Any you guys rebuild your own NiCad's or NiMh power tool batteries? I'm going to do a few batteries of my own and maybe someone has some tips or possibly some "look out fors". I ordered 100 sub c's to rebuild a few batteries I've had kicking around.. I've been asking around my area to see if anyone rebuilds them and everyone says no. Maybe that's an open market for me. It would help keep me busier in the winter.
RP
Make sure they have leads welded on to them. Don't attempt to solder, directly to them.
Lean towrds NiMh if you can get them. The charger requirements are about the same. If you have to use Ni-Cad through the old tools out and start again with LioN tools.
RP
I did order the Sub c batteries w/tabs. I have upgraded to L-ion for my road tools(makita 18v L-ion) and some small shop drills/impacts(12V hitachi) but I have a 3 12V B&D firestorm drills and 6 batteries that I want to bring around. They are short and handy and powerful enough for my needs. They have the pop off chuck that works fine too. I keep different bits in them so I can just keep on drillin' and screwin' at will. I have to believe there's lots of guys in my area that want NiCad rebuilds. I'm going to put a sign out and give it a shot. If I don't get any bites, I won't order any more batteries. I thought we were supposed to bottom post.
RP
There are lots of people on the web that do this as a service. Also several good tutorials with step-by-step and pictures if you just google a bit.
/sawn
NiCad is redundant.
When you choose to have your input read and taken as a genuine contribution? Of course. Usenet is not eMail.
Likewise DNFTT applies. Josepi has stooped to anything to get noticed. Ask anyone using the name "Mike". The little mexican hatez Mikes. Yet loves trolling them, and stalks them anywhere they post. He is one busy Troll. Make the medium enjoyable for all. Read all you want, just hold back "Reply To" when you see these headers: Message-ID: X-Complaints-To: snipped-for-privacy@teranews.com
~enjoy
cHips
Can you get LioN batteries with tabs on them? Where?
I understand they (LioN) require very specialized charging circuits with temp sensors and things that Ni-Cad don't have so I doubt they would be usable as an upgrade.
I post the best method for clarity of reading. People that can't stay on topic get killfiltered.
RP
snipped-for-privacy@p1g2000yqm.googlegroups.com... > Make sure they have leads welded on to them. Don't attempt to solder,
In message , RP writes
Try looking on sites associated with electric powered model aircraft. We have been making batteries out of nicads and Nimhs for years.
In fact we have been known to buy power tool batteries and cannibalise them to provide our RC plane batteries!
Try Red's Battery clinic.
I have built quite a lot of packs in my time and all have been OK.
One thing I have found useful is to use the desoldering wick that is a rope of copperstrands. If you manage to leave a little bit of the wick where it hasn't fluxed up the solder it allows a little flexibility which can help with vibration.
Use a big soldering iron, 100 watts or so and get it hot at the start. Do not use the sort that heats up for each individual joint it puts too much heat into the cell case while it heats up.
Make sure you clean the cells carefully and tin them quickly using the large iron. Then attach the wires with just a quick dab of the iron.
Have some electric freezer spray to squirt on the tinning and on to the joint after soldering to clear the residual heat.
I echo the point about the new lithium cells. They need special chargers otherwise they can be dangerous.
I have not tried making lithium cell packs as yet. However I do believe they sell them with tags on and you can solder the cell tags OK.
One thing you need to do is to hold the cells together and a good way to do that is to push them together and use a blob of hot melt glue to stick them.
HTH
ower tool batteries?
Hey, thanks for the tips George. I misspoke on the L-ion thing. I want to rebuild some nicads w/solder tabs. I upgraded my newest kit to the
18v makita l-ion gig and i'm real happy with that. They say you cannot upgrade to nimh and charge with a nicad charger because it won't reach full charge ever. I'll check out Red's battery clinic. Muchos GrassyassRP
The trouble is that they aren't really much cheaper than new deWalts, and doing it right you need a welder, which costs about the same to cobble up as a couple of new deWalts.
If you've got the welder and can identify the bad cell then fixing them is definitely worthwhile.
Both Ni-Cad and NiMh use a constant current technique to charge and most of these constant current chargers have a high saturation voltage to accomplish this. The cell voltages are identical for all practicable purposes so the added capacity of the NiMh should only take longer to charge.
18v makita l-ion gig and i'm real happy with that. They say you cannot upgrade to nimh and charge with a nicad charger because it won't reach full charge ever. I'll check out Red's battery clinic. Muchos GrassyassRP
Saw an article in an electronics mag where they charged up some biggish capacitors and used them to arc-weld battery packs.
This techniqee used to be to break down the nickle bridges in NiCad cells when they went shorted internally. Most capacitors would not have the capacity to actually weld metal. Most people do not know capacitors have a max. ampere capacity rating. Mostly it is not required to know.
Possibly but usually you give them a very short burst from a car battery.
Remember you're only trying to spot weld very thin metal. I'll try to find the original article if I can.
Elektor magazine Nov 2006.
Guy used eight 10,000 microfarad capacitors in parallel.
Stuart announced;
Same "techniqee"[sic] you (Gymmy Bob/Josepi) use for same reason - internal shorting, of groups. How is it working out for you so far amongst the sawdust sniffers?
Nice one, Stuart. Not something I would try at home though:-]
Gymmy/Josie is smiling.. you took the hook and worked.
Does the article say what the voltage rating on the capacitors were? A single 10,000 uF electrolytic capacitor rated for 160 volts is about $50.
Capacitors of several farads are readily available for not insanely high prices. Battery tab welders have been made from the 2 or so farad 20v "stiffening capacitors" used in car audio systems.
Shoot - the problem is voltage. Kids play with caps larger than that in the small charge and go cars. The caps are up in the farad size but 3v. Kills batteries fast.
Getting a set of those is trivial Making a series set and then parallel sets. The issue is conduction voltage.
If you have clean materials - no much oxides a lower voltage will work.
But I have seen screw drivers used to discharge cap banks that have large hunks flashed out of them in usage.
Hard to beat 24v car batteries - 2 each 12v in series to weld with.
Mart> Stuart announced;
The batteries may be safer...on the batteries. Capacitors have a limited amount of foil and material thickness in them and most come with warning not to short them out as it blows holes in the foils or conductors internally.
Thanx for top posting. It works much better than the garbage confusion at the bottom.
Getting a set of those is trivial Making a series set and then parallel sets. The issue is conduction voltage.
If you have clean materials - no much oxides a lower voltage will work.
But I have seen screw drivers used to discharge cap banks that have large hunks flashed out of them in usage.
Hard to beat 24v car batteries - 2 each 12v in series to weld with.
Martin
35V - about the size of a "C" cell.
The capacitors are charged using an ordinary bench power supply because, in effect, the current can be can varied by varying the voltage on the capacitors. Looking at the article it is slightly more sophisticated in that it uses a handful of BUZ11 mosfets and a microcontroller (though the microcontroller could be replced with a comparator and 555 timer).
The microcontroller circuit detects when you are holding the two tags together, waits one second and then turns on the welding current using the FETS.
If you want to know more I believe you can download the original article from their website for a small fee.
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