Someone offers to “rebuild” battery packs for about $30.
He said he would use “high output” Ni-Cad’s.
But I think I can do it myself. I think it is just opening up the battery pack case and soldering.
Would someone knowledgeable tell me what is the best replacement Ni-Cad for my cordless dewalt and porter cable drills? Where can I buy them and what is the best pricefor them?
Thanks.
Replies
Get a copy of a radio control airplane magazine. Lots of battery dealers listed there.
Almost all battery packs are sealed units and very difficult to get open and later reseal without special tools and a fair amount of skill and time. You will probably find that the batteries are not one of the common consumer sizes and that they need solder tabs to be hooked up correctly in the very tight space inside the battery housing. Often the individual cells are glued together and almost impossible to get out of the housing without destroying what you will need to save for reassembly.
I'm not saying you can't do it, but after doing a rebuild yourself, the amount labor involved and the cost of the replacement cells will probably make the commercial rebuild price look very reasonable.
I regularly cut open battery packs for technical illustration purposes so I'm quite familiar with the work involved in just getting a pack open, let alone rebuilding and resealing one. I'm fairly skilled at work like this but would never attempt to do a battery pack rebuild with the expectation that it would be worth the money saved.
John W.
He only does the easier ones that can be opened by unsrewing. Dewalt and PC are like that.
He doesn't work on those that cannot be opened by unscrewing.
The problem arises when you solder the batteries together. Prior to retring I made up battery packs using ni cad and Lithium batteries. The heat from a regular soldering iron will ruin the battery, The machine we used was worth approx $ 4000 grand.
Brian
Thanks, I guess that answers the question.
Woodenfish3,
What you need is a capacitive discharge welder. For more info go to http://www.hobbyspotwelders.com . Then if you feel REALLY adventersome, and are good with electronics you can look at http://www.philpem.me.uk/welder/ for info on building one yourself. The only thing I've found is that finding the big caps that are required is a bit of a problem. The capacitance values are available, but finding one in the right voltage can be expensive if bought new. Thank goodness for Ebay!
GT
At $30 each it is a good price. I have purchased 18 volt batteries from ryobi and taken the cells out as a complete unit and put them in another 18 v battery case. It involves checking the polarity of your old battery and making sure that the new one will match. Sometimes you must turn the top battery ( the one in the "stem") to get positive to positive. Cut one metal strip and solder a jumper to re-connect. There was also a spacer in there. It can be done but consider your time vs a $30.00 charge. I paid $30 each for two batteries and then had to spend half and hour modifying. The cells were panasonic in the old "other" brand and also in the ryobi replacements.
toucan
I'd like to know who does that because I've got about four or five cordless drills I don't use any more because the replacement batteries were more expensive than buying a new drill and batteries. For 30 bucks I'd consider getting quite a few of them done.
http://www.voltmanbatteries.com/index.htm
I've had good luck with voltman for power tool batteries. The batteries come back better than the original ones.
Edited 12/13/2005 10:55 am ET by RickL
If you can't get yours rebuilt you might try e-bay, I have had sucsess with it.
Troy
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