Replacement/new battery Makita 18V

[David]

At least one battery from my original set of Site (Screwfix) Ni-CD batteries is starting to show signs of not holding a lot of charge.

Searching brings up a bewildering number of options and prices.

(1) The original battery is Ni-CD but some of the replacements are Ni-MH. Should this be OK (IIRC the charger should handle them).

(2) The original battery is 1.3 Ah but some claim up to 3.5 Ah.

Prices are "interesting".

for £27.99.

for £62.99.

Ni-CD - £28.02 for 1.3 Ah or £30.02 for 2 Ah.

I assume that Ni-MH is probably the better option, but can anyone recommend a reliable (!) supplier?

TIA

Dave R

[Andy Burns]

How many tools that take the NiCd/NiMH batteries have you got?

If not many, consider upgrading to LXT tools/batteries

[Theo]

You may also be able to get adapters from lithium ion (Makita, Dewalt, Aldi, Asda Smartprice) to your existing tools. Often adapters don't have battery monitoring so you'd need to make sure you don't run them until they're too low or too hot, but it would likely give a good performance boost to old tools.

This kind of thing:

experience with this particular product)

Although you would likely find a modern battery tool (especially brushless) is a lot better than an old one, so depends what you want.

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

Most of these older tools run on 'sub C' cells that go from around

1100mAh NiCd up to 3500mAh Nimh - but be aware that NiMh do not like being repeatedly flattened and will self discharge destructively

If you can solder, consider recelling your packs - a nice mid range cell is 2400mAh about £2,50 per 1.4 v cell

[newshound]

I've been using third party NiMH 18 volt on my Makita combi for years, also had a couple of 14.4s for the impact driver. Both of these tools seem so bombproof I have been reluctant to replace them, and at Chinese prices not really worth the faff of replacing, IMHO. (I did that in the past on Ryobi stuff). I usually get mine from eBay, they are often branded Floureon (not my typo). I've certainly not had any "early" failures (I "letter" them so they get used in sequence) but have not actually dated any of them.

I would *certainly* not buy NiCad any more (for life/performance rather than environmental reasons).

I am now starting to collect Lidl 20V cordless tools and have a reasonable collection of batteries for them.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Even if only one, it would be worth a punt on the first oneI'd suggest. Brian

[Dave Plowman (News]

I have a much loved but old Wickes drill with a 90 degree adaptor. Think it was made by Kress. Is there a suitable adaptor for that?

[Theo]

Possibly - you'd have to look at model numbers:

although you might be reduced to cutting down the shell of the old battery and grafting on a new one: those Makita LXT connectors seem to be easily available: Theo

[PeterC]

A couple of years ago I bough a 3Ah NiMH Floureon and so far it's been v. good. Not made any more, although Floureon seems to be quite a big company. It might do Li-ion. Your 1st. link looks good - check carefully for compatibility!

[John Rumm]

If the charger is to the normal Makita spec, then it will handle either.

Bigger is better generally. (in general, but take claims of anything bigger than 3.5Ah with some suspicion!)

I have used modern LXT batts on old style NiMh tools - that also works well enough if you take care to not abuse the battery.

[David]

I have 3.

Original Site (Makita special for Screwfix) drill driver with 3 batteries.

Second Makita drill/driver for those situations where you need 2 bits (e.g. drill and screwdriver). Easier to have 2 drills than keep changing.

Makita impact driver because the builders had impact drivers and I saw how useful they were. Prised from my cold dead hand.

So it seems worth replacing failing batteries. The original drill must be at least 10 years old if not more.

Cheers

Dave R

[newshound]

I thought about doing this for an old Ryobi angle drill, in the end decided it was not worth the effort. (I had re-celled a couple of the batteries).

[newshound]

+1. Thought they were a bit of a gimick until I actually bought one

Definitely. A good thing about the "old style" Makitas is that a lot of them were made, so they still seem to be supported by Chinese manufacturers.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Think I will end up making one. Have a couple of duff batteries for the Wickes, and I'd like to use Lidl 18v li-Ion as I have plenty of those. Picked up a body only Lidl drill on Ebay for pennies, so can hack the battery holder off that.