I need a cordless drill

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Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
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OP, if you want to send me your battery I'll revive it for you. :) Shipping it back and forth may be as much as a new one though.....

I've thought about getting into the tool battery business, but I'd have to sell eleventy gajillion of them to make any money. Not sure if it's worth it.... I don't think most people consider them repairable, just disposable.
 
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Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
8
81
Carson Dyle said:
Does that require special equipment, such as a modified charger? If not, just walk him through the process.
Click to expand...

It might, depends on the charger this thing uses. I could certainly do it faster, with a better gauge of the condition of the battery.

The basic idea is to let it charge for 16-24 hours, use until it slows(preferred) or stops. Repeat. It should get better and better with each cycle. The first few will probably be very short.

So it will take some time and effort to go through the process, and it will probably be difficult to tell when the battery has fully recovered unless you really get into it, measuring how much time before the drill slows/stops and such.

If the results are the same after ~3 cycles then the charger isn't capable of recovering the batteries; shame on them.

Nickel batteries are very robust and can be great batteries though. I have some General Electric NiCd from the 70s that still work. That's why they still make/use them.

Lithium polymer batteries will never last that long; someone said 3 years whether in use or not. That's worst case; it's more like 5-7.
 
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Howard

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
47,982
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Eli said:
It might, depends on the charger this thing uses. I could certainly do it faster, with a better gauge of the condition of the battery.

The basic idea is to let it charge for 16-24 hours, use until it slows(preferred) or stops. Repeat. It should get better and better with each cycle. The first few will probably be very short.

So it will take some time and effort to go through the process, and it will probably be difficult to tell when the battery has fully recovered unless you really get into it, measuring how much time before the drill slows/stops and such.

If the results are the same after ~3 cycles then the charger isn't capable of recovering the batteries; shame on them.

Nickel batteries are very robust and can be great batteries though. I have some General Electric NiCd from the 70s that still work. That's why they still make/use them.

Lithium polymer batteries will never last that long; someone said 3 years whether in use or not. That's worst case; it's more like 5-7.
Click to expand...
Why not just put the battery on a resistive load? That way you don't even need a tool.
 
E

Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
8
81
Howard said:
Why not just put the battery on a resistive load? That way you don't even need a tool.
Click to expand...

Sure, you could do that too. I just figured the tool is the easiest way since you have it; tape the trigger on.. And it has a natural warning sign that the batteries are getting low, tool slows and the pitch changes.

I emphasize only draining the pack until the tool slows rather than until it stops because NiCd batteries are very susceptible to being damaged from cell reversal. I think you're probably familiar with these concepts, but for those that aren't...

Each NiCd cell has a nominal voltage of 1.2V. So the tool battery is made up of many cells in series to get up to the 18V or whatever the tool uses. Even the most perfectly "matched" battery packs aren't absolutely perfect - there is always a cell with the lowest capacity. If you keep running the tool when that first cell goes empty, current actually flows through the cell in reverse. In a NiCd cell, this action permanently converts some of the active cadmium hydroxide into metallic cadmium dendrites or whiskers. This exacerbates the problem by further reducing the capacity of what is the lowest capacity cell, helping to ensure that the damage will continue again next time. As the damage continues the dendrites can grow through the separator and short the cell out, prematurely ending the life of the pack.

You'll greatly extend the life of your NiCd tool battery if you make it a habit of switching batteries as soon as the tool weakens. Anyway, I mention this because there is no point in him excessively damaging his essentially brand new battery... though he doesn't have anything to lose either, since it's not currently working.

Lithium batteries don't have this problem since, well, if you discharged them completely empty they would potentially burn your house down, and certainly wouldn't work anymore. So, they have the "no fade" "feature" that someone mentioned, which is actually just the protection inherent to lithium ion batteries.

LOL, marketing.. Not that I don't do it :D
 
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herm0016

herm0016

Diamond Member
Feb 26, 2005
8,516
1,128
126
edro said:
Most recent lithium cordless drills (and impact drivers) are good from DeWalt, Makita, Rigid, Ryobi, Milwaukee.
You can't go wrong with any of them.

I would personally go with Rigid for the life time warranty on batteries.
I personally have DeWalt (work) and Ryobi (work and home), and love them all.

Anything from the last 5 years is amazing compared to anything 10+ years ago.
Click to expand...

I am very happy with my rigid tools. almost everything I have has ended up being ridgid from hybrid tablesaw, sanders, battery stuff, and one of my nail guns. I have been very happy with all of it. I have gotten 2 of my old Nimh batterys replaced with li-ion for free. Picked up a couple of the 4 ah last weekend for $99 and they last a whole day of installing cabinet doors and drawer fronts.
 
jlee

jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,518
223
106
Look at the overall product line of whichever company you are considering - you should buy all future tools from the same line so you can share batteries/chargers.
 
JEDI

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
29,391
2,738
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herm0016 said:
I am very happy with my rigid tools. almost everything I have has ended up being ridgid from hybrid tablesaw, sanders, battery stuff, and one of my nail guns. I have been very happy with all of it. I have gotten 2 of my old Nimh batterys replaced with li-ion for free. Picked up a couple of the 4 ah last weekend for $99 and they last a whole day of installing cabinet doors and drawer fronts.
Click to expand...

rigid batteries charge SOOOOOOOOOO slow compared to Hilti.
for a 5ah battery, it takes 1 hr per bar. battery has 4 bars
 
Rakehellion

Rakehellion

Lifer
Jan 15, 2013
12,181
35
91
Eli said:
OP, if you want to send me your battery I'll revive it for you. :) Shipping it back and forth may be as much as a new one though.....

I've thought about getting into the tool battery business, but I'd have to sell eleventy gajillion of them to make any money. Not sure if it's worth it.... I don't think most people consider them repairable, just disposable.
Click to expand...

I'm conditioning it now. But how long should a Ni-Cad battery take to charge from empty to full? It seems like it takes a really, really long time and that's reason enough for me to go Li-ion.
 
herm0016

herm0016

Diamond Member
Feb 26, 2005
8,516
1,128
126
JEDI said:
rigid batteries charge SOOOOOOOOOO slow compared to Hilti.
for a 5ah battery, it takes 1 hr per bar. battery has 4 bars
Click to expand...

mine 2 ah take maybe an hour? never been a problem for me, I have an old charger that works with multiple kinds and a new one that is only for li-ion.
 
D

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,329
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Rakehellion said:
It's 45 bucks, homie. I'm not building the Titanic.
Click to expand...

I learned a very long time ago not to cheap out on tools. It usually ends up costing you more in the long run. You don't have to get the badass Dewalts like I have but I'd highly recommend ponying up a few more bucks and getting a real cordless drill. I'd give that one to my 8 year old to play with while I get real work done.

Hell go to Harbor Freight and get one there for $50 if you really want to go that cheap but I'd really take the other advice on the extra $15 for the Hitachi.
 
E

Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
8
81
Rakehellion said:
I'm conditioning it now. But how long should a Ni-Cad battery take to charge from empty to full? It seems like it takes a really, really long time and that's reason enough for me to go Li-ion.
Click to expand...

What's the output of the charger? It should say somewhere on it.

It can be anywhere from 1hr to 16hrs, probably trending towards the latter. The cells in your battery are 1500mAh, it looks like. So a 1hr charger would have to put out ~1500mA.

Betting that the output will be 150mA, so 16hrs - NiCd are only about 70% efficient across their whole charge range. 16hrs is kinda standard. Higher end NiCd tools will use better cells that can be charged faster; the same is true for lithium ion, but it's not as extreme.. ranging from 1-8hrs or so.
 
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sdifox

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
100,181
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edro

edro

Lifer
Apr 5, 2002
24,326
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91
I'd go with 18-20v.
All of the 12v lithium I have tried have underwhelmed.
 
E

Eli

Super Moderator | Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
50,419
8
81
I cringe to think of you throwing it away, though I bet that's where most of them go. Cadmium is pretty nasty. I think the EU has banned NiCd batteries due to that...

It shouldn't be hard for you to find a battery recycling center where you're at... PITA though.
 
bryanl

bryanl

Golden Member
Oct 15, 2006
1,157
8
81
If it's not quite 3 years yet, your credit card may extend the 2-year warranty, at least if it's not Mastercard.

Try not to fully discharge nicads or nimhs. Occasionally, with emphasis on "occasionally," discharge them to slightly over 1.0V per cell, or 15V for a battery rated 18V. Also don't charge them constantly when not in use since many chargers aren't designed to shut off 100% at full charge, and overcharging makes cells develop internal shorts, but before the first use after purchase, charge for at least twice the normally recommended time.
 
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