Making a battery adaptor for a cordless drill.

[Dave Plowman (News]

My day to day set of cordless tools are a combi drill, jigsaw and circular saw from Lidl, all of which share the same 18v battery. I also bought a couple of spares.

I also have an 18v Wickes cordless drill (think made by Kress) which has a very useful right angle drive with it. Which fixes to the body (fast release chuck which gets transferred) So more of a piece than a universal right hand drive.

Of course the batteries on the Wickes are now knackered. Had one re-celled, and that does still sort of work, but was never as good as the originals power wise even when just done.

I've obtained a knackered Lidl drill for not a lot.

Idea is to cut off the battery plate and fit it to the Wickes drill so I can use the Lidl Li-Ion batteries.

Choices are.

Cut the battery plate off the Wickes drill and replace with the Lidl one. Sounds tricky.

Cut a Wickes battery down and fit the Lidl plate to that. So an adaptor.

Any thoughts? What sort of glue and filler would be best?

Probably a job for a decent 3D printer - but I ain't got one.

Obviously I could just by a pukka right angle drill - but they are a hell of a price, and I've already got too many different batteries and chargers.

[newshound]

I thought about this when I binned my Ryobi angle drill, but put it into the "not worth the effort" box. That said, it's partly because I don't do much that needs an angle drill these days (and if I had a need, I could easily afford a new one now).

[T i m]

<snip>

I have ... and am happy to print anything you want (foc) and stick it in the post.

For starters, if you look here:

... and see if you can see anything that might do what you are after and if not (in a single solution), maybe two different bits could be used (for the specific fittings etc) and joined etc?

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I printed one of these the other day:

... for a Makita impact wrench I was given but without the charger. It is to be used as both a USB battery bank and a way of reliably accessing the terminals for charging on my universal charger.

After printing and a tiny bit of cleanup it slides and latches onto the battery in the same satisfying way as a clip in a Glock. ;-)

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Well don't mess with the battery, as unless you are careful it could explode if you shorted something out. So only you know how easy things might be. How about a dummy battery, empty, but with a thick cable attached connected to the non standard new battery. That way you could just make a battery older and it would not have to be part of the drill at all. Brian

[Dave Plowman (News]

Very handy to use, Brian. Think I'd prefer using my mains drill. ;-)

[Andy Burns]

Along similar lines, DeWalt sell a 'battery eliminator' for their contractor saws, so run it on mains when at in the shed, or on battery when on-site

[Dave Plowman (News]

Can see that being useful on what is basically a bench mounted tool. Which is also taken on site.

But not really for a hand drill. Most will already have a mains one lying around. Or even several. ;-)