Seems my 18V batteries won't discharge, only run good for a few seconds, then rapid rundown. I'm overseas, and my wife has put them on the charger ever so often, but has not used them. My 9.6v are fine, she uses them.
Dewalt said to recharge every 4 mo, and they should be fine. Nope.
I guess (?) lack of use on the 18V has set up a memory.
Anyone have batteries rebuilt? BIL says not worth it. A new drill and 2 batt. at Amazon is $152. Batt. rebuild is $40 ea. Drill is in good shape, that is until I rebuild the batteries...HA!
Going back to TX for Christmas, and she wants the outdoor grill installed. Been in the garage for a year ++. It needs a outdoor counter (kitchen) to set on. Only gonna be 9 ft long, so SHOULD be able to do it. Everything is there, save the PT and backer board.....and batteries.
I had a battery rebuilt at Battery Box, or some such place. Next day I saw a good buy on EBay for the same battery (cheap as the rebuild). Both were for my 12v DeWalt drill. This was about a year ago and the rebuilt one has long gone. The cheap one (a real DW battery) is still going strong. When it dies it will be a good excuse to get a lithium powered drill.
Have BIL give me a call about some swamp land I have for sale. :)
In my world, $96 (at today's prices) for two, re-built 18v batteries, that come back stronger and longer lasting than new ones, does NOT equal $152, even with a drill thrown in, which I/you already own.
I've used my 18v DeWalt drill _hard_ and _long_ for almost ten years ... have four 18v batteries (2 new style, 2 old style), and have had excellent service with these guys:
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Prices have gone up since, but voltman redid my two oldest 18v's earlier this year for $70. These have been rebuilt twice now for a savings of at least $140 that your BIL would have missed out on. :)
I wish my batteries would not discharge. what's the problem? ;~)
Typically on rebate programs you get an extra free drill or driver or sumpin. Nailshooter was indicating last week that Ridgid was including an extra drill at no additional charge. Batteries at $40 each is much cheaper than a whole new set. If you buy a whole new set, you are getting the free drill and 2, $76 batteries. Get the batteries rebuilt or buy new OEM replacements. They will be better than the ones that come in a new kit.
I looked into it through Batteries Plus and it was more than buying a new battery. Hell, I had a B&D cordless drill battery go bad and it was cheaper to buy a new drill, which included a new battery, than to replace the old battery.
How about going for a "semi-cordless drill"? This would more easily apply to a 12 Volt drill--- After thinking about it for years (I used to drill the tap holes for maple syrup with a cordless drill) I finally decided to dismantle the next failed battery and to use its connector to hook up to a garden tractor battery. Yah, it still has a cord, but you can easily carry the garden tractor battery to the site and, with a 10 foot cord, have power miles away from an ac power source. Lasts a lot longer than the 52 tap holes I'd get from a fresh drill battery and the garden tractor battery only costs $20.
Note: I have freed up the connector, but I just got a new drill battery for my birthday, so I have 1 1/2 drill batteries that work okay for now. Just waiting for the next opportunity.
ANd when you are done, you still have a crappy drill with useless batteries ---- It IS a Black and Decker, right?
If the drill you have is a good drill from a few years back, t is likely better than the one you would buy today. Just get GOOD cells (not the cheap chinese crap) and you are good for another 5 years. The cheap OEM B&D will be shot in much less than 2 years, generally speaking.
He will give you all the help you need whether you buy or not. He's just a nice guy.
I recently replaced the batteries in my DeWalt 18V. It was a piece of cake and as I recall the cost was about $78 for the two batteries of better quality.
I have found in the past that if I don't use nicads hard, they die, even if I keep them topped up. And NiMH need to be stored full ... and topped up from time to time. They last longer that way.
After losing several NiCd batteries due to under-use I had my panasonic drill's packs rebuilt with NiMH and that works better for me, even if I pay more. They're more forgiving when being laid up for long periods. My smart charger can recognize them and adjust charging patterns accordingly.
In other words, don't get a NiCd powered drill if it's going to sit around not working for half a year at a time, and don't get those batteries rebuilt i.m.o. if that's going to be the case, 'cause it's money out the window. On the other hand, if you're going to use them a lot, rebuilding is a good idea, or else, change the chemistry to NiMH if your charger can handle it.
It's odd though, on one occasion I've spoken to several tradesmen (2 builders and 2 plumbers) about cordless power packs, and where one raves about a brand and how good a service life the batteries have, another says they're crap and gave out in months ... (this was about Metabo brand we were talking at the time). Go figure.
I'm not sure about Li-Ion tech yet. I have some walkie talkies where the Li-Ion batteries died within 3 years. Got replacements, so that's ok, but again, they spent most of their life in the charger. We use them maybe 10-20 times a year ... I'd say they never ever got fully discharged. ... now I also have a little Bosch 10.8 V driver with Li-Ion batteries, but it's less than 18 months old and I can't say anything about durability of those batteries yet, other than that they're holding up so far. No noticable loss of capacity yet. Virtually no self discharge either.
Peter Huebner wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:
*snip*
Li-Ion batteries have limited shelf life, and are fairly fussy about the temperatures they're kept at and state of charge. You never want to
*fully* discharge a Li-Ion cell, as once it's dead it's dead. They usually have charge monitoring circuits and such in the battery because of serious heat issues.
Most of this is not based on experience, it's from research I did a couple months ago.
The lithium cell itself doesn't care too much about being dead - it's the monitor circuit that won't allow the totally dead battery to recharge, from what I've been told in the computer business. Occaisionally the cells themselves actually fail, but often if you could "bootstrap" them the cells would take a charge.
I have two Li-Ion tools. - SKILL - my beloved bought me for Christmas last year. The one in the shop - a ratchet that I used to drive a hex wrench that was in the charging unit - but didn't last half a summer. It is dead. And I used it a number of times, then stopped using it and it got hot. Hot. The one in the house - a small hand hex tool unit - works just fine.
I always wondered about it, too, the replacement batteries are ridiculous, but from HF they are reasonable, but the plug-in end and latch is always model-specific. The case of a DeWalt battery comes apart with a bit of effort, and the cells themselves are D-size ganged up different ways to produce the various voltages. If we were to buy the HF battery . . . or: Radio Shack and other sources sell the cells separately (and cheaper). What stopped me was the soldering required to re-wire and assemble the new pack because I had heard that heat may cause them to 'splode. Later, I ran across a low-temp solder kit at HF, but never tried it yet.
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