12v from power tool battery?

[MR2FC]

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I was wondering about charging RC cars from my Ryobi batteries?

I've seen these...

Google Search

...Anyone have any experience of such a thing?

Thanks in advance!

 

[johnre]

Buck converters are a pretty standard technology, and this device should do as advertised. Just be sure you size it to handle the maximum current draw the RC cars are set to take.

I'm presuming you're away from your vehicle and you're looking for something portable that you can carry to produce 12 V in the field. So just curious here - rather than using a fairly expensive setup like this with a Li Ion 18 V battery and this converter, and dealing with the conversion losses it will have, why not just carry a cheap 12 V lead-acid battery?

 

[MR2FC]

I have Ryobi batteries already, and they're smaller and lighter.

I've a suspicion that my charger might take up to 18v anyway, in which case there'll be no conversion losses. I'll have to check that!

Thanks for your help

 

[jd_1138]

What kind of charger is it? Look at the manual for it to see if it can handle 18V. Also back in the day RC hobbyists would connect their chargers to their car batteries.

 

[wolfhawk73]

I have a converter from Milwaukee (same parent company as Ryobi), and it won't handle the kind of output for an RC battery unless it's for trickle charging. I use mine to power the fish finder on my kayak.

 

[mike93lx]

Be careful with running the tool batteries down too low. I don't know if ryobi outs2the bms in the battery or tool.

Dewalt does the tool, so there's risk of over discharging and ruining a battery doing something like this

 

[Yankeefarmer]

In my RC days, I used a Group 24 size deep cycle battery in a plastic battery case with a battery maintainer bolted to it. At home, it was always plugged in. At the field, it recharged the RC batteries without fear of running my truck battery down.