12 volt or more cordless tools

Don't buy cheap rubbish and you won't be disappointed... I have a Makita cordless drill that's 9yo, the battery doesn't last too long these days but it has outlived several cheap jobbies...

Richard

No Mate
I have just soldered some heavy wires, and some clamps, to our old buggered cordless drill, making it a corded drill, and clamp it to the 4B or camper battery.
Virtually an endless battery
Goes everywhere the camper goes.
Too Easy
Cheers Bucky

Richard,

The Ryobi 18 volt stuff is pretty good and not expensive. The cradle for charging batteries has a float mode, so always have a charged battery. they recharge in about an hour.

The battery is common to all the tools, Drill, Circ Saw, Angle Grinder, Torch etc.

We use the stuff in an industrial environment and it gets thrashed day in, day out. The little Circ Saw is 15 months old and nearly stuffed (the bearings are buggered), but I'll just chuck it out and buy another for $98. The Drill of the same age is still going like new and I think it was about $120 with a cradle and two batteries.

When I started up the business three years I bought cheap stuff with a view to updating to Makita or Hitachi or similar, as the business grew. Frankly, I can't justify the expense.

Jim.

Richard,

All cordless drill batteries reach the stage where no matter how long you charge them for, they just wont hold it for long.

The good news is that the batteries can often be repacked, or a "generic" replacement purchased.

I have an AEG drill where the batteries died and found a local supplier who sourced a couple of generic replacement batteries. The cost in my case was around $70 each but the drill is a very good quality unit and the batteries were still much cheaper than buying a new drill.

Bill.

Toss your battery in the freezer overnight then charge it this sometimes helps Brian H

Home handyman drills (and other power tools) are often referred to a 7 minute drills. i.e. the overall life expectancy being about 7 minutues. That's not long but if you cionsider that most users drill a couple of holes here and there then their use is very limited. yes there are exceptions. If you want quality, you have to buy quality. Check the box and look for something like NOT INTENDED FOR COMMERCIAL USE etc and leave it on the shelf for some other sucker.

Richard, when you are Jaycar, take a look at the Notebook 12V to ( 15 - 19V) chargers. 5 A and will do the trick.

You could always buy the new Milwaukee(think that's how you spell it), 5 year or 2500 charge warranty.

Hi All
I don't want to sound negative, but you pay for what you get, if you only need the equipment for now and again jobs, purchase Bunnings Cheapies, being in the Plumbing Trade we get tired of having to get our Power Tools tested and tagged, along with our extension leads ect, so long ago we changed over to Cordless Equipment, we use Dewalt Cordless Gear, at present 18 Volt stuff, it's a bit expensive, but it never failsl, we even have 18Volt Sheers, naturally we keep a close eye on our gear on job sites with all the light fingered b*s around, but like every thing you have to look after it.

Cheers

hi richard
dont know if this retailer sells battery chargers but they have over 2000 thousand batteries avaluble for what ever you can think of including power tools try them they are good to deal with bought 2 12v replacement ni-cd batteries from them online in august 09 for my 12.5 yr old black"n"decker no problems
www.globalbatteries.com.au there at
global battery sales & service
7 davies rd
padstow nsw 2211 aust

hope this is of use to you or other members i just became a member yesterday as i'm convinced it's a very positive thing to do now that the site probs are fixed
cheers barry
sorry dont have a ph no

Richard
year ago I purchased a chinese cheapy from bunnings. went to, batteries plus, got them to take the battery case apart & replace the batteries with good ones. still works today.
was interesting to see what was in the old battery case.

another thing I did, went to Dick Smiths & they have a 240v transformer which has a female cigarette lighter fitting on the cable end. so if u can get yr old drill corded & fit a male cigarette lighter fitting on the end, should solve yr home problem.
cheers Tom

First of all thanks for all the replies.

i went out today and had a talk to the guy at Batteries Plus in Cannington.

He sold me a Swallow AC/DC2 its a Digital Peak charger

* Input Voltage
DC input 11-15V
AC input 100-240V
* Li-Ion/Po : 1-5 cells
* NiCd/MH : 1-14 cells
* Lead-Acid : 1-6 cells
* Charge rate : 0.1-5A
* Discharge rate : 0.1-1A

It can do a heap more than I wanted it for, so it was worth (for me) getting, I will give it a go and report back 2-3 weeks....

Regards

Richard

Just to let everyone know, I tried out my Swallow AC/DC2 its a Digital Peak charger and it works very well.

I turned the 14 volt drill into a corded drill for the caravan, it will be needed to repair all the things that break every time we use it, badly made, but bad luck...

again thanks for the input

Cheers

Richard

ps, I haven't been out and got a new Ryobi yet but I will.

I bought quite a few cheap 18 volt tools 5 years ago (GMC, Ozito, Aldi) and was ready to throw the batteries out last year because they just wouldn't hold their charge.

Then I bought a Swallow Multibattery charger - the largest model that can do 15 NiCd cells - and used it to cycle the batteries - they're all still going strong today.

The secret to along life from NiCd or NiMH batteries that you rarely use, is to discharge and recharge them AT LEAST once every three months. i.e. discharge to 0.9 volt per cell at 0.1 C and recharge at 0.2 C. e.g. if it's an 18 volt 15 cell 1.3 ah battery, discharge to 13.5 volts at 0.1 amp and recharge at 0.2 amp. If the battery is self-dicharging, I run through the this cycle three times - the Swallow does it automatically.

I modified the Battery holder by bypassing the internal indicator so the battery was connected directly to the Swallow charger terminals.

The chargers you get with these cheap tools is what damages the batteries.