*
I have a Freud 13.2V cordless drill that I really like. But the bateries are wearing out, and Freud doesn’t make them anymore. Anyone know of a company that specializes in hard to find stuff like that?
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
Listeners write in about continuing education, minisplit heat pumps, compact home shops, and building science.
Featured Video
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Replies
*
Mr. Hog, sorry just can't bring myself to call you Boss. You might try looking for a place that will re-cell your current battery pack if it is possible. Not sure where you live. In the midwest here Batteries Plus is a chain of stores that does this. Someone has posted a web site for them in a thread I started a while back called "Batteries Again". Anywho, they (Batteries Plus) are rebuilding a 12volt Panisonic battery pack for me right now. $33. in fact I should call them. Should be done. Will let you know how it works out.
Sorry, if this is useless info. - you know your pack can't be rebuilt - but I don't have a source for a new pack for you
*Even on the small sample of Freud battery packs I've seen, there are significant variations in construction among them (probably multi-vendored). That being said, I recelled a Freud (I'm pretty sure it was labeled as a 13.2) for a friend and it was one of the easier ones - check to see how hard it is to disassemble, if you can get in without breaking it, then just pick up some replacement cells and you're back in business (PS, that's all Battery-Plus does).PS, didn't I see somewhere that Battery-Plus was facing bankruptcy and was to be sold to a company that already has a deal to flip the retail sites to Tandy ?
*Phill, I know that is all batteries plus does, but they do it for a mere $3 more than the cells would cost me
*That should be an indicator of how easy a job it is; which was my point.
*Phill, it might also be an indicator that it's worth more than $3 or they would not be bankrupt? Joe H
*Doubt it: the major problem is that they're concentrating on selling batteries and don't have a volume/price equation that closes. Batteries are sold in too many places already with many of them selling on a low-margin basis - tough to get "Mrs. Jones" to make a special trip to your store to buy a package of C-cells @ 125% of the price she'd pay if she picked them up at the check-out line in the supermarket. In the specialty battery market, they're competing against Radio Shack, Future Shop, every electronic supply store, and even the big chain drugstores carry most of the watch, camera, and hearing aid style batteries.Bottom line, they sought to exploit a niche that doesn't exist.