Any battery experts here?

[boing]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but I can't think of a dedicated battery/electronics site.

My mums Dustbuster isn't holding a charge and unfortunately a new battery is about £40, for that price I can buy a new vacuum and having been forced to retire a cordless drill due to the high price of batteries I decided to look for an alternative source. Unfortunately, being housed in a proprietary case, it's Black and Decker or nothing.

So, I took it apart and took the cell number from the individual cells, there are 8 x D-SC1500P (1.2 volt Ni-Cd) batteries in series. I've read a few suggestions of replacing these with Ni-Mh batteries but having read that these aren't great in high discharge appliances I think I'll stick to Ni-Cd.

My question is, can anyone direct me to a UK source for these? I've found the perfect batteries here as a guide to what I need Dry Cells Batteries - 9.6V 1500mAh NiCd

These are not only the right cell size and voltage but they are packaged exactly as I need them, unfortunately It's a USA based company and I'd be more comfortable getting it in the UK.

 

[wirednuts]

NiMH are better then Nicd in almost every aspect. they work great in high drain devices. NiCd is the cheapest, thats why manufacturers use them.

get the NiMH. and get the proper size.

 

[vshah]

for your power tools switch to lithium ion, the batteries are much more resilient than the old nimh/nicd batts

 

[Charles Kozierok]

NiMH batteries are almost strictly better than NiCds. I believe there are a couple of specialty applications where the latter are preferable, but there aren't many of them, and a dustbuster probably isn't one.

The issue is going to be how they are charged. Presumably this device has a custom charging unit, and you're going to want to replace the batteries almost exactly for it to work correctly.

Much as I hate the disposable society we live in, you may well be better off with a new unit.

 

[pm]

So, I took it apart and took the cell number from the individual cells, there are 8 x D-SC1500P (1.2 volt Ni-Cd) batteries in series. I've read a few suggestions of replacing these with Ni-Mh batteries but having read that these aren't great in high discharge appliances I think I'll stick to Ni-Cd.

This is true. High discharge rates remain the one thing that NiCd's are better at than NiMH. You would be wise to either select your NiMH cells very carefully, or to just stick with NiCd.

My question is, can anyone direct me to a UK source for these? I've found the perfect batteries here as a guide to what I need.

When I lived in the UK, I used to use Mouser a lot. http://uk.mouser.com/ Their search engine isn't very good, but it looked to me that they have what you need based on my very quick search.

 

[cardiac]

for your power tools switch to lithium ion, the batteries are much more resilient than the old nimh/nicd batts

Lithium ion's take a different charger, and I highly doubt if he wants to buy a new charger (If they even make one to accommodate his style of pack)....

 

[wirednuts]

the only issue with the charger is it might have a battery management chip that could possibly detect cell swaps, which would disable the battery pack permanently.

this is normally used in li ion batteries though. its why its not possible to change cells out of many of todays laptop battery packs.

most nicd chargers, especially for dustbusters, are slow charge overnight type, which can safely charge nimh it will just take longer to get a full charge. since nimh dont have memory effects, they are not harmed if you pull it off the charger too soon

 

[Oyeve]

They still make NICD? Man, I haven't used those since the mid-80s and my boom-box days. Sucker took 12 D batteries and charging took 24hrs. and only lasted 2 hrs.

 

[boing]

Thanks for all the replies guys, I had another look at NiMh but I'm getting lots of different opinions and it looks like I need a specific type for high drain applications, it's hard enough getting NiCds' at a sensible price without making things even more specific so i think I'll skip.

Can't source LiIon at all in a sub c size so that's off as as has been mentioned I think it requires a different charging method.

As I'm not an electrical expert I'm going to play it safe and replace like with like and go for a higher capacity of NiCd. I tried mouser.com but couldn't find anything. After searching for other UK based sellers I found BatteriesPlus.co.uk but after a bit of reasearch found a lot of negative reviews for them so I skipped that too.

Eventually I've found an ebay page for an american company called all-battery.com that ships to the UK http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/330401958745?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&cbt=y

Not a bad price either, figers crossed everything arrives.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[pm]

I've used all-battery.com for a few projects. They treated me well and I recommend them.

For mouser, there are tabbed sub-C NiCd's on there (Sanyo 4-5-SCR1250), but I will say that the ones you linked from all battery are better (2200mAh vs. Mouser's 1250mAh) and way cheaper (GBP1.40/ea vs. Mouser's GBP4.50/ea) so your solution is better than my suggestion.

 

[boing]

Must have missed those, thanks for checking PM

Yeah they seem to have great e-bay feedback, a bit annoying that I have to get them flown from the other side of the world and they're still cheaper than getting them locally.....