Has anyone used any of the tools, or tried methods for renewing or reviving cordless tool nicads that won’t hold full charges?
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No, but I have been told this company gives good service at rebuilding them, at rates WAY below most manufacturers - and they don't try to game you. They can't beat the price on the Makita stick batteries, so they don't rebuild them, but offer to sell you new ones.
http://www.voltmanbatteries.com/
This guy is getting good reviews on Woodweb.
http://www.batteryrebuilders.com/
Voltman did my 14.4 Milwaukee batteries. Less than a week...they seem as stong as new, but I've only had them back for a few months. DougU has had a few done, too, I believe. Hey, pocket doors can't come off the track if they're nailed open
Have had good success buying the 18 V Harb Frt. batteries when on sale for 4.95, stripping the 1.2 AH chinese cells out of them and transplanting into either Dewalt or Makita cases.
Hint: leave a tab of the spot weld strip to solder to, do NOT solder directly to the cell, the heat degrades the battery.
Takes about 20 minutes to do after the first, if your "spare" time is more valuable than about $70/hr, this is not for you.
These days, All major brand 18 volt batteries can be had for about $50 on Ebay brand new, so why bother rebuilding?
There are so many folks piecing out combo kits that some even sell a 4 pack for $160. I'd stick with the OE batts, my Bosch 18 volts have been holding up great thus far.
JT
These days, All major brand 18 volt batteries can be had for about $50 on Ebay brand new, so why bother rebuilding?50 beans vs 35...but hey, whadda I know<G> Hey, pocket doors can't come off the track if they're nailed open
When your ni-cad batteries get to where they won't hold a charge for very long, you could try this.. Take a 12volt charger like the kind you charge a car battery with and clip it to the prongs on your drill battery, paying attention to keep the positive to positive and negative to negative. You can figure which is which on your drill battery with a meter.Turn the amps down low on the charger and turn it on and watch the amp meter, it should peg out for a second or two and then return to almost zero. Turn it off at that point,and disconnect the car charger. Now charge it as usual but for overnight. Don't remember where I learned this ,have no idea if its safe,but I tried it on four 18 volt dewalt batteries that were old and dead. It worked on three of them. 3 out of 4 ain't bad. But Like someone else suggested, I'd go ahead and ebay a couple and have em on the way. oh yeah, when i tried this i wore safety glasses:)
On a variation your car battery charger...... guy I know had some old phone system power supply. It was DC voltage and packed a good punch of amps. Sometimes a "dead" rechargeable battery can be "woken up" by blasting it with some heavy duty DC amperage. Yeah, I know it sounds dangerous. The trick was to shock the rechargeable very quickly, apply the juice for a second or 2. It worked 98 times out of 100. Never took the battery packs apart, just zapped the whole thing. It was explained that inside the battery, some dead shorts occured in the structure. The blast of DC amps would break the short.
Do this at your own risk.
Back when I was using flash attachments for cameras there was an article in one of the camera magazine about using a fair sized capacitor to blast ni-cads back to life. Sort of defib I guess.
The finite amount of "juice" in the capacitor is the safety limit.
Yup! This particular deal was for the AA size, said that it blasted some of the crusty build-up between the button cells that made them up.
I used to take the 9.6 batts apart and test for dead cells & replace with good ones from other 9.6, but lost interest - it's close quarters in there. I had some success.
When battery packs go, it is usually because one or two cells go into polarity reversal. if you have an extra old pack, you can open it up and put together a working one by combining the cells after checking to see which ones are good with a volt meter (the needle will go backwards on the bad ones).
WSJ