cordless drill battery

[Peter A. Kaufman]

I have two cordless drill, one has both batteries dead and the other has both batteries on the way out. Has anyone had their batteries rebuilt and were you happy with the results? Who rebuilt them for you? Or should I just buy another drill? Thanks Peter

[Ed Pawlowski]

Sometimes the rebuilds are better than the original. There are a dozen places that do them but I've not had any done in five years so I'm not sure who to recommend. Primecell used to be good, but recently someone here had a bad experience with them.

[Lew Hodgett]

------------------------------------------------- Purely a matter of economics.

If the cost of a rebuild is about 60% the cost of a replacement, a rebuild is probably worth it.

Anymore, probably replace total package.

Lew

[RonB]

Yes and you might end up with better batteries that you started with. I ha= d two or three sets rebuilt when I lived in Wichita. I believe the company= was called Battery Mart. I would Google or hit the yellow pages for loca= l shops called Battery Mart, Battery Shop, Battery Outlet, etc. I believe = there are internet sources too.

The rebuilds were better (longer charge life)and about 2/3 the price of the= originals.

RonB

[HeyBub]

The lower-priced drills come with a pretty dumb charger. The instructions tell you to not charge a battery longer than seven hours because longer charging cycles diminishes battery life. You can address this defect two ways:

1. When you get your battery rebuilt, specify lithium ion ($$$) or other types that are not degraded by over-charging.
2. Get one of these and set it for six hours 've got a #2 and use it for drills, the dust-buster, and a couple of other nicad-battery tools. Works swell. I haven't replaced (nor noticed a weakening of) my primary drill going on two years.

[Leon]

I used to use Prime cell and one of their batteries started pooping out after 6 weeks. They wanted an additional 1/3 cost to rebuild again. I passed

My latest battery is from Batteries Plus, several local stores in Houston and their warranty is 1 year. In this case the batter is for a robot vacuum that is 5 years old. I am on my 4th battery as the 3rd from Prime Cell lasted 6 weeks. The current Batteries Plus battery is "new", cheaper than rebuilt, and with out a doubt has a 30% longer run time. The battery is run continuously 90~130 minutes 5 days a week and is 8 weeks old. None of the previous batteries came close to that length of run time.

[Leon]

cannot substitute lithium ion for another type battery. The lithium ion battery requires a special charger that communicates with the electronic circuitry special to a lithium ion battery.

[Larry Jaques]

It can be cheaper to go to Home Depot and pick up a Ryobi circular saw, drill motor, two 18v batteries, charger, and nice cordura case for them all for $99 than it is to buy a pair of name-brand batteries.

batteries rebuilt one battery for me and I was immediately unhappy with it.

-- Poverty is easy. It's Charity and Chastity that are hard. --anon

[Han]

Leon wrote in news: [e-mail]:

from me.

[Leon]

IIRC they have 500+ stores. Interesting stores, they sell light bulbs too.