) or in a kit (2688-21) with an XC 5.0 battery, M12/M18 charger, 3/8″ concentrator nozzle, hook nozzle (for heat shrink and tubing), and carrying case.
Available September 2017
Price: $119 for the bare tool
Buy Now (Bare Tool via Home Depot)
Buy Now (Bare Tool via Acme Tools)
Buy Now (Kit via Home Depot)
First Thoughts
For comparison, above is a picture of Milwaukee’s variable temp heat gun with LCD. It is 11-1/2″ long and has a max temperature of 1150°F. Also notice how far the hot nozzle sticks out.
In the presentation, they kept comparing the M18 compact heat gun to their current corded heat gun. Actually they have three different heat guns currently for sale. The first is a dual temp heat gun that you can buy at Home Depot for $70, then they have a variable temp heat gun that runs $100, and finally their most expensive is a variable temperature heat gun with LCD display for $160.
I emailed Milwaukee as I wrote this post to see if they had a price estimate, but my contact told me they wouldn’t release pricing until closer to the launch date. Given the nature of this type of tool, I think somewhere around $150 is probably a reasonable guess.
Stuart’s Note: I missed the presentation but managed to speak with a product manager later in the session. My notes say that the heat gun will be “<$150 bare”, but I don’t think it has been officially set yet. <$150 can mean $149.99, or it could potentially be less.
While I was impressed that I was using a cordless heat gun, when I used it on some heat shrink I noticed it seemed to take longer than I was used to with my corded heat gun. This could have been because the cordless gun had been sitting, cooling for a while, or it might be because they have to throttle back the output a bit to make the battery last.
Mind you this was only one test. I saw another reviewer use it to heat up PEX to the point where it was clear, so it obviously has some oomph. Although, I have to say – the stated over 40 heat shrink connections per charge makes me a little leery of how long it’ll actually last in the field.
Stuart’s Note: I pressed a little and was given a runtime estimate of around 20 minutes. I don’t know what criteria runtime might depend on.
I think the thing that excites me most about this cordless heat gun is that it can stand up on its battery. I hate having to constantly worry about where I put the heat gun down. Most heat guns I’ve used rest on the side and the tip. To make matters worse, you trip over the cord and the gun goes spinning around or you end up burning the cord insulation. With this cordless heat gun, even if you knock it over and it goes flying, the nozzle is still guarded.
My last thought is that this heat gun is only six-and-a-half inches long. Not only that, but it has an LED work light. This opens up whole new possibility of applying heat in cramped and dark areas where you couldn’t before.
*Thank you to David Frane for contributing photos to this post.
pete
We use a heat gun to weld vinyl. It sucks to have to run the cord, and then let the gun heat up when we’re trying to fix a small patch…
I’ll have to see what tempature our current heat gun goes to…
fred
“Actually they have three different heat guns currently for sale. The first is a dual temp heat gun that you can buy at Home Depot for $70, then they have a variable temp heat gun that runs $100, and finally their most expensive is a variable temperature heat gun with LCD display for $160.”
If you add this ($60) one – Milwaukee sells 4:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-750VT-Industrial-Heat-Gun-10035/301090982
To be fair – I think that the 750VT IS MADE FOR Milwaukee by MHT Products – Master Appliance
Jared Richael
Hi Stuart nice article. I always love all of your reads but I’ve noticed that your last 17 articles have been about either Milwaukee or DeWalt. Are no other tool brands making anything new?
pete
Nope never. You can only wear yellow underpants or red.
Joey
Ridgid miter saw 10″ capable of using two batteries under the way! Milwaukee sucks with one
Pete
Ryobi has a upcoming 10″ silding miter saw with dual batteries and will probably be cheaper and ryobi will be releasing their new batteries that will go up to 9.0ah AND ryobi has a much larger too selection than ridgid….
Stuart
As far as I saw, it’s an AEG model that has only been speculated as coming to the Ridgid brand. Perhaps, but I’m not convinced.
John S
Why does this criticism comes up like every time a product release expo happens for any tool maker. Give Stuart a break. There were oodles of products announced, demonstrated, and hinted at NPS17 so its going to be a lot of Milwaukee articles one would expect same as when Dewalt had theirs or Makita did theirs etc.
Koko the Talking Ape
I agree readers are sometimes unreasonable to Stuart, but Jared wasn’t criticizing Stuart or his reporting. He was just asking if the other brands haven’t released new tools lately.
fred
I assume that these 2 brands are currently the most aggressive in competing for US (professional user) market share. I would also surmise that they are both shamelessly (quelle surprise) promoting their new releases and/or sales incentives. I would hope that Makita takes note and stays in the hunt for our tool-buying dollars/pounds or whatever currency we choose to use. Bosch seems to dance to the tune of a different drummer – at least relative to new releases here in the US. Ryobi (maybe others too) – seem t be active – but targeting different niches.
Nathan
Bosch is a far bigger company than many people in America realize. They do have some good tools and things I look for – but oddly nothing really in the cordless camp. Not that their cordless stuff isn’t good – just not really want I want to throw money at.
But now I lust for a bosch router. which I might buy
Stuart
Thanks! I think Ben did a great job too.
Milwaukee announced a LOT of new tools last week. We’re trying to pace things, but even with only a few previews and hands-on first impressions each week, it’ll take a while before we exhaust the experiential coverage from this event.
Attending the event took a lot of time and effort, and it has taken us a lot of work sorting through everything we saw and learned about.
There’s going to be a LOT of red coverage, because they introduced 6 months of tools in 1 day.
To be honest, I hadn’t realized there were so many yellow and red posts these past 2 weeks.
I’ll see what I can do. =)
Chris
As far as new tools for other then Red and Yellow, take a look………..Bosch has finally released Bosch GAA18V-24 which is there version of a Portable Power Adapter for 5V USB or 12V DC. That has been overseas for a while and finally Acme is selling it!!! It’s about time.
Koko the Talking Ape
I always wondered why they don’t include rate of air flow as a spec. I always see specs with just the temperature. 1000°F sounds like plenty, but if the air flow is feeble, then it isn’t usable. In a similar way, stereo receivers used to claim things like “100W,” but it really should be “100W into an 8 ohm load with <1% THD."
Nathan
Indeed. and maybe even provide with the heat gun a watts of output or something. IE 1000 degrees F @ 30 cfm, providing a sustained 412 BTU of continuous heat output.
something akin to that. No don’t check that math I didn’t do the heat calculation just made up a number.
Koko the Talking Ape
Yes. Actually, now that I think about it, it should be something like 412 BTU continuous for 30 minutes (since it has a battery.)
I was trying to decide whether you could compute these things simply from the fact that a 4 Ah battery will power it for 30 minutes (or whatever.) But you can’t. Some of that energy goes to the fan, and some goes to the heating elements. And fans vary in efficiency. Etc.
Joseph
$150 bare tool puts it in that price range where, I’d really have to think about it. At the $100 mark, I’d have one on in my pile of red.
john
Agreed. I do use my heat gun enough that I kinda could justify the $150 cost (heat shrinking, scrapping, molding plastic).
Definitely closer to $100 for a bare tool would make this a no brainer for me.
Ugh, just the thought of accidentally tripping over the cord makes me want to buy this just to never experience that again.
Side note, never knocked over my solder by accident (I have a soldering station) so I can’t really justify buying the new cordless soldering iron.
fred
In the age that I grew up in pots of molten lead were common sights on roughing-in plumbing (from the Latin) jobs. Knocking one of them over would not have been a nice thing – nor was breathing in the lead fumes or handling the asbestos-rope joint runners.
fred
I should have mentioned that if you have a really old heat gun – you should make sure it is asbestos free. Some old ones used asbestos-paper as heat shielding and the asbestos was in line with the airflow – so fibers could be dispersed.
https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/1980/heat-guns-containing-asbestos-recalled
John S
I dunno, the more I think about the cordless solder iron the more I want it and I wasn’t that excited about it at first. Just thinking of having to unpack and setup an iron at a work station put it in its little stand and wait for it to heat up for a simple fix makes me feel unmotivated to do the work.
With that cordless you could do the work at the site like speaker/amp fix inside the car or in the field for rc cars/drones where there is no plug. I’m oddly getting excited about it and will definitely pick it up as a backup to a primary work station.
Brian
Oh how nice of them to make the accessories compatible with other models. They didnt do that with vacs as the M12 and two M18s all have different sizes which baffles me…
hc
That soldering iron looks pretty unwieldy to me. It might be good for larger wires, but I can foresee a lot of frustration trying to do a lot of stuff. I really like my Portasol SP125 butane model and think I’ll stick with it.
Brian
They have promo pictures with PCBs in them…yeah, I don’t think that would be very fun to solder with. I think it would be better to have a small iron, a cord and a power supply that you can stick to your arm(maybe a strap with velcro and velcro on the power supply).
Harrolldean
Great to see even more tools becoming cordless. Only time will tell if this is a good product, but it has great potential. I work in the landscape business and didn’t immediately see a use for this, but then got to thinking (because I can always find a good excuse to buy new Milwaukee tools). When we install drip irrigation tubing, especially in the winter, those fittings are REALLY hard to push together and having a heat gun would make the tubing much more pliable and able to push on to the barbed fitting much easier. We also run several spray rigs for chemical applications and often times (also in winter) their big tank pumps and even backpack sprayers get froze up and this would be a quick solution to thaw them out, would just have to be careful not to melt things or operate to close to gas tanks, etc. Now to convince the boss man…
Benjamen
I also use a heat gun when replacing garden hose connectors. I’ll heat up the rubber hose so it slips over the barbs easier. Much easier then trying to force it on.