Site (Makita) battery replacement - Ni-cad or Ni-MH?

Can you somehow find an adapter to a modern lithium 18v battery system? It's probably night and day better than an old NiCd or NiMH.

Theo

I assume what I am looking at is modern Ni-MH cells in an old style casing.

What would the major difference be?

TIA

Dave R

The sad truth is that in a cordless appliance,. about 90% of the cost is in the battery. It isn't worth going to the hassle of trying to re-battery obsolete kit

Yes, but cross-brand adapters are available in the $10 ballpark. If you can adapt to a modern system and buy a 25 quid battery from Aldi or whatever, it can be economic.

Probably doesn't make sense for standard drills etc (just buy a new drill, it'll have a better motor anyway), but if the tool is specialist or pricey to buy new, could make sense.

Theo

Lower internal resistance = more power under load Minimal self discharge = battery doesn't go flat when stored

Theo

Agreed in that special case.

Yup, the chargers will handle both chemistries and anything from 7.2 to 18V

My original ones were supplied with Ni-Mh, but they same model was previously sold with Ni-Cd.

Have you considered betting some of these:

(I run my original DD, and ID on my LXT batteries now)

Two batteries for £38 so I think this is a lot cheaper than buying new Makita kit. Especially 2 or 3 drill/driver/impact driver.

The Makita kit is old now but it has always performed as well as I need.

Of course the batteries could be of variable quality.

Cheers

Dave R

I tried some "compatible" Ni-Mh batteries, they worked ok at first, but the life (as in recharge cycles) was poor compared to Makita ones, and they were not cheap enough to compensate for the lower quality IMHO.

When I was looking at my third set of replacements, I shifted to LXT and adaptors.

Thanks for all the information.

My quandary is that I very rarely use these tools these days so lack of stamina during long term use is unlikely to be an issue.

Also, I am unlikely to be buying additional tools (apart from the Lidl range).

I am tempted to buy a couple of cheapo Ni-MH replacements and hope that they will "see me out".

I had lost track of the 3 competing technologies.

I assume that Li-Ion are not compatible with my charger and drills in the form factor that I have.

I don't think I can justify buying new battery technology + charger + adapter.

At the moment it is useful to me to have individual batteries in each drill (so 3 batteries on the go) and 3 adapters would be required.

Cheers

Dave R

How cheap is cheap? Looking at the Amazon ones, I am immediately a bit suspicious, since 4.8 Ah does not sound like a common Ni-Mh cell capacity.

Li-Ion has pretty much eliminated the others for anything new...

Charger is definitely not compatible, but the adaptor would allow li-ion packs to drive the old tools.

The main advantage for infrequent use of Li-Ion is the low self discharge - you can put a tool away for 6 months, and the battery will still have useful charge when you go to use it.

If shifting technology, the "budget" way to do it would be to buy a special offer tool - that will give you a charger and at least one battery - often for less than the cost of the battery and charger alone.

(the tool could also be something completely different that you might not have thought of like a hedge trimmer etc - brands like Makita have a vast range of LXT platform tools).

Poor example since you already have a DD and ID, but :

Thanks.

That does look like a good deal.

Cheers

Dave R

It would be if you could actually find any at that price - actually available at nearer £200 rather than the £85 listed there.

These deals tend to come and go, but about £96-97 is a recent benchmark:

Theo

Seems I missed that the Toolstation link above is for two tools not one.

However, beware Toolstation's 'NN% off' prices. It seems to be that they keep a listing up on the website long after all the stock is gone, and the auto-generated '95% off' splash does not reflect the price they would actually sell it for if they had stock.

(it's possible there's one remaining one lurking in the North Uist branch somewhere, but that's no use to most of us)

Theo

Me! I bought the Makita combi drill, as a kit, with three Ni-Cad batteries. The 3x Ni-Cad batteries didn't last for long, before becoming useless.

As replacement batteries were so expensive, and as the charger suggested it supported Ni-MH too - I decided to try rebuilding one of them, with Ni-MH. That worked OK, but eventually I treated my self to a 20v kit from Lidl, so the Makita took rather a back seat.

That was until recently, I decided to try a Ni-MH battery, a Makita lookalike, from Ebay. The lookalike, cost me around £20, and works well

- much better than the Makita originals.

OK - but both out of stock.

Thanks, yes, worth a go.

That depends on the costs involved. Some are worth the effort, for the saving, some not, because batteries are cheaply available. Whereas when the OP's model came out, the replacement batteries were once horrendously expensive, and so well worth rebuilding, now they can be had, ready built, for less than the cost of the cells.

Do you have a link to the supplier on eBay, please?

The problem is that there are so many listed that it is hard to tell which ones are good.

Cheers

Dave R