At that price I'm thinking of buying two and using the batteries to rebuild my old Milwaukee battery packs and junk the rest?
The Milwaukee is a 12 volt "Power Plus" with 2 amp hour / 24 watt hour batteries. It's probably close to 15 years old and still a great drill.
I tried the 9.6V version of the HF drill. The drill seems ok, but the batteries are crap. Not just weak, but REALLY weak, USELESS, CRAP. Did I mention HORRIBLE!!! YMMV
Scrapping out new equipment for parts, even junk equipment, seems wrong to me. I'd look at some of the secondary-market sources for replacement cells in the size and voltage you need, to rebuild your packs. Can't remember if MPJA.com still sells naked batteries or not. I'd be surprised if the HF cells were of very high quality. Their tools are designed for people who need them once or twice a year, and don't know the difference.
On 9/6/2010 7:35 AM Tony spake thus:
You might try checking the Harbor Freight Reviews site:
Didn't actually check to see if your drill is reviewed there, but chances are it is.
Actually lemon juice and a copper nail would make a better battery than the HF model.
Bottom center of the page lists additional batteries -- which are 1.2 amp hours. I got one of their 12 volt drills, years ago. Works fairly well for turning small screws.
Youd be better served to send the battery packs to Primecell for rebuilding. My experience with HF batteries, they are very poor quality.
Thanks all. Right on that web page were the reviews that I didn't notice before. Duh!! Seems they replaced a half decent drill with a newer model that sucks. Not only that, but I think they put the old reviews of the old style drill with the reviews for the newer style. Not good business.
Still not too many complaints about the battery but now my planned
*activities* for the day have changed and I'm not sure I'll be able to make it there before they close. It uses a cheap wall wort charger that takes up to 7 hours and you have to unplug it or it will ruin the batteries.... Not a problem since it would be going on my Milwaukee automatic charger, but then again the cheap batteries probably won't hold up to the fast charging from the Milwaukee charger. If I were closer to the store I just try one, but it's almost an hour away. I think I'll pass.
OK thanks, I'm off to Lows and WalllMart.
If it comes from Harbor Freight, it's most likely junk. Actually that looks a lot like the ones I bought at Menards last year on black friday for $13. Except mine were gray. I bought two of them so I had a spare battery. They have no power, would not even take out 2" deck screws when I wanted to replace a bad board. I tried both drills and both batteries. I had to use a plug in drill, which zipped them right out. My old 12V Skil cordless had much more power. I'd still be using that one except the batteries cost more than the drill, and they just plain died after 10 years. While Skil has never had the best reputation, their stuff is high quality compared to these cheap $13 drills. They're just useless.... I only wish I had tried them back in December, because they would have gone right back to the store.
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