Cordless drill with dud battery?
Submitted: Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 10:24
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If your cordless drill's battery has given up the ghost and won't keep its charge you can still use it by hooking up a lead to your 12 volt car battery.Get 3 or4 metres of twin core flex (20 amp or better) and a couple of alligator clips from your local spare parts place.Split the drill or whatever appliance, in half find the positive and negative leads from the battery and solder in your flex.Throw away the the dud battery. You now have a drill you can use when camping or working away from mains power albeit with a lead but thats better than it collecting dust in the back of the shed. This obviously works best on those cordless
tools that are 12volts but I have got my old 7.2 volt Makita drill hooked up this way and boy has it got some torque, just don't know how long it will last !
Reply By: joc45 - Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 10:50
Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 10:50
Good idea! Most cordless drill batteries aren't worth rebuilding, as the cells often cost more than a new drill, so this gives one a use for an otherwise throwout drill.
Gerry
AnswerID:
115344
Reply By: Wisey (NSW) - Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 11:02
Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 11:02
search the archives, plenty of variations.
check post 22936
Andy
AnswerID:
115346
Reply By: Member - Camper (SA) - Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 12:54
Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 12:54
Had exactly the same problem and replaced the useless drill with a new one which came with a spare battery of the same voltage as the old one. So I built a battery case out of PVC pipe on the old drill to accept the new spare battery. Result? Two useful drills.
If you buy el cheapo battery operated drills the batteries dont seem to last and replacement costs are hight compared to a new drill, but if your battery operated drill is a good, expensive one the replacement batteries are not so close to the cost of a new drill that you would want to throw out a good,
well designed tool.
Still, from my antiquated "grmpy old man" tool-enthusiast point of view throwing out a good tool would be like throwing out one of my kids.
My kids think it would be worse!
Cheers,
Camper
AnswerID:
115354
Reply By: Groove - Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 13:42
Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 13:42
The main problem with cheapo drills is cheapo chargers. THe more expensive drills tend to come with chargers that will be kinder to the batteries and hence they will last longer. Auto cut off, discharge, tickle charge etc.
However the cheap ones are so cheap they are virtually a disposable item
AnswerID:
115357
Reply By: troy35 - Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 15:33
Saturday, Jun 11, 2005 at 15:33
Now I know what to do with my cheapo GMC cordless drill. I can then keep it in my camping box for those emergency repairs.
AnswerID:
115361
Reply By: 4X4Treker - Sunday, Jun 12, 2005 at 21:33
Sunday, Jun 12, 2005 at 21:33
Just an extra to what has already been said, a lot of the time recharging the batteries while you are away on a trip can be a pain in the you know what so I made up a plug out of wood that was the same shape as battery and then placed two strips of copper on the wooden plug in the same place as the contacts on the original battery and linked this up with some cable and some aligator clips and you then have the ability to use while away, off of the 4X4 battery and still use it at
home with the original battery, an alternative to this is if you have a dud battery from the drill remove the old batteries and run the cable into the old battery case and solder the cable onto the contacts in the old battery case.
Cheers
Treker
AnswerID:
115486