Cordless battery rebuild? What do you do?

[D KRAGER]

Wondering what you guys do? Do you go out and buy new batteries, or take them somewhere to rebuild them?

I take mine to the local tire shop and he sends them off with the interstate battery guy.

 

[t100]

voltman is pretty cool, watch the video on their site

http://www.voltmanbatteries.com/servlet/StoreFront

 

[chadster1]

There are several companies that can rebuild cordless batteries. I have used Batteries Plus before. I think all of the stores are independent or franchised so your results will probably vary depending on the location nearest you.

 

[t100]

oh, don't forget, almost all the companies have some of their batteries recalled over the years. what ever you have, check the recall info first, probably you can get new ones for free.

 

[scottg1952]

Yes please!!
Who has the cheapest 3300mah rechargeable batteries?? Or even 2400mah??
I can't find a penny's discount anywhere on the planet! And I have been looking for years!
I have a couple of dead drills like everyone else I guess.
I have given up buying more until I can find a decent connection for batteries!
Anybody??
yours Scott

 

[eborcim]

Get the price up front before you have them rebuilt. You may just want to buy new ones and recycle the old.

 

[Danglerb]

Check around locally first, find out who does a lot of rebuilding in your area, this is a best face to face type transaction.

Somebody that does lots of work, so batteries are fresh, and they can afford to have some expensive tools like ultrasonic welders to put packs of batteries together.

 

[holdmybeerandwatchthis]

You can repack them yourself, but the service life may be no better than what you are getting from the standard or even rebuilt packs,

The cheap drill & charger kits usually have cheap dodgy chargers, there is a specific way the batteries like to be charged and discharged,

One of the common myths with Ni-cad batteries is to completely discharge them so they don't build up a memory effect, the best time to put them on charge is when you are drilling the speed slows right down, not after doing 5 or 6 holes in timber, a lot of people used to jam to trigger to totally drain the battery, this is the same principle as draining a car battery below 10volts, it just shortens the battery life,

If you are using the drill at home you can just buy a Sealed Lead Acid battery, get some crimp connectors, heavy duty Twin Wire, (like speaker wire but thicker), and solder the cable to the inside of the stripped out battery case, slightly clumsier but still very much portable, the link below shows one way of doing it, I just used cable ties and hot melt glue to attach mine to the base of the drill (fairly heavy and clumsy but suits my usage, you can use a standard car battery charger then,

Try these sites, Jaycar is an Australian company, they will do mail order, but you will get an idea of what to search for,

Replacement batteries- http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=SB1618&CATID=18&form=CAT&SUBCATID=283

Sealed Lead Acid Battery- http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=SB2484&CATID=18&form=CAT&SUBCATID=250

Charger Kit- http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=KC5453&CATID=25&form=CAT&SUBCATID=821

There is another kit that you can add on to cheap car chargers, but I can't seem to find it at the moment

Drill Modification Details- http://autospeed.com/cms/A_110871/article.html

Check the AutoSpeed site for things like cheap chargers and bench power supplies from old computer power supplies, a mate and I built most of these sorts of things before this bloke started his website, most of them are still going 10-15 years down the track

 

[evintho]

Yes please!!
Who has the cheapest 3300mah rechargeable batteries?? Or even 2400mah??
I can't find a penny's discount anywhere on the planet! And I have been looking for years!
I have a couple of dead drills like everyone else I guess.
I have given up buying more until I can find a decent connection for batteries!
Anybody??
yours Scott

I assume that's Happy Camp, CA.
I just had 2 DeWalt 14.4v batts rebuilt by this guy. He's in Ceres, CA. Sent them out on Monday, had them back by Friday! $45 each. He does good work!

Battery pack rebuilds

 

[Rusty Kustoms]

Just buy Rockwell, lifetime battery replacement.

 

[Rockaholic555]

You can buy sub-C sized cells with solder tabs and pretty much rebuild them yourself. We've got the welder here to do them which makes things easier for me lol, however holdmybeer is right. SLA's will give you very decent runtime and still remains quite portable if you run your leads right. Using the SLA limits the voltage by factors of 6, but since most of us are probably using 18v systems it's not really a problem. You can pick up a little half amp 6v or 12v charger with an indicator for about $20 from several places around here. Hit me up if you have any questions or try to rebuild them yourself.

 

[rsanter]

what brand
I just got back from the local LOWES
it like like they put new cordless tools up for the comming holiday
they were clearancing out some of the old tools but what was wierd was they were selling the new case,batteries, and charger from the new tools just put out on display
I got the case, 2-18v dewalt batteries and the charger for $50.
this past weekend I was just noticing that my batteries I do have are not as strong as they used to be and I was dreading having to replace them
problem solved

bob

 

[IDASHO]

We actually have a battery rebuild program at my work (Do it Best)

Same game plan as tool repair. Drop off the tool (battery), pay for freight out, and it goes back to the manufacturer or local tool repair outfit and is refurbished to like new. For batteries, it is almost always cheaper than new.

 

[paranoid56]

You can repack them yourself, but the service life may be no better than what you are getting from the standard or even rebuilt packs,

One of the common myths with Ni-cad batteries is to completely discharge them so they don't build up a memory effect, the best time to put them on charge is when you are drilling the speed slows right down, not after doing 5 or 6 holes in timber, a lot of people used to jam to trigger to totally drain the battery, this is the same principle as draining a car battery below 10volts, it just shortens the battery life,

this is not a myth. as a avid RC racer nicads do build up memory. discharge them all the way. and thats not the same principle as draining a car battery, two totally different battery types. this just goes for ni-cad not ni-mh

i usually figure out what type i have then buy some that are the same kind but higher mah rating and solder them in.

 

[holdmybeerandwatchthis]

Depends on what you class as completely discharged, when your car stops running is the best time to charge them, a 6volt pack will probably still have 3.5-4.5volts in it, a lot of people, myself included built gadgets with light bulbs to take the cells down to 0v, this damages them, eventually forever

 

[holdmybeerandwatchthis]

I just googled Ni-cad battery characteristics and found this, explains in more presice detail as to what I was trying to get at:

http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/hayles/charge1.html


Quoted from the above site:

MEMORY EFFECT MYTH

Possibly the biggest myth that exists partcularly for NiCd cells is the "memory effect". Almost every one quotes it as the reason that cells have to be completely flattened - otherwise they develop some sort of memory, and can only hold a partial charge from there on. Like all good stories, this one has a grain of truth in it! The myth originated from the early days of satellites when they were using solar cells to charge batteries and because of the orbiting of the craft around the earth, the batteries were subjected to precise charge/discharge cycles many hundreds of times. The effect disappears when the battery cycle is suddenly varied, and it is extremely difficult to reproduce this effect even in a laboratory. So the "memory effect" is not a significant problem in home usage.
What I can tell you is while it may be OK to discharge individual cells to 0V, it is certainly not recommended to discharge an entire battery of cells. The reason is simple. When the battery is discharged below 0.8V per cell, one of the cells is inevitably weaker than the others, and goes to zero first. If the battery is further flattened this battery becomes charged in reverse, which again makes it still weaker. This creates a more common but less commonly known effect called "voltage depression". Eventually the battery's performance drops off quite suddenly which ironically is the very thing that the user is trying to prevent. Most users know where the battery's "knee" occurs; it is when the original equipment first starts to show signs that the battery performance (and hence voltage) is suddenly dropping, and it is a good idea to place it straight on charge at this point. Usually there is less than 5% of C remaining anyway.

 

[tpolley]

batteries plus will rebuild a 19.2 volt craftsman/die hard for $55. $5 cheaper than buying a new one, about half the cost of a new dewalt or milwaukee. i guess rebuilding/recycling is better than buying a new battery and tossing the old one.

 

[scottg1952]

i usually figure out what type i have then buy some that are the same kind but higher mah rating and solder them in.

Yeah, I'd like to. But I can't find even 2400mah sub c's to solder in, for less than 2 bucks apiece, shipped. That would have made the 18v drill #32 just for batteries so do yourself.
And you can buy another whole drill with batteries and charger cheaper than that sometimes.

Once again, and please, who sells the good batteries cheap?
I have to have really cheap.
I am not weird, I'm just honestly poor.
yours Scott

 

[holdmybeerandwatchthis]

Yeah, I'd like to. But I can't find even 2400mah sub c's to solder in, for less than 2 bucks apiece, shipped. That would have made the 18v drill #32 just for batteries so do yourself.
And you can buy another whole drill with batteries and charger cheaper than that sometimes.

Thats cheap, we can't even buy crappy chinese rubbish for less than $5 each

CHEAP NO NAME BRAND =
1.8AH SUB C RECHARGEABLE NI-CD BATTERY - SOLDER
- Charging - Standard charge: 180mA, 14-16Hrs- Quick: 600mA, 4-5Hrs...more...
QTY
1+ $6.95
10+ $6.25
20+ $5.50


SANYO = GOOD QUALITY, RRP $9.95
4/5 Sub C Sanyo Nicad Rechargeable Battery

Size 33(H) x 22(Dia)mm with solder tabs.ChargingStandard charge: 125mA, 14- 16HrsQuick: 1.9A, 1- 1.5Hrs QTY
1+ $9.95
10+ $8.75
20+ $7.75

Enter Quantity