Battery Blues

[Steve Wardley]

Hi folks.

I think we would all agree that the advent of cordless tool technology is brilliant for speed and freedom from the socket oulet but if like me you are an amateur/hobby woodworker you can find that it can be quite a while between uses of say a drill or circular saw, unlike tradesmen who are using them all day most days.

Being a hobbyist leads you on to a situation where you come to use your drill and the battery is flat, so you charge it up, drive a couple of screws in and it's flat again, in other words your battery is knackered and won't accept a charge anymore, how many have been here before?

So you do a bit of Googling and find out that to replace your batteries is going to cost an arm and a leg and possibly make it an uneconomical proposition and your drill/driver no more than scrap value.

How have you managed to get around this scale of economics problem and either grabbed the bull by the horns and bought new battery packs (bearing in mind the threat of it all happening again) or managed to have thier battery packs re-celled or just simply thrown away thier perfectly good drill and bought another one.

I've got two perfectly good Bosch drill/drivers that are as much use as a chocolate fireguard just because the cells in th packs are now U/S...... Any thoughts on this one folks.

 

[LancsRick]

The newer Lithium ion batteries are much better in this regard than the old NiCad ones.

 

[Distinterior]

I had a couple of 18v Atlas Copco (AEG/Millwaukee) drills that had NiCad battery packs. I use my tools as part of my profession, so they used to get used daily. Even so, eventually the packs would barely hold a charge. After looking at buying new ones and realising how much it would cost to replace 4 battery packs, I enquired with a company near me who offered a recelling service.

It took about 8 days for the batteries to be recelled and was about 1/3rd of the price of brand new battery packs. The recelled packs also wore out , but overall lasted much longer than the original cells. I believe the new cells that were used were made by Panasonic if I remember correctly.

Try searching for a company called "Combat Alexander". I believe they are up in the North West somewhere, possibly Bolton or Oldham, somewhere like that.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My b.i.l. told me 20 years ago in Auckland (whose power tool markets were ahead of ours at that time, being used as test grounds by the Japanese) that where he worked they always had their gear re celled and that nearly all cells were either Panasonic or iirc Sony, regardless of the price of the tool. I daresay now most are Chiwanese, though.

 

[thetyreman]

my battery ran out midway through glue-up during the workbench, lol the cursing was unreal. I find the aldi 'workzone' drills are superb, loving mine, it's the best drill I've used so far, I can't justify spending a fortune on one, because I don't use it that often, but I do have some high quality drill bits which have proved to be worth it in the long run.

 

[Steve Wardley]

Try searching for a company called "Combat Alexander". I believe they are up in the North West somewhere, possibly Bolton or Oldham, somewhere like that.

Cheers for that, just fired an e-mail off to them.

 

[Distinterior]

Try searching for a company called "Combat Alexander". I believe they are up in the North West somewhere, possibly Bolton or Oldham, somewhere like that.

Cheers for that, just fired an e-mail off to them.

You're welcome Steve!

They used to have a shop in Felixstowe, Suffolk which is where I dropped my batteries off, but they closed it a few years ago and now have one up in Oldham.

 

[dynax]

i had same with a twin set of 14v drills, although not cordless now but suits my needs, i wired them to a car cigar plug and use my 12v powerpack to run them, i took the cells out and wired a 5m length of twin cable to the terminals

 

[sunnybob]

I have a 10 year old makita battery hammer drill. The 3 makita batteries lasted about 5 maybe 6 years. To replace the three was more than the cost of a new drill.
I bought three of the red flouron batteries off ebay at about half the price. They are as good as the makita, holding charge for a long time if the drill isnt used.

I will happily buy the flouron again.

 

[Racers]

That's good to know as some of mine need replacing.

Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A guy did some work for me last week - he told me he'd bought pattern batteries for his Makita gear that were better than the originals.

 

[Selwyn]

I think you can get a lith ion battery adaptor on eBay to fit old drills for some models

 

[Sideways]

The performance of the cells used in powertool batteries is improving all the time as the manufacturers innovate. In the years that it takes your original batteries to wear out, it's very likely that the state of the art will have moved on and the replacement cells will have higher capacity in the same size.
There's an interesting step change just hitting the lithium battery market now. For years the standard size lithium cell used to build battery packs has been the 18650 (18mm diameter x 65mm long) but now the big battery manufacturing plant in Nevada - the "giga factory" that makes batteries for Tesla cars - has established a new standard of 21700. These slightly larger cells have a greater capacity and are starting to be used in the newest high capacity powertool battery packs. Bosch core / eneracer, Metabo HDLi and the new Milwaukee 12Ah lithium pack all use larger cells. I'm sure others will follow but no reason to worry as the 18650's will be still be around for many years to come.

 

[Rorschach]

I think you can get a lith ion battery adaptor on eBay to fit old drills for some models

Yes you can, just like you can retrofit li-ion into old nicad packs. Problem is then you need a new charger too.

 

[Selwyn]

Charger for li ion is only £30

 

[xy mosian]

I think you can get a lith ion battery adaptor on eBay to fit old drills for some models

Yes you can, just like you can retrofit li-ion into old nicad packs. Problem is then you need a new charger too.

This sounds very interesting. Does anyone have more information please.
xy

 

[Just4Fun]

I have tried a few cordless tools and decided that for me, as a predominantly hand tool hobbyist, they are more trouble than they are worth. I stick to mains-powered electrical tools if I need power at all.