I have a 9.6 volt Dewalt cordless drill that is in good shape, but the batteries won’t hold a charge any longer than to drive 5-6 drywall screws, or drill maybe one 3/4 hole in a 2 x 4. As we all know you can buy a whole new kit for the same as, or a little more than replacing the two batteries. What are you guys doing in my situation? I have already replaced the drill with a 14.4 volt, which was a no-brainer, the perfect time to up-grade. I just hate to throw a perfectly good drill and charger away (the new 14.4v is a Milwaukee) Any suggestions????
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If you go to a battery store in your area they can rebuild the batteries you have, basically putting in new cells, I dont know what the cost of this is.
Really, wasn't aware of that. I'll look into it. Thanks.
No problem
Good Luck
Welcome to the club - This topic has been talked about more than once around here. Frustrating, isn't it?
I also had a perfectly good Freud drill that I really liked, but with dying batteries. I went to "Batteries Plus" and asked if they could be rebuilt. They said sure - For $90 per battery.
So now I have a new Milwaukee drill.
The best way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once.
I had a 12volt Panasonic re-celled at a Batteries Plus several months ago.
Cost $35 and has performed very well.
If you're not in a rush and want to save some $ DIY.Open up the battery, check out the size of the cells, they're usually all the same, go to a big discount electronics store (the kind that sells capacitors and weird old switches and stuff) pick up some generic cells, did a 14.5 Milwaukee for aprox $18.00 US. Works fine, as far as I can tell, most brands use the same quality cells, just different layout/casing.
Thats what I need to do. I got a quote from a battery store to rebuild my 9.6'ers and it was $35.00 each. I can get a new one for not much more than that.
Edited 2/10/2003 8:22:15 AM ET by MICHAELMOSEL
I 2nd the request to let us know if you rebuild it yourself. I've got a 9.6v dewalt that one day soon will need the same repair, so I'd like to know how you get the battery casing apart. Mine doesn't seem to have anything externally accessible for opening it up.
Rechargeable batteries are typically Panasonic. You can also find them at hobby stores (used in remote control cars).
Regards,
Tim
I stumbled on a place called batteries4everything.com on the WEB. They had my 9.6 volt batts for $27.24 each. That's about $5.00 less that the battery store wanted to rebuild mine. Plus, a small shipping fee, but no sales tax, so I'm still ahead. They are probably generic, but so what. I don't care as long as they keep a charge. They're on the way.
Now I'll try the rebuild route on my own at my leisure. Beware, the battery store asked me if my old batteries were glued together, or screwed together. If screwed, they're rebuildable, if glued, you can't get them open, and they won't try either. You will see the screws real fast. My 9.6 has them, my 12 volt doesn't.
Good luck to all.
Edited 2/11/2003 7:53:05 AM ET by MICHAELMOSEL
Thanks for the update. Mine must be glued, there ain't no screws... :-(
Regards,
Tim
Pat
You might want to start a new thread on Rebuilding batteries...pretty intriguing idea to say the least if you know how. Fill us in.
Be celled
Namaste
andy"Attachment is the strongest block to realization"http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
I'd probably buy a new kit. Then sell the old drill w/ 1 good battery, old charger and case on ebay.
That'd leave you a small lightweight drill for times you want one. If, as I suspect you'll just use the bigger drill all the time. Just sell what you have now. Be honest, just sell the drill w/o batteries.
I'm in almost the same situation. My two 9.6 batteries don't hold a charge for long. They get much worse, and I'll probably auction it off and buy a bigger drill. I've gotten 4-5 years of hard use out of it now, been a good drill, but the batteries are nearing their end-of-life.
Should have read the entire thread. The idea of rebuilding the batteries is intriging. Never heard that before. If you do, please let us know how it goes, and where you got the parts.
Billy
Edited 2/10/2003 3:30:54 PM ET by BILLYG83440
I've Been in the same boat. I tried my local battery store (Batteries Plus) and was very dissatisfied with the price and results. Their rebuild lasted only 6 months.
Since I own a lot of Dewalt cordless tools (7-18v + 3-12v + 1-7.2v) I had a lot of batteries in various conditions (most Poor).
A couple of times I bought the 18v XRP 2-pack which is a pretty good deal, About $60 apiece with tax and/or shipping.
Unfortunately you will probably not find any good deals with Dewalt's smaller batteries. The average price for one 12v XRP is $65
I bought 2-12v XRP's on sale at Home Depot for $126 (W/Tax) only to go over to Lowes and find the 12v Heavy-Duty XRP Drill W/charger and 2-12v XRP's on sale for $99. So of course I bought it and returned the batteries to Home Depot and now I have 2- 12v Heavy-Duty XRP Drills when all I needed was batteries!
With only 2-18v, 2-12v and no 7.2v in top notch condition I decided to find a better more cost effective way than buying more battery packs or shoddy rebuilds all the time.
So after allot of Internet research this it what I found:
Trying to revitalize batteries (without rebuilding) isn't worth the time, at best it's a very short term fix and not a very good one at that.
Just replacing that one or two bad cells isn't a good option either. Because if you've had the battery pack for any length of time the other cells won't be far behind and if you haven't it's most likely under warranty. Send it back!
If you do decide to go the rebuild route, your battery pack must be the kind that have screws to hold the top and bottom together. Some times Dewalt's new tools come with the glued type, although not usually.
The best way to rebuild a battery is with a battery tab welder (Capacitive Discharge welder / CD welder). You can buy a cheap new one for a mere $10,000 - $14,000 or you might be able to find a cheap used one on eBay for around $5,000. CD welder's aka battery tab welder's are what all good professionals use, they weld the battery tab to the battery without generating damaging heat to the rest of the battery. If you are up to the task you could actually make your own CD welder for about $200! I actually gave this serious consideration.
Heat Kills Batteries!! So if you decide to solder them like I finally did keep this in mind.
The first thing you will need is a fairly high powered soldering iron/gun so you can heat up the spot you need to solder fast without heating up the rest of the battery. I bought the "Craftsman Professional Dual Heat Soldering Gun" for $60 from sears. It's 400/150 watts, has a rated soldering temp. of 1000 deg.F. and works better/faster than any Weller gun I've ever owned.
Here's the link: http://www.craftsman.com/shc/s/p_10155_12602_00927320000P?sid=comm_craftsman_productpg
The next thing you'll need are reasonably priced / quality supplies. They can be bought here: http://www.voltmanbatteries.com/servlet/the-NICD-fdsh-NIMH-CELLS/Categories I'd like to add here that by no means am I pushing anybodies products. This is just what I used after a lot of research and maybe it can save someone else some time and headaches. If you can do better by all means go for it! That said I've found all of Volt-Man's products to be great quality and very reasonably priced. Plus if you have a problem/Question you can call and speak to a knowledgeable (American) person since they also rebuild batteries on site.
Keep in mind, I can only speak for Dewalt Battery packs since they are the only ones I have rebuilt but as far as I know they are all similar.
All Dewalt's XR and XRP packs use "SUB-C" type batteries. The non-XR/XRP Battery packs are noticeably shorter and use "4/5 SUB-C" type batteries.
I used these: "SUB-C 2100MAH NICD BATTERY $1.88" and "4/5 SHORT SUB-C 1300MAH NICD BATTERY $1.88" (all with tabs) These are all 1.2v batteries so if you divide the (volt) size of your battery pack by 1.2 that is how many batteries you will need.
Some other things you might need are "THERMISTOR FOR DEWALT & MILWAUKEE" Each pack has one and from what I understand they rarely go bad but for an additional $2 it might not be a bad idea to have one just in case. I bought two, rebuilt 12 batteries and didn't have to use them. Up to you.
And "FISHPAPER STICKER (50 PIECE STRIP)" $10. Kind of allot (50 pieces). This I didn't buy and I kind of wish I did. However I wouldn't buy it for just a couple of battery packs. Dewalt packs have this sticky thick paper covering both the top and bottom of the batteries (one piece top, one piece bottom) and its a real pain to pry off the bottom without damaging either the paper or the battery tabs. I had to use a wood chisel. Keep in mind that you want to keep the tabs intact so you can copy the connections.
Anyway to actually rebuild:
Open the pack and pry the batteries out of the bottom of the pack
Pull the paper from the bottom of batteries
Put new batteries in the bottom plastic casing (to keep shape, you will flip them over later) and copy the pattern of both the tab and +/- layout of the bottom of the old batteries. Trim tabs (where necessary) with common household scissors and solder tab to tab only, not tab to battery (Keeps battery heat low).
Put sticky paper on newly soldered batteries, carefully remove new batteries from bottom plastic case and flip over so unsoldered side of batteries is on top.
The top is the hardest. Remove the sticky paper from the old top and line up tabs on the new batteries. you will have to fold the tabs so they go in the right direction and solder, all but the top battery that slides into the tool handle.
This last (top) battery is kind of a bitch and if you screw just one thing up this will be it. First you have to get that plug off the old (top) battery. A reasonable tap with a wood chisel where the plug is welded to the battery worked well for me.
Now for the new top battery. Cut away paper battery covering where thermistor connects, pull off the top tab and prep all solder points on battery (top plug and Thermistor) and top plug by lightly sanding to rough up.
Pre-solder all prepped spots before actually soldering any thing together. Do this as fast as possible so you don't heat up the battery to much. Let cool then actually solder everything together.
Replace paper and screw case together. FINISHED!
Note: be careful not to get to much solder build-up or you might have a hard time closing the cases with the paper installed. I rebuilt about 12 batteries and had to leave some of the paper out. If you have this problem double-sided carpet tape is a good alternative.
Just so you can see just how cheap this works out to here are some costs. These costs don't include the $2 Thermistor (that you probably won't need) or the fish paper that while nice, it isn't absolutely necessary. These prices also don't include S&H for the batteries I bought from voltmanbatteries.com but their S&H was reasonable and only a small part of my final costs.
7.2v = $11.28, 9.6v = $15.04, 12v = $18.80, 14.4v = $22.56, 18v = $28.20, 24v = $37.60, 36v = $56.40
This has worked great for me as a much cheaper alternative to buying new batteries and all 12 of my rebuilds are as good as if not better than the original battery packs! One year later and still going strong!
I hope this post helps.