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Can I run drill off of car battery

It should have a fuse that would preclude drawing hundreds of amps.

Reply to
CJT
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yu could use a car battery charger provided it has enough amp capacity

Reply to
hallerb

to determine the amperage draw run the 12 volts in series thru an ammeter while you drill a 3/8" hole in a 2"x4" piece of wood to load its motor. size the fuse accordingly to be in series with the cigar lighter male plug which is already protected to 10 to 30 amps by your vehicle. there is probably a cigar male plug with fuse at radio shack or pep boys. or read the technical information on the label. or simply shop for less expensive replacement batteries but do the homework on the battery type to match the charger type. we prefer the 12 volt makita cordless drills and found a replacement battery with a built-in led light on it that illuminates the drilling area. watch the weights as the drill voltages go up you may find some 18 volt construction duty cordless drills are excessive weight for minor occasional household uses or at the top of an extension ladder playing with the gutters. use a regular 110 v drill for major wood drilling jobs reduces wear and tear on your battery drills.

Reply to
buffalobill

to determine the amperage draw run the 12 volts in series thru an ammeter while you drill a 3/8" hole in a 2"x4" piece of wood to load its motor. size the fuse accordingly to be in series with the cigar lighter male plug which is already protected to 10 to 30 amps by your vehicle. there is probably a cigar male plug with fuse at radio shack or pep boys. or read the technical information on the label. or simply shop for less expensive replacement batteries but do the homework on the battery type to match the charger type. we prefer the 12 volt makita cordless drills and found a replacement battery with a built-in led light on it that illuminates the drilling area. watch the weights as the drill voltages go up you may find some 18 volt construction duty cordless drills are excessive weight for minor occasional household uses or at the top of an extension ladder playing with the gutters. use a regular 110 v drill for major wood drilling jobs reduces wear and tear on your battery drills.

Reply to
buffalobill

Yep, but it is easier to just say 12.6-12.7 because of temperature compensation and many volt meters (maybe most) are less than 1 percent accurate for the readout.

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

Yes, as Rich points out and provide a highly rated link, the generally accepted figure is 12.65V for a 12V lead acid battery, but not all sources use that number and certainly most people can't measure that accurately.

A new 1.5 alkaline dry cell usually reads 1.60V or slightly. The NiMH and Nicads are considered to be 1.2V cells, but a fully charged NiMH gets to about 1.35V, and the common 7.4V Li-ion battery reads 8.25V or so at full charge. OTOH, a NiMH that reads 1.2V or a Li-ion battery that read 7.4V is essentially depleted.

Using different kinds of batteries can be a bit of a mess. Stuff made for alkaline cells, sometimes just won't run on nicads or NiMH cells because the appliance won't work when the voltage is below

1.25-1.3V. For example my GPS made for alkaline indicates that freshly charged NiMH cells are half discharged.
Reply to
George E. Cawthon

you can also use a hgh current AC adapter, 120 V in 13V out in whatever current rating you want.advantage of this is having a handy 12 volt source for other uses, even a car battery charger should do. if its current capacity isnt enough the worst that can happen is a drill with less power

have a friend who tears apart battery packs and replaces just the cells, which he has found are always regular rechargeable batteries. cheaper alternative if your handy and dont mind slodering wires.

Its sad so much is disposable today, battery pack could easily be made to accept new rechargeable batteries

Reply to
hallerb

Your comment makes no sense.

What happens when you plug in a table radio (0.3 amps) into a 20 amp socket?

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I've got an old 12 volt Sears drill for just that reason. And then got a couple Drill Master from Harbor Freight for about $15 each.

Should work just fine. I'm not sure what's the smallest gage of wire that would work (don't know what the amp load is). I'd suggest 16 ga or larger wire. Which would be smaller number. I think it's a really great idea.

Of course, for $25 or so you could get a 110 volt plug in drill. I like saving old equipment like that, too. Some time this winter I've got a couple rechargable shavers that I'm going to externalize a battery for them.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I use mine when out in my 5th wheel. Rarely have electric hookups but I have a couple golf cart batteries for power.

Reply to
Rich256

RC ??

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Reply to
mm

I have an old 12v drill I got from a construction site dumpster. (batteries cost as much as a new drill) I put a lighter plug on it with a 20' cord and I use it on my boat for repairing Nav markers and such.. Works great.

Reply to
gfretwell

The risk of explosion is low, but not for that reason, It doesn't take a large amount of current to cause a hydrogen explosion, and if there is a 10 amp fuse, 9 amps is a plenty large current if it isn't in the wire.

If the current is in the wire, a far larger current is not sufficient to cause an explosion. Consider the hundreds of amps used by the starter motor when the car is started.

Any tiny spark can cause a hydrogen explosion, far less than one amp.

Why you don't see many is that hydrogen is only generated when the battery is charging, not when it is being drained** and in this case the guy using the drill probably won't need to run the engine to run the drill. And a hydrogen molecule is the lightest of all molecules, and they float away as soon as they escape from the battery. Since they are generated under the battery caps, and I think, not sure, that maybe only escape rather slowly, that they tend to build up under the battery caps, and if a spark, from a loosely connected drill, for example, ignites the small amount of hydrogen outside the battery, the burning can spread to the larger amount inside, and that is the explosion.

**Although since one would drive the car to where the drill was going to be used, it would have been charging recently.

The draining, the discharging of the battery, requires hydrogen, but it takes it out of the sulfuric acid in the battery, because the acid is the electrolyte,, and I don't think will normally take it from the gas above the acid.

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Reply to
mm

One measure of power is watts, and watts is amps x volts. So amperage is only current. It's not a measure of power until the voltage is factored in.

I agree with George. The charging voltage when the engine is running is I think 13.4, but the fully charged battery I've always figured at

12.6v. That's, 2.1 volts for each cell.

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Reply to
mm

I think what all this amounts to is that unless one has a lot to spend on tools, it's better to invest in extension cords. They have many uses.

Once I wanted to drill a hole in the top cap of a chain link fence, in the woods. I thought Cool, I'll use my converter. But the little converter wasn't big enough to run the drill. I hadn't noticed how much current drills use. The same reason it takes money to make a cordless drill. (I ended up taking off the top cap and taking it home to drill it. Still haven't used the converter for anything.)

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Reply to
mm

mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Radio Controlled=RC

Reply to
Jim Yanik

Radio Controlled. I used to fly RC planes and race cars as well, We used a hand held electric motor with a rubber cup on the end for starting them. Save a lot of aggrevation. Powerful little motors.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

I thought of radio-controlled as a meaning here, but I couldn't understand how it could apply, and I still don't.

How can any model car use 30 amps? The batteries would run down right away.

By controllers, do you mean the part you hold in your hand or something on the car that controls it?

What makes it 1200 ma if it can put out more than 30 amps. Do you mean mahour?

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Reply to
mm

Lots of good posts....this will work but forget the fuse theory... You need a circuit breaker! that will limit a cranking style of battery (automotive) from frying the drill on stall....On top of that you probably want to use proper connectors as opposed to battery clips that might get pulled off and fry your vehicle's electical system..someone here said 30 amps...that might work...not sure what your model of skil drill is but I am guessing it is about 1.5 amp/hour...so that should do it....good luck....Ross

Reply to
Ross Mac

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