Just this week Milwaukee announced they will be launching an M18 Cordless Jobsite Fan 0886-20 ($79) which should be on shelves by June. This new Milwaukee model is very similar to Makita’s 18V LXT Jobsite Fan DCF300Z ($129) that was launched last year with a fair amount of success. We wanted to dig in and see how the two units stack up and see what additional options the Makita might have to justify the higher price.
First a couple things we really like about both these fans, biggest is that they both include AC adapters to plug into any standard 110v outlet. When power is there why drain a battery this makes a ton of sense and will make the fan much more practical for use in the shop or garage as well as cordless on the jobsite. Both of these fans are pretty high output CFM with Makita at 245 CFM and Milwaukee as 284 CFM. This is pretty much in line with other compact air circulators from brands such as Vornado, that might retail for $50-60 range (of course not cordless compatible) and are very highly efficient at moving air.
What makes these two units different from a feature set is that the Makita unit adds an oscillating head and a timer, options that the Milwaukee doesn’t have. With the higher price tag you’ll need to ask yourself if those are important to you and your applications. If you are looking to dry paint in a whole room the oscillating head may help and if you were camping and using battery power having a 1 hour timer would also be helpful.
With Milwaukee having a full year to improve upon what made the Makita a success in the first place we think they did a very nice job with this new unit. The price tag was the biggest complaint of the Makita so dropping it to a palatable $79 is going to open up a lot more customers and/or impulse purchases on a hot day. Of course by being second they needed a few more CFM on high setting, which they have. On the run-time issue things get a little mercy… since both publish run-time in the “low” setting we are a little leery of Milwaukee’s 17 hour run-time, is that 150 CFM or 25 CFM? Of course neither brand shows CFM in “low” setting so it’s tough to really compare apples to apples on their “run-time” numbers.
We did some digging and in the “High” setting using a M18 5.0Ah ($129) battery the Milwaukee can operate for 4 hours continuous. For the Makita with 18V LXT 5.0Ah ($119) battery it can go for just shy of 2 hours, both run-time stats according to their respective manufacturers. While we didn’t like the ambiguity of the reported 17 hour run-time in “low”, it would appear Milwaukee has figured out how to get more than double the runtime in “high” even with the higher CFM output.
In reality the jobsite fan is probably going to be an add-on item to whatever battery platform you are already invested in. Ohio Power Tool stocks a wide range of both Milwaukee and Makita cordless power tool and the team is always happy to answer any questions about either brand or specific applications.