Cordless drills and battery revival

[L Austin France]

My go to cordless drill is an 18v Li-Ion Duro machine bought from Aldi on 10/12/16 for the princely sum of 59.99€.
Nice case containing drill, 2 batteries, charger, decent drill bits & various bits & bobs.
The compact & lightweight machine (1.3kg inc battery) is used at least once a week & punches in dozens of 50mm no 10 woodscrews, when required, without changing batteries which show no sign of degradation after 5 years.
Probably the best buy of this ilk I've made.

[rsm]

Do you find that battery powered drills and things like that are less powerful than their electric counterparts?

Yes when drilling concrete

[RobertArthur]

@ Char, rsm is absolutely right. For concrete and hard bricks or granite I prefer my good old HILTI TE-10 for holes from 6mm to 12mm. Only 450 watts, goes effortless into concrete, ten holes, hundred, no problem at all. Its SDS-plus mechanism works much better than the simple hammer action of traditional hammer drills. The same goes for the cordless drills.

[niemeyjt]

@ Char, rsm is absolutely right. For concrete and hard bricks or granite I prefer my good old HILTI TE-10 for holes from 6mm to 12mm. Only 450 watts, goes effortless into concrete, ten holes, hundred, no problem at all. Its SDS-plus mechanism works much better than the simple hammer action of traditional hammer drills. The same goes for the cordless drills.

Yes - a pneumatic SDS will always beat a percussion hammer drill. However I suggest a battery SDS drill will beat a mains power percussion hammer drill into concrete.

[rsm]

Not for multipiule drills it won't, nor on cost.

[RobertArthur]

Dispatches from Temptation Island: window shopping again this morning. Special offer: a Makita rotary drill, 36 V, the HR262TDZ, charger, no battery, discontinued model, for only 99 euros (VAT not included). List price of the battery however: 235 euros, so a complete set for about 422 euros (VAT included). Many newer models feature 12 and 18 V batteries. Because my little Hilti TE10 with its 2.87 kg seems to be much heavier than ten years ago another reason to say: nice equipment for much younger ENEDIS guys, not for me.

[RobertArthur]

A suitable case for replacement. Ten years ago I considered this 9,6 V/1,3 amp Makita drill as rather, almost too lightweight. Handy tool for drilling 1 mm holes, framing paintings of the OH. More power and endurance than I thought. This summer the drill chuck however decided to stay in open 10 mm position, nothing helped to get it moving again. Gentle approach, Beethoven music, brute force, you name it. New chuck more than 45 euros. Together with the two batteries with still enough capacity to the déchetterie? No. Also because many new cordless drills start at a drill bit size of 1.5 mm.

Bought a newer one, almost a twin, second hand, nobody buys NiCad power tools anymore, I do, with a modified chuck, two almost dead batteries and a nice DC1414 charger (also for NiMH batteries) for about 15 euros in a nice Makita case (in showroom condition). Out of curiosity I had to check these batteries. Also remembering my father explaining to me, when I was a young boy at the age of ten, battery capacity problems as an effect of the rising internal resistance when aging. Open voltage after recharging about 9 .1 V not the nominal 9.6 V or the almost 11 V of my own batteries. Connecting a resistive load of 8 Ohms they were still capable of delivering about 0.87 amps (should be about 1.3 A) at an initial voltage under load of about 8.41 V. After eleven minutes only 0.8 V and 20 mA. But now I know, very reassuringly, that at least I am not going to throw away something that I might have been able to revive with some effort

[niemeyjt]

An interesting old thread revived. How times have changed - now I wouldn't part with my cordless dust extractors.

The only time I would use mains now is in a fixed installation of, say, a chop saw where the chop saw was also connected to it. And even then, just to reduce faff of battery charging - modern cordless extractors are capable of M grade filtering.

And I still have the batteries I have been meaning to try to revive - one day when I retire!

[RobertArthur]

Being one of the usual suspects here, the guy who can't get enough of measuring, to conclude another old Makita battery, a once brand new NiMH battery, full of promises, introduced to steer away from the NiCad technology. Those red Makita batteries were not green enough.

Last year someone asked me: something for you Robert, this cordless drill, the two batteries are dead as a doornail, I've just bought a new Makita with 18 V Lithium-Ion batteries. Another item labeled: 'to be repaired' made its entry. Purely by chance I saw such a black Makita battery, 14.4 V, 3 Ah, almost hiding under everything else you can expect at a vide-greniers, for only 2 euros. The only thing I bought by the way.

Charged it and measured 16.53 V in no-load condition, a promising start. The beginning of a big smile, bingo? Connecting it to my 8 Ω load: 15.64 V and 1.78 amps. Gradually dropping and after one hour only 2.69 V but still 0.48 amps. Verdict, without smile: who knows, perhaps useful one day, short track drilling.