I lost my garage and all my metal fab toys a while back. I really miss tearing apart things and reconstructing. I pretty much live my garage days through you. Thanks so much for documenting your experiences for us to enjoy. I appreciate it very much. It helps me when I'm bummed out.
Until I recently retired, I tested hundreds of cylindrical cells a week. Some things you should know. Your battery pairs were badly out of balance when you put the pack together. Lacking a battery management system, the best you can do is top balance. To top balance, set the power supply to the rated charged voltage and charge until the current drops to within a few ma of 0 amps. As it is, the low battery is being reverse-charged which risks fire and explosion. I highly recommend getting an RC vehicle cell-by-cell balancer/charger. They are amazingly cheap and work really well. Finally when each stage reaches its rated charged voltage, immediately disconnect the charger. a Li battery can't be floated, even for a little bit. Second tidbit, 18650 batteries are generally rated at either 1.8 amps or 10 amps. ANY chicom cell will test out to 1.8 or less amps, regardless of their marking. Note that I'm saying amps and not amp-hours This is the best 10 amp cells that I've been able to find. www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0768WY3ZN/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 That's about the highest amp-hour rating you'll find in the 10 amp cells. My (pre-home depot) Dewalt 17 volt drill draws around 25 amps when nearly stalled. So even the above cells would not cut it in 2P configuration. A friend operates an electric motor repair shop and within it is an authorized Milwaukee service center. I help him some when he get covered up with repairs. Which is frequent, these days. It's disgusting what both Milwaukee and DeWalt have de-contented in an effort to meet Home Depot and Lowe's price points. No machined parts anymore - everything is either plastic or sintered iron or brass. My friend will probably give up the franchise at the end of the year.
A good idea in principle. Unfortunately, multiple lithium ion battery packs in series must be balanced otherwise the pack will only be as good as its weakest cell The lower capacity cells will tend to over-charge, conversely, the higher capacity ones will under-charge. Which is why all L-ion battery packs have charge control circuits. Plan B would be to just repack the battery container with a set of quality nickel metal hydride batteries.
There was a young lady from Sion, She charged her batton with lithium ion, She said it chooches much slower, 'cause the voltage is lower, but stamina is more like a lion. (Pardon the paraphraze)
There was a young girl who begat Three brats named Nat, Pat, and Tat. It was fun in the breeding, But hell in the feeding, When she found there was no tit for Tat.
You can rebuild your NiCd packs with new Sub-C NiCd cells. Then everything works the same as before. You can get new pre-tabbed cells so you don't need a spot welder for assembly.
I'd not recommend to remove the welded tabs from 18650 cells: First, there is a chance to puncture the cell, since the metal shell is very thin (to minimize the weight and maximize the inner space). Second, one has to solder directly to the cell without tabs. On the negative side (which is directly the shell) this heats up the cell's insides quite a bit, and on the positive terminal, the heat may damage the seal or the PTC fuse ring. Just cut the tabs to a length of a few millimeters and solder the cables on the ends if you don't want the cells to lose any chooch.
You need another pair of cells in there >< then it'd work great (that 4.1v a cell is going to be more like 3.7v under load, fer a grand total of 11.1v) That's why it worked decent for a few seconds, once you lost the top charge it went to shit. Put another pair of cells on top, get some longer screw's for the battery case and fill the gap with electical tape.
I have a really old drill with a head that goes to all angles, purchased it when I was a nipper, its planked out the way of the misses so she doesn't take it upon herself to clear out my stuff and me with it. I think I am going to resurrect it and bring it back to life...thank you sir genius that you are I focused like a puck and kept my tadger off the ice .
yes he did. he grazed the outside shell of one of the batteries. On one side it's no problem since it's the right polarity. Not the case on the other battery.
I loved my old Milwaukee 14.4 drill driver. It was close to my 14.4 Porter Cable. That was a scookum choocher back when the New Yankee Work Shop was sporting Norm Abrams Delta and Porter Cable tools. I hated that lucky bastard. Mr. I got to have all the cool tools that no regular guy can afford! GOD bless you brother!
Now my entire family uses the terms Skookum and Choocher. We left Surrey two generations ago for the States and thanks to you we are slowly devolving back into Canadianicans.
Those 4.2V batteries drop to 3.7V when they are under load. I think 0.2 c ( their mha rating *0.2 ) would put them at 3.7 so you are in fact getting 11.1V or so. Try putting one more bank of two in series. She'll work wonders.
Yep. If the bottom of the case can be extended or take an extension in the form of a 2x18650 cell holder, he's in business. On Ebay, you can get those for a couple bucks a dozen without the electrical connections (designed for allowing cooling air through a battery bank) or the traditional springy ones at $3/5. +Rinoa Super-Genius even has a downloadable 3D print file for the former if AvE.can access a 3D printer.
Those Lithium Cobalt cells are not suitable for a continuous draw of more than about 1-2A and the drill will be taking at least 15A. You really want the Lithium manganese cells, some of which can handle 30A. You're right about safety too, trying to draw that much current from an unprotected Li-CoO2 pack essentially turns it into a hand grenade.
30a still seems low. my not special at all li-po pack is rated for 45c continous with 4,5ah. probably it is larger than the types you mentioned, are there other disadvantages?
waldsteiger Yeah, I think a typical 18650 capable of supplying 30A would only be available in sizes up to about 2Ah, so in terms of C rating that's about 15C. Li-Po cells are also not constrained by the size of the can so they can be optimised a bit more for high current too.
there was a young harlot of Montague, that filled her vajayjay with glue! she said with a grin, ``if they pay to get in, they`ll pay to gt out of it too``! 10/10 this is goin on my english exams,
I made 25V for 14.4V bosch impact screwdriver... I know its overkill but It gets the job done much faster than dewalts 20V version... It even put 10x200mm wood screws into hardwood till the bolts head snapped off! The switch was rated 24... The 12V one was rated 15V... Both work at 25! Today's batteries and oldschool tools with proper brushed motors- Profit!
just as a little bit of friendly advice and help, the problem that you are having with the batteries not providing enough power is due to the maximum discharge C-Rating, (and how many of them you have in parallel like you were saying) but what you probaly did not realise is that under load (when the drill was drilling) the voltage of the 3 batteries together likely dropped much below the voltage you measured afterwards. I have also done a similar project and I found that for my 4 batteries in series pack with 2 in parallel the pack was getting down to ~9v under load and then recovering to ~16v a few seconds after the drill was turned off. like you say though the only way to improve this is to get better batteries. also, I would not advice charging all of the batteries together at a constant voltage/current as this could lead to an imbalance between the 3 series cells. A better way to do it would be to add a port on the battery where you had individual connection to the 3 series batteries and then charge them individually. just a handy tip for if your not looking to burn your house down
Yeah im pretty sure dave has done a video about the recovery potential of batteries, right after he debunked the batteriser, and essentially the only way to properly measure the voltage is not just at source but under load, not out side the monkeys ass, inside the monkeys ass!
I did this very same mod about a year ago to my B&D hand drill, but decided to add the protection/balancing circuit as well (5$ on ebay), all works really well charging wise, with the small exception of peak current spikes on startup - the darn circuit has some built in over current protection and will stall the drill when you go full throttle from standstill with some load on it... works fine if you throttle it up incrementally though, will not stall on full load while running "one of these days' I'll reverse engineer the protection circuit and adjust the peak limit, and maybe even add some boost converter to keep the voltage constant for the motor, one of these days... :D
I did this, but used a 4s lipo rc battery from Hobbyking. comes about 16.8v fully charged. you can buy them in different sizes & capacities to fit inside the doobleydoo. A green multistar 1400 mah 4s can do 60-80 amps for between $15 $20 pesos. Just buy a cheap lipo charger and they are easy to charge. Got a video where I did this on my channel. I'll post a link if anyone is interested.
Few things to point out. 1) If you just charge all the (questionable) cells in series and they're not all perfectly matched (they never are doubly so for salvaged batteries) then the pack will die a lot faster. It's best to always balance charge them. You could bring balance leads out and use a cheap Chinese balance charger. 2) Lithium cells don't do well being discharged below ~3v/cell. Seeing 1.5v at any time, I'd immediately assume they're toast and recycle them. After watching the end it's pretty clear they are toast. 3) guessing at SOC (state of charge) from an unloaded cell voltage can be deceptive.
Maybe you should bone up on testing cell capacity before you glue them in the only case you have... You can also get protection circuits cheap on fleabay. Might be worth the price.
I had an 18v NiCd Milwaukee. Heavy as all hell and a beast amongst drills. It was very torquey, took a repeated beating, and outlasted all the other drills. Fwd 10 years, the spindle bearings were sloppy as something on the clearance corner for $20 and the batteries were starting to fade. In a final act to heroism, it plunged 7 ft from a ladder hitting my then pergo covered floor and the whole battery mount snapped off... Sad day. But it still outlasted my second longest lived cordless, 14.4 rigid. 😂🤣😂🤣
that only has a max current of 8A, not even close for a drill Makita use 25A discharge rated cells 2 in parallel that's 50A and 5 in series to make 18v, @12v the amperage could be even higher
He is using the right charger, at least. Who knows if the cells are going to stay balanced without circuitry though. Would be nice to see this with some protection, maybe even a thermal sensor to be safe...
If using cells from the same source/batch and none of them are dead, not having a balance circuit "should be fine," but if they're from different batches and have different internal resistances, or if a cell dies, it will almost definitely become a problem. Definitely better to balance them if possible, though.
www.batteryspace.com/Protection-Circuit-Module-PCM-with-Equilibrium-Function-and-Fuel-Gauge-for.aspx Something like that would work better, 10A continuous, 14A +- 2A overcurrent. Assuming you switch to a 4S setup.
I've done this using small sealed lead batteries. If you don't mind the extra weight, it works well. Plus you charge after using the drill (since Pb batteries like to be stored full) instead of having to put your project on hold while waiting for the stupid battery to charge.
CLEAR AND LABELED STORAGE CASES? NO, NO, NO! They HAVE to be in the exact same cardboard apple boxes from the local grocer, or in kitty litter plastic bins, but NEVER, EVER LABEL THEM!
Did this too, but used 8 cells (4S2P) and put some connectors for RC models on it, for charging and balancing. This way I can charge it with a normal RC battery charger and have no problems with unmatched batteries. Works like a charm and the batteries have a god amount of capacity left, the power lasts very long.
I have an old 18v Milwaukee set. I found a 2200mAh 40C lipo pack from Hobbyking that fit almost perfectly inside the case. To get by without a protector circuit, I brought the balance plug outside of the case and connected it to a low voltage buzzer. I was able to rebuild 2 packs for $50 not including the now required balance charger. Also, DO NOT simply multiply the voltage to charge it through the primary connector. If one of those batteries shorts, you are now putting 6v through the other 2 which could make them explode.
Retrofitting without any sort of balancing or over charge/over discharge protection is a sure way to cause a fire after a handful of cycles. Be careful with Lithium in series!
I would have added leads and maybe a port so could balance later if you wanted. 18650's, especially the protected ones really aren't that bad when you fail them electrically, ask me how I know...lolliez
Why don't you cut the case in half sideways? You'll then have enough room for additional batteries and the the important top connection geography will remain intact. To easily rejoin the two halves of the case simply use a couple of turns of duct tape and that way you would have a useable battery with ample voltage and easy access to the innards.
Just mount some batts on the outside of it too. Drill some holes in the case to the inside to connect them to the rest of the batts. Wrap it in a bhut load of tape or pot them on with a good substance. The reason that the Lith ion batts don't give as much power is that NiCad batts, as a characteristic, give constant voltage till nearly the battery is discharged. Other types, generally, will decline in Volts until total discharge. ...Amirite? The batts we use on our -8 aircraft at work are two 75lb nicads in parallel to assist in batt starting the engines. Beefy as fork! Nicads are old tech and more bothersome but they provide great power if you know how to take care of them.
I have one word for you: Batteries Plus. OK, that's actually 2 words, but you get the idea. They will happily rebuild your old battery pack to Better Than New. I've used them several times to rebuild the battery packs for a couple of Harbor Fright right dangle drills I have that Harbor Fright quit carrying batteries for. The rebuilds are WAY mo better than the originals For Milwaukee they'll probably be at least as good.
You can rebuild the NiCd packs yourself cheaper than having Batteries+$$ do it for you. In either case, it's better than throwing away a pack that is no longer available.
48-11-1024 14.4V 2.4Ah battery is still available via Milwaukee, BUT they are not cheap. LIST price is $207.00 but I am sure you can get them much cheaper than that. Nice to see you salvaged some Li-Ions to bring that back to life.
my dad has a old Milwaukee grinder that just will not die. Been around for over 10 years. It has been used and abused. It is so good in fact he almost went and wrote to the company on how good it was. Nowadays tools are not so scucum!!
I picked up this same drill from a goodwill a couple years ago for $4...I found that the milwaukee M28 battery (28volt 7serries - 2 parallel) fit right on er if i ground off one little flange off the drill. This thing rocks! drills 7/8" holes through 1/2" mild steel day in and out...fets in the handle get hott as... but the thing never complains!
Stateside you can still buy a new battery at the Homeless Despot website. Just bought one for my drill 6 months ago. It was worth the $60 to give new life to my old school Milwaukee that actually drills.
I have 4 of the Pistol Grip versions.. I like this style handle because I can put so much more pressure right behind and inline to the chuck... One is less Apt to put an angled thrust to the drill bit, causing the bit to break... Just one Man's opinion... Greg
messing with lithium is fine.. this particular setup you have to charge to specific voltage and discharge not past certain voltage ideally you would want a control circiut. toss the old charger in the bin.
NiCd cells are 1.2 V nominal per cell, so 12 cells is 14.4 nominal. Depending on the particular chemistry of lithium cell used it has a nominal voltage of between 3.2 and 3.85 V per cell, but from experience I can say most often it's 3.6. This means that 3 lithium cells in series would give a nominal voltage of 10.8 V, whereas 4 in series would give the 14.4 the battery claims. Don't worry that the peak voltage of 4 cells is 16.8 V, 12 NiCd cells right off the charger is 17.4 V.
I have several 12v makita drills I loved that batteries got hard to find for. I took an old battery and made a 12vdc adapter to be able to run them off my vehicle or my Honda portable generator with DC output. Gives you tools on the trail or side of the road with no worry about batteries running out. In my shop I made 12v available at all my benches with Anderson quick connects fed from my rolling cart battery charger I keep in the corner by the compressor. It makes almost 14.4v so any 9-14.4v tool will run on it fine.
That was a great drill, mine went 2 years ago only difference is my batteries are good just spending its life in a fab shop drilling half inch plate seals the deal.
I did something similar with my first old drill, but in lieu of batteries, i just soldered on a pair of jumper cables! Took my old Black and wicker 7.2v drill and turned it into a 12v drill with nigh unlimited current capability. She is 100% portable, and can be used around any car :) Bonus nachos, ya never have to charge her!
The voltage drops really quickly under load and then shoots back up when unloaded. 5 cells in parallel would probably do well. Try making a crazy "portable" battery contraption. Thanks for the videos :D
Lithium-Ions are charged to 4.2v, but almost immediately plummet to 3.7v, then they drop to about 3.3v, linearly, as they discharge. Then it knees and voltage plummets (it's 95% drained at 3.3v anyway). So, what's happened here, and why you have so much torque still, is that the batteries are JUST FINE. They're just 11.1 - 9.9 volts which is what 14.4v nicads would be when just about dead. So RPM wise it seems dead, but they still have torque. Lithiums are so powerful, just chain up 4 (or 5, or hell 6, the Milwaukee will be just fine, often it's the same motor in 12, 14.4, 18, 21v drills, the cost is just the battery size) in series and don't worry about the two in parallel. Try it and prove me wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.
Wow, I just found a bunch of my dad's old tools that used NiCad batteries and I wanted to see if I could make them live again. This video is awesome. You're awesome.
Similar story with my father's 18V Makita. Nickel batteries were more expensive than the new lithium ones so he bought parts for the new type of connection, hollowed the old battery, passed the wiring through up to the new connection pourt under the battery and just plugged the new battery under the old one.
Best way to test those used cells is to charge them up and put a 1 ohm load on them and measure the voltage drop. The crapped out cells will instantly go from 4.2v to less than 3v and then jump back up to over 4v when the load is removed, this is due to high internal resistance. New cells will drop to 3.7v.
Just using brand new 18650s instead of those well-worn cells would easily provide the proper power. 4S 18650 fit 100%, and deliver more capacity and better high drain performance than stuffing a whole pile of 18350s on there.
Maybe try creating a 4S pack, giving you a nominal voltage of 14.8 which is real close to the drills original rating. This will give you slightly higher rpm and more current flow due to the higher voltage. As long as you aren't surpassing the current draw per cell, there may be no reason to have the paralleled cells other than prolonging their life. Putting them in parallel only means you "can" draw more current safely. It doesn't necessarily mean that more current will flow. Ohms law says that if the resistance stays the same, the voltage must increase for the current to increase. With the extra space include a low voltage cut-off/alarm circuit, like what is used in the RC hobby.
Yup, managed to recover the battery for my Canon camera yesterday with a bit of judicious fiddling. It was showing under literally 0v but a few soft charge cycles seem to have got it back to life again. I'll be replacing it once I have the cashflow, but just to check the camera and all the lenses work (and getting a few good pics of things I'm selling - because I'm skint) it'll do the job - but I am removing the battery pack from the camera and storing it safely when it's not in use, *just in case*.
+djteac there is no recovery at that point. The cell chemistry of a lithium ion cell changes drastically below 2.5v, causing the capacity to shrink and emission of gasses when recharged.
I had success by fitting new 18V Makita 4Ah battery to a cheapo 18V drill that cost $20. The NiCad batteries were long dead. The drill got another life now and all with a bonus of 15-20min charging with the EU model. The batteries have their own capacity indicators and I even bought a proper Makita connector on eBay because you shouldn't fool with these things too much.
You should be balancing them from the bottom end. All those cells will have different capacities, and you want them to run empty all at the same time, otherwise you'll end up reversing charge on the weak ones. If you balance them at the bottom, you can run them to zero without any real issues. They'll stay balanced unless the cells have internal shorts - in which case they need to go anyway. There is no other way for them to drift in charge - they don't have significant internal discharge, there's no electrochemical process for that to happen. BTW, Dewalt uses this method. However you do need to be careful charging, since you may fill the small cells before the more capacious ones get to 4.2v. Charge the pack in series, but watch the voltage of each cell (pair). When any of them reach their peak voltage, you're done, and you get what you get. Don't worry about the CV phase, undercharging them is better for their life and you won't get substantial capacity above CC to 4.2 (or even 4.0.) It may seem like a hassle to babysit the charge, but you have to monitor one end or the other, and it's a lot easier to watch the top than the bottom - also the charge conditions are more consistent than the discharge current, which will cause sagging and such to conflict with the real state of things.
I install BMS boards and BUCK Voltage converters inside of my Lithium conversions to maintain compatibility with their original chargers. After that you just need to be sure not to leave your batteries on the charger for optimal life. Have fun with that my friend and thanks for the video
Glad the top comment warns about the fire hazard - no protection or balancing w/ random old batteries is asking for it. Hopefully no one else watches this video and tries this! As others have mentioned you want 4S, not 3S to get 14.4-14.8V nominal. You can easily get an all-in-one 4S balancing protection board/BMS PCB for $10 or less. Good quality 18650s Like the Pana-Sanyo UR18650 (20A continuous discharge) are about $5/ea, so $30 to build a 4S1P for 14.4V/2.5Ah or $50 for a 4S2P 14.4V/5Ah. Of course, going on Amazon, I was able to find a 3rd party replacement 48-11 14.4V/2.4Ah battery for $26, and there were plenty of internal battery replacements on eBay for $30-40 as well so I'm not sure what, if anything you're saving to DIY in this case.
When you build a pack like this you should at least install a set of balance leads so that you can charge this pack with a balance charger. Without the balance leads, there is no way of knowing if you are getting 4.2v on each parallel string due to small variances in the cells even if they are matched. It is also easy enough to buy small balance boards that can fit inside the pack and allow you to charge the pack with an unregulated charger through one set of ports while you get the full power out of the main factory ports. Every once in a while you can find little 3S and 4S BMS boards cheaply (less than $10) that are rated for 30-45A which generally work well for this same type of mod and that would give you a battery cut-off and protection from thermal runaway as well. If you have a 3d printer available it would probably be fairly easy to create a pack adapter piece to make the lipo cells fit vertically in the pack which would make it slightly taller but would allow you to run it at 4S2P rather than 3S2P.
Hey AvE, I suggest you balance charge instead of feeding 12.6V into the main battery terminals. If the cells get out of balance (and it happens) then one can get above 4.2 and let out the magic smoke and burn your house down. Put a 3S JST-XH balance lead on and get a decent lipo charger!
Actually, to properly charge it, you'll have to take it apart to get to each cell (pair) to charge them individually. Real Li battery bricks have that charge controller builtin. Yes, you can get some level of pixies back in there in series, but some cells will be at a higher charge ("over charged") with others less charged.
we have an old makita rotary hammer we use for bolting climbing pitches..I've jammed four 2800 mah 3s lipo cells,2s2p, 25c, instead of the old nicad crap. left out the balance plugs and charge them with a hobbyking charger,and I can guarantee you that rather than stopping it will spin the earth in the opposite direction.
you could get a 4s battery pack from hobby king, (15-30$ depending on capacity) an annoyer for when the battery gets low (2$), and a few wires to go to the balance leads for when you want to check/recharge the batteries individually.
You have plenty of extra space to add a protection circuit. You can find small cheap ones online. Stuff a small one in there and it should cut off when it gets low and also allows you to use the original charger as it will charge it up properly then cut off before damage to the cells.
The other thing is running a lower voltage, the motor will want to pull more amperage hence a quicker battery draw. If you up the voltage it should last a fair bit longer.
I realise the Lithium batteries were free but if you really like the drill, Rebuild the battery packs with Nicads. If you have to use your power supply to charge it, it will never be charged. the risk of fire, the reduced performance defeats all of the conveniences of the cordless tool.
You can make you a cool little bench drill just by making it a corded drill and makes you a nice flexible cord with a couple of disconnects and just plug it into that fancy dancy little power supply you gots yourself there! I have done just that with some Dewalt 12v stuff I have.
What happened when you sparked was your metal pliers were touching the side of the cell that was connected to the +, the entire sidewall of an 18650 is ground so you basically just short circuited the cell with the + facing up by connecting the sidewall through the pliers and the nickel strip
I got a real nice 24 volt lithium ion Makita drill many years ago. I got it and love it cause it's light as a feather. But when I'm at the shop I use a wired drill, nothing beats simplicity.
Turn it into a corded cordless drill take out the batteries add a heavy duty cord across the terminals clip to a car battery plenty torque lasts a week or more on a charge
Hey! its like real life modifications, tons of screw ups, shorts, cuts and stitches, love your videos for the fact it doesnt have any added special effects
If you hook a motor directly up to a battery the battery voltage controls both the speed and the torque of the motor. As a motor spins it generates a "back EMF" (voltage) -- which is linearly proportional to speed. The torque is linearly proportional to current, which is (applied voltage - back EMF)/motor winding resistance. So the "no load speed" is what happens when the forward voltage = back voltage + current (torque required to overcome friction) * resistance.
DeWalt has a battery adapter for their old 18 volt nicad tools to accept the new 20 volt lithium batteries. Unfortunately Milwaukee does not provide this upgrade path but you could make your own adaptor. Those 14.4 volt tools just run fine on 18 volt batteries, no problem. In fact you could adopt this to any tools with any batteries. For example I have my Ryobi 14.4 volt circular saw running on a Milwaukee M18 9.0 Ah battery all day long. Oh yeah that shitty Ryobi circular saw now runs like a pro tool. And my old V18 nicad Milwaukee tools on M18 lithium batteries got a new life as well.
the lithium batteries have a work volt of around 3.7 volt, so its only at 4.2 when fully charged, steps down towards 3.7, and holds it until it runs out =)
I've built a couple Li-Ion battery packs for various shits. I get those cheap-o low voltage alarms for model RC planes or something like that and just wire em in. When the battery gets too dead the pack starts screaming and annoys me into plugging it in, works well for me. Also yeah, even the high draw cells out of power tools drop way down in voltage under load. Your probably running that 14v drill at like 11v. I'd add a 4th set in parallel, I bet the old Milwaukee will handle the extra umf just fine
I have the exact same model. With working nimh batteries. I also think this is Milwaukee's best model. I'll just keep repairing mine until it wont repair no more =) Love your channel.
all you need to do is put only one more cell in there , cutt out some of the support material and put it in sideways next to the other batteries, i'v done it on 4 of my drills and they are as good as new batteries. that one extra cell makes all the difference. "don't keep your cells in the vice"
I have 2 Ryobi drills. A 14.4 (came paired with a work light) and an 18v that came both with Ni-Cad batteries originally. I just bought a bunch of 18v Li-Ions and a new charger. I had to mod the work light base with my rotary tool to get the snaps to fit right but it all works fine.
I lost my garage and all my metal fab toys a while back. I really miss tearing apart things and reconstructing. I pretty much live my garage days through you. Thanks so much for documenting your experiences for us to enjoy. I appreciate it very much. It helps me when I'm bummed out.
Until I recently retired, I tested hundreds of cylindrical cells a week. Some things you should know. Your battery pairs were badly out of balance when you put the pack together. Lacking a battery management system, the best you can do is top balance. To top balance, set the power supply to the rated charged voltage and charge until the current drops to within a few ma of 0 amps. As it is, the low battery is being reverse-charged which risks fire and explosion. I highly recommend getting an RC vehicle cell-by-cell balancer/charger. They are amazingly cheap and work really well. Finally when each stage reaches its rated charged voltage, immediately disconnect the charger. a Li battery can't be floated, even for a little bit.
Second tidbit, 18650 batteries are generally rated at either 1.8 amps or 10 amps. ANY chicom cell will test out to 1.8 or less amps, regardless of their marking. Note that I'm saying amps and not amp-hours This is the best 10 amp cells that I've been able to find.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0768WY3ZN/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
That's about the highest amp-hour rating you'll find in the 10 amp cells.
My (pre-home depot) Dewalt 17 volt drill draws around 25 amps when nearly stalled. So even the above cells would not cut it in 2P configuration.
A friend operates an electric motor repair shop and within it is an authorized Milwaukee service center. I help him some when he get covered up with repairs. Which is frequent, these days. It's disgusting what both Milwaukee and DeWalt have de-contented in an effort to meet Home Depot and Lowe's price points. No machined parts anymore - everything is either plastic or sintered iron or brass. My friend will probably give up the franchise at the end of the year.
A good idea in principle. Unfortunately, multiple lithium ion battery packs in series must be balanced otherwise the pack will only be as good as its weakest cell The lower capacity cells will tend to over-charge, conversely, the higher capacity ones will under-charge. Which is why all L-ion battery packs have charge control circuits. Plan B would be to just repack the battery container with a set of quality nickel metal hydride batteries.
There was a young lady from Sion, She charged her batton with lithium ion, She said it chooches much slower, 'cause the voltage is lower, but stamina is more like a lion. (Pardon the paraphraze)
*****
Stole your rhyme there. ;)
There was a young girl who begat
Three brats named Nat, Pat, and Tat.
It was fun in the breeding,
But hell in the feeding,
When she found there was no tit for Tat.
Its been a while since a comment made me do a full on belly laugh like this 😂
my brothers
You can rebuild your NiCd packs with new Sub-C NiCd cells. Then everything works the same as before. You can get new pre-tabbed cells so you don't need a spot welder for assembly.
I'd not recommend to remove the welded tabs from 18650 cells:
First, there is a chance to puncture the cell, since the metal shell is very thin (to minimize the weight and maximize the inner space).
Second, one has to solder directly to the cell without tabs. On the negative side (which is directly the shell) this heats up the cell's insides quite a bit, and on the positive terminal, the heat may damage the seal or the PTC fuse ring.
Just cut the tabs to a length of a few millimeters and solder the cables on the ends if you don't want the cells to lose any chooch.
I would LOVE to see a BOLTR of your Milwaukee drill. I want to see what's the difference between the old school drills and the new ones.
You need another pair of cells in there >< then it'd work great (that 4.1v a cell is going to be more like 3.7v under load, fer a grand total of 11.1v) That's why it worked decent for a few seconds, once you lost the top charge it went to shit.
Put another pair of cells on top, get some longer screw's for the battery case and fill the gap with electical tape.
I have a really old drill with a head that goes to all angles, purchased it when I was a nipper, its planked out the way of the misses so she doesn't take it upon herself to clear out my stuff and me with it. I think I am going to resurrect it and bring it back to life...thank you sir genius that you are I focused like a puck and kept my tadger off the ice .
In the west of Scotland I should have put "wee yin" but nipper sounded mare posh lol
Touches (+) to (-) "I don't know what just happened" lmao🐸☕️
a noticed that.....
But he didn't close any circuit. Also, + and - was already connected by the tab...
yes he did. he grazed the outside shell of one of the batteries. On one side it's no problem since it's the right polarity. Not the case on the other battery.
+Mike G. Thank you.
Mike G. Doesn't he just touch the two terminals that are connected by the tab anyway?
I loved my old Milwaukee 14.4 drill driver. It was close to my 14.4 Porter Cable. That was a scookum choocher back when the New Yankee Work Shop was sporting Norm Abrams Delta and Porter Cable tools. I hated that lucky bastard. Mr. I got to have all the cool tools that no regular guy can afford! GOD bless you brother!
LMAO@ I had a Makita 9.6 volt three years ago that was retired to dedicated chamfering. Still works great for that purpose!
Now my entire family uses the terms Skookum and Choocher. We left Surrey two generations ago for the States and thanks to you we are slowly devolving back into Canadianicans.
Those 4.2V batteries drop to 3.7V when they are under load. I think 0.2 c ( their mha rating *0.2 ) would put them at 3.7 so you are in fact getting 11.1V or so. Try putting one more bank of two in series. She'll work wonders.
Yeah, spot on 3.7. I think the curve under load goes from 3.85-3.7 and then the last 10-20% goes down rapidly
0.2 c is mighty small
would they even fit
Came to say this, you said it much better than I could.
Yep. If the bottom of the case can be extended or take an extension in the form of a 2x18650 cell holder, he's in business. On Ebay, you can get those for a couple bucks a dozen without the electrical connections (designed for allowing cooling air through a battery bank) or the traditional springy ones at $3/5. +Rinoa Super-Genius even has a downloadable 3D print file for the former if AvE.can access a 3D printer.
Those Lithium Cobalt cells are not suitable for a continuous draw of more than about 1-2A and the drill will be taking at least 15A. You really want the Lithium manganese cells, some of which can handle 30A. You're right about safety too, trying to draw that much current from an unprotected Li-CoO2 pack essentially turns it into a hand grenade.
Jep, NMC would be suitable for tools.
30a still seems low. my not special at all li-po pack is rated for 45c continous with 4,5ah. probably it is larger than the types you mentioned, are there other disadvantages?
waldsteiger Yeah, I think a typical 18650 capable of supplying 30A would only be available in sizes up to about 2Ah, so in terms of C rating that's about 15C. Li-Po cells are also not constrained by the size of the can so they can be optimised a bit more for high current too.
You don't add up the Ah like that. Assuming they're 2500mAh/2.5Ah cells, they're in a 3S2P configuration, giving a final capacity of 5000mAh/5Ah.
ben hunter It's true. I agree
there was a young harlot of Montague, that filled her vajayjay with glue! she said with a grin, ``if they pay to get in, they`ll pay to gt out of it too``!
10/10 this is goin on my english exams,
I made 25V for 14.4V bosch impact screwdriver... I know its overkill but It gets the job done much faster than dewalts 20V version... It even put 10x200mm wood screws into hardwood till the bolts head snapped off! The switch was rated 24... The 12V one was rated 15V... Both work at 25! Today's batteries and oldschool tools with proper brushed motors- Profit!
just as a little bit of friendly advice and help,
the problem that you are having with the batteries not providing enough power is due to the maximum discharge C-Rating, (and how many of them you have in parallel like you were saying) but what you probaly did not realise is that under load (when the drill was drilling) the voltage of the 3 batteries together likely dropped much below the voltage you measured afterwards.
I have also done a similar project and I found that for my 4 batteries in series pack with 2 in parallel the pack was getting down to ~9v under load and then recovering to ~16v a few seconds after the drill was turned off. like you say though the only way to improve this is to get better batteries.
also, I would not advice charging all of the batteries together at a constant voltage/current as this could lead to an imbalance between the 3 series cells. A better way to do it would be to add a port on the battery where you had individual connection to the 3 series batteries and then charge them individually.
just a handy tip for if your not looking to burn your house down
Yeah im pretty sure dave has done a video about the recovery potential of batteries, right after he debunked the batteriser, and essentially the only way to properly measure the voltage is not just at source but under load, not out side the monkeys ass, inside the monkeys ass!
+WeAreGRID EXACTLY!!! hahahaha
I did this very same mod about a year ago to my B&D hand drill, but decided to add the protection/balancing circuit as well (5$ on ebay), all works really well charging wise, with the small exception of peak current spikes on startup - the darn circuit has some built in over current protection and will stall the drill when you go full throttle from standstill with some load on it... works fine if you throttle it up incrementally though, will not stall on full load while running
"one of these days' I'll reverse engineer the protection circuit and adjust the peak limit, and maybe even add some boost converter to keep the voltage constant for the motor, one of these days... :D
Watching old AvE vids is like watching old classic movies ... no better waste of time..
I did this, but used a 4s lipo rc battery from Hobbyking. comes about 16.8v fully charged. you can buy them in different sizes & capacities to fit inside the doobleydoo. A green multistar 1400 mah 4s can do 60-80 amps for between $15 $20 pesos. Just buy a cheap lipo charger and they are easy to charge. Got a video where I did this on my channel. I'll post a link if anyone is interested.
Few things to point out. 1) If you just charge all the (questionable) cells in series and they're not all perfectly matched (they never are doubly so for salvaged batteries) then the pack will die a lot faster. It's best to always balance charge them. You could bring balance leads out and use a cheap Chinese balance charger. 2) Lithium cells don't do well being discharged below ~3v/cell. Seeing 1.5v at any time, I'd immediately assume they're toast and recycle them. After watching the end it's pretty clear they are toast. 3) guessing at SOC (state of charge) from an unloaded cell voltage can be deceptive.
Maybe you should bone up on testing cell capacity before you glue them in the only case you have...
You can also get protection circuits cheap on fleabay. Might be worth the price.
I had an 18v NiCd Milwaukee. Heavy as all hell and a beast amongst drills. It was very torquey, took a repeated beating, and outlasted all the other drills. Fwd 10 years, the spindle bearings were sloppy as something on the clearance corner for $20 and the batteries were starting to fade. In a final act to heroism, it plunged 7 ft from a ladder hitting my then pergo covered floor and the whole battery mount snapped off... Sad day. But it still outlasted my second longest lived cordless, 14.4 rigid. 😂🤣😂🤣
nice work, those need balance and potection circuit. you can buy one from ebay. cheers
that only has a max current of 8A, not even close for a drill Makita use 25A discharge rated cells 2 in parallel that's 50A and 5 in series to make 18v, @12v the amperage could be even higher
Lithium batteries need a pulsing DC charge too. using the old NiCad charger is a good way to make them go boom boom.
He is using the right charger, at least. Who knows if the cells are going to stay balanced without circuitry though. Would be nice to see this with some protection, maybe even a thermal sensor to be safe...
If using cells from the same source/batch and none of them are dead, not having a balance circuit "should be fine," but if they're from different batches and have different internal resistances, or if a cell dies, it will almost definitely become a problem. Definitely better to balance them if possible, though.
www.batteryspace.com/Protection-Circuit-Module-PCM-with-Equilibrium-Function-and-Fuel-Gauge-for.aspx
Something like that would work better, 10A continuous, 14A +- 2A overcurrent. Assuming you switch to a 4S setup.
I've done this using small sealed lead batteries. If you don't mind the extra weight, it works well. Plus you charge after using the drill (since Pb batteries like to be stored full) instead of having to put your project on hold while waiting for the stupid battery to charge.
CLEAR AND LABELED STORAGE CASES?
NO, NO, NO!
They HAVE to be in the exact same cardboard apple boxes from the local grocer, or in kitty litter plastic bins, but NEVER, EVER LABEL THEM!
I would just use variations of "Stuff" for at most for labels.
Did this too, but used 8 cells (4S2P) and put some connectors for RC models on it, for charging and balancing. This way I can charge it with a normal RC battery charger and have no problems with unmatched batteries. Works like a charm and the batteries have a god amount of capacity left, the power lasts very long.
“… from a time when Milwaukee made good tools…”
Love the tape on the ring finger. A true professional! ;-)
I have an old 18v Milwaukee set. I found a 2200mAh 40C lipo pack from Hobbyking that fit almost perfectly inside the case. To get by without a protector circuit, I brought the balance plug outside of the case and connected it to a low voltage buzzer. I was able to rebuild 2 packs for $50 not including the now required balance charger.
Also, DO NOT simply multiply the voltage to charge it through the primary connector. If one of those batteries shorts, you are now putting 6v through the other 2 which could make them explode.
Retrofitting without any sort of balancing or over charge/over discharge protection is a sure way to cause a fire after a handful of cycles. Be careful with Lithium in series!
I would have added leads and maybe a port so could balance later if you wanted. 18650's, especially the protected ones really aren't that bad when you fail them electrically, ask me how I know...lolliez
its fine as long as the cells are the same
Circuit Specialists power supply. Glad to see someone else using them. We use their 30VDC 60A power supplies at work. They are a beast.
Why don't you cut the case in half sideways? You'll then have enough room for additional batteries and the the important top connection geography will remain intact. To easily rejoin the two halves of the case simply use a couple of turns of duct tape and that way you would have a useable battery with ample voltage and easy access to the innards.
Just mount some batts on the outside of it too. Drill some holes in the case to the inside to connect them to the rest of the batts. Wrap it in a bhut load of tape or pot them on with a good substance.
The reason that the Lith ion batts don't give as much power is that NiCad batts, as a characteristic, give constant voltage till nearly the battery is discharged. Other types, generally, will decline in Volts until total discharge. ...Amirite?
The batts we use on our -8 aircraft at work are two 75lb nicads in parallel to assist in batt starting the engines. Beefy as fork! Nicads are old tech and more bothersome but they provide great power if you know how to take care of them.
I have one word for you: Batteries Plus. OK, that's actually 2 words, but you get the idea. They will happily rebuild your old battery pack to Better Than New. I've used them several times to rebuild the battery packs for a couple of Harbor Fright right dangle drills I have that Harbor Fright quit carrying batteries for. The rebuilds are WAY mo better than the originals For Milwaukee they'll probably be at least as good.
You can rebuild the NiCd packs yourself cheaper than having Batteries+$$ do it for you. In either case, it's better than throwing away a pack that is no longer available.
48-11-1024 14.4V 2.4Ah battery is still available via Milwaukee, BUT they are not cheap. LIST price is $207.00 but I am sure you can get them much cheaper than that. Nice to see you salvaged some Li-Ions to bring that back to life.
The SMOKE is because you shorted the battery the entire outer casing of the battery is negative
my dad has a old Milwaukee grinder that just will not die. Been around for over 10 years. It has been used and abused. It is so good in fact he almost went and wrote to the company on how good it was. Nowadays tools are not so scucum!!
You're going to charge that pack without balancing the cells?
Ballsy.
I picked up this same drill from a goodwill a couple years ago for $4...I found that the milwaukee M28 battery (28volt 7serries -
2 parallel) fit right on er if i ground off one little flange off the drill. This thing rocks! drills 7/8" holes through 1/2" mild steel day in and out...fets in the handle get hott as... but the thing never complains!
So it works ok putting a 28v pack on your 14.4v drill? I have a set of Milw tools I may consider this for.
I used to have a skookum choocher too... Then I got married, and he just never gets hard anymore......
hahhahhah...lol
Ridden hard and put away wet
Like..heheh
+gunfuego 🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆
silentsushix3 You shoulda gotten a like from Ave for this one.
Stateside you can still buy a new battery at the Homeless Despot website. Just bought one for my drill 6 months ago. It was worth the $60 to give new life to my old school Milwaukee that actually drills.
Someone once said that you cant solder batteries that you must use speciäääl welder or something like that
I have 4 of the Pistol Grip versions.. I like this style handle because I can put so much more pressure right behind and inline to the chuck... One is less Apt to put an angled thrust to the drill bit, causing the bit to break...
Just one Man's opinion... Greg
I work at a battery store/rebuild shop. I love you Ave but messing with lithium is so dumb...
no bms
messing with lithium is fine.. this particular setup you have to charge to specific voltage and discharge not past certain voltage ideally you would want a control circiut. toss the old charger in the bin.
NiCd cells are 1.2 V nominal per cell, so 12 cells is 14.4 nominal. Depending on the particular chemistry of lithium cell used it has a nominal voltage of between 3.2 and 3.85 V per cell, but from experience I can say most often it's 3.6. This means that 3 lithium cells in series would give a nominal voltage of 10.8 V, whereas 4 in series would give the 14.4 the battery claims. Don't worry that the peak voltage of 4 cells is 16.8 V, 12 NiCd cells right off the charger is 17.4 V.
His issue was that he could not (retro)fit that many in the (old) case.
I'd have a new, bigger case 3D printed.
AvE I know this is a few years OLD. But how about a battery tab welding project?
I have several 12v makita drills I loved that batteries got hard to find for. I took an old battery and made a 12vdc adapter to be able to run them off my vehicle or my Honda portable generator with DC output. Gives you tools on the trail or side of the road with no worry about batteries running out. In my shop I made 12v available at all my benches with Anderson quick connects fed from my rolling cart battery charger I keep in the corner by the compressor. It makes almost 14.4v so any 9-14.4v tool will run on it fine.
Ahahaha the glue joke. good video! loving your work, keep it up!
Love me a limerick
That killed me
That was a great drill, mine went 2 years ago only difference is my batteries are good just spending its life in a fab shop drilling half inch plate seals the deal.
It would probably work ok for drilling through wood.... ;->
Stings2pee I guess they don't HAVE to be dead....
I did something similar with my first old drill, but in lieu of batteries, i just soldered on a pair of jumper cables!
Took my old Black and wicker 7.2v drill and turned it into a 12v drill with nigh unlimited current capability.
She is 100% portable, and can be used around any car :)
Bonus nachos, ya never have to charge her!
The old recovered cells have high internal resistance, so not quite useful for high drain applications
The voltage drops really quickly under load and then shoots back up when unloaded. 5 cells in parallel would probably do well. Try making a crazy "portable" battery contraption. Thanks for the videos :D
use one of those boost converters on ebay to step up the voltage to 14.4v. they're super simple, 4 connections: in + - and out + -
This episode is brought to you by the letter "E".
Such a difference in video quality between this video and current videos
Good or bad I love em both
How hard is a coffin nail and why would they be particularly hard?
Melaine White You don’t those suckers pushing up on the coffin lid and getting out when the zombie apocalypse comes around.
You should first charge each cell to the same voltage. So they are "balanced". Pretty important if you don't want them to blow up on you.
All Torque no speed... sounds like a tapping drill!!!
Lithium-Ions are charged to 4.2v, but almost immediately plummet to 3.7v, then they drop to about 3.3v, linearly, as they discharge. Then it knees and voltage plummets (it's 95% drained at 3.3v anyway). So, what's happened here, and why you have so much torque still, is that the batteries are JUST FINE. They're just 11.1 - 9.9 volts which is what 14.4v nicads would be when just about dead. So RPM wise it seems dead, but they still have torque. Lithiums are so powerful, just chain up 4 (or 5, or hell 6, the Milwaukee will be just fine, often it's the same motor in 12, 14.4, 18, 21v drills, the cost is just the battery size) in series and don't worry about the two in parallel. Try it and prove me wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.
AvE love your shows always informative. Keep Choosing your chick with a dice.
Wow, I just found a bunch of my dad's old tools that used NiCad batteries and I wanted to see if I could make them live again. This video is awesome. You're awesome.
This is one of those things that if you have to ask why, you just don't get it!
Similar story with my father's 18V Makita. Nickel batteries were more expensive than the new lithium ones so he bought parts for the new type of connection, hollowed the old battery, passed the wiring through up to the new connection pourt under the battery and just plugged the new battery under the old one.
"Gentlemen, welcome back to the wife's sewing room" lol, never gonna get used to hearing that.
Best way to test those used cells is to charge them up and put a 1 ohm load on them and measure the voltage drop. The crapped out cells will instantly go from 4.2v to less than 3v and then jump back up to over 4v when the load is removed, this is due to high internal resistance. New cells will drop to 3.7v.
18350 cells do 4 pairs for 14.4v-16.8v
And lose a lot of capacity in the process.
Vs the cells he has not really the speed and torque he would regain he needs 4s 2-3p
Just using brand new 18650s instead of those well-worn cells would easily provide the proper power. 4S 18650 fit 100%, and deliver more capacity and better high drain performance than stuffing a whole pile of 18350s on there.
Maybe try creating a 4S pack, giving you a nominal voltage of 14.8 which is real close to the drills original rating. This will give you slightly higher rpm and more current flow due to the higher voltage. As long as you aren't surpassing the current draw per cell, there may be no reason to have the paralleled cells other than prolonging their life.
Putting them in parallel only means you "can" draw more current safely. It doesn't necessarily mean that more current will flow. Ohms law says that if the resistance stays the same, the voltage must increase for the current to increase.
With the extra space include a low voltage cut-off/alarm circuit, like what is used in the RC hobby.
1,5v is not a good battery. 2,5v is the least the should have, any lower and you should throw em in the bin.
He said recover, you CAN recover a 1,5v lithium cell. 2,5 is just the ideal voltage to start charging again.
Yup, managed to recover the battery for my Canon camera yesterday with a bit of judicious fiddling. It was showing under literally 0v but a few soft charge cycles seem to have got it back to life again.
I'll be replacing it once I have the cashflow, but just to check the camera and all the lenses work (and getting a few good pics of things I'm selling - because I'm skint) it'll do the job - but I am removing the battery pack from the camera and storing it safely when it's not in use, *just in case*.
+djteac there is no recovery at that point. The cell chemistry of a lithium ion cell changes drastically below 2.5v, causing the capacity to shrink and emission of gasses when recharged.
I had success by fitting new 18V Makita 4Ah battery to a cheapo 18V drill that cost $20. The NiCad batteries were long dead. The drill got another life now and all with a bonus of 15-20min charging with the EU model. The batteries have their own capacity indicators and I even bought a proper Makita connector on eBay because you shouldn't fool with these things too much.
"There was a young harley of montigue who filled her vajayjay with glue, she said with a grin if they pay to get in they'll pay to get out too"
You should be balancing them from the bottom end. All those cells will have different capacities, and you want them to run empty all at the same time, otherwise you'll end up reversing charge on the weak ones. If you balance them at the bottom, you can run them to zero without any real issues. They'll stay balanced unless the cells have internal shorts - in which case they need to go anyway. There is no other way for them to drift in charge - they don't have significant internal discharge, there's no electrochemical process for that to happen.
BTW, Dewalt uses this method.
However you do need to be careful charging, since you may fill the small cells before the more capacious ones get to 4.2v. Charge the pack in series, but watch the voltage of each cell (pair). When any of them reach their peak voltage, you're done, and you get what you get. Don't worry about the CV phase, undercharging them is better for their life and you won't get substantial capacity above CC to 4.2 (or even 4.0.)
It may seem like a hassle to babysit the charge, but you have to monitor one end or the other, and it's a lot easier to watch the top than the bottom - also the charge conditions are more consistent than the discharge current, which will cause sagging and such to conflict with the real state of things.
I install BMS boards and BUCK Voltage converters inside of my Lithium conversions to maintain compatibility with their original chargers. After that you just need to be sure not to leave your batteries on the charger for optimal life. Have fun with that my friend and thanks for the video
Glad the top comment warns about the fire hazard - no protection or balancing w/ random old batteries is asking for it. Hopefully no one else watches this video and tries this!
As others have mentioned you want 4S, not 3S to get 14.4-14.8V nominal. You can easily get an all-in-one 4S balancing protection board/BMS PCB for $10 or less. Good quality 18650s Like the Pana-Sanyo UR18650 (20A continuous discharge) are about $5/ea, so $30 to build a 4S1P for 14.4V/2.5Ah or $50 for a 4S2P 14.4V/5Ah.
Of course, going on Amazon, I was able to find a 3rd party replacement 48-11 14.4V/2.4Ah battery for $26, and there were plenty of internal battery replacements on eBay for $30-40 as well so I'm not sure what, if anything you're saving to DIY in this case.
When you build a pack like this you should at least install a set of balance leads so that you can charge this pack with a balance charger. Without the balance leads, there is no way of knowing if you are getting 4.2v on each parallel string due to small variances in the cells even if they are matched.
It is also easy enough to buy small balance boards that can fit inside the pack and allow you to charge the pack with an unregulated charger through one set of ports while you get the full power out of the main factory ports. Every once in a while you can find little 3S and 4S BMS boards cheaply (less than $10) that are rated for 30-45A which generally work well for this same type of mod and that would give you a battery cut-off and protection from thermal runaway as well.
If you have a 3d printer available it would probably be fairly easy to create a pack adapter piece to make the lipo cells fit vertically in the pack which would make it slightly taller but would allow you to run it at 4S2P rather than 3S2P.
Hey AvE, I suggest you balance charge instead of feeding 12.6V into the main battery terminals. If the cells get out of balance (and it happens) then one can get above 4.2 and let out the magic smoke and burn your house down. Put a 3S JST-XH balance lead on and get a decent lipo charger!
Actually, to properly charge it, you'll have to take it apart to get to each cell (pair) to charge them individually. Real Li battery bricks have that charge controller builtin. Yes, you can get some level of pixies back in there in series, but some cells will be at a higher charge ("over charged") with others less charged.
heck yea, I have that style 18v drill and sawzall. After 10 years I still use the sawzall daily at work and the drill at home.
we have an old makita rotary hammer we use for bolting climbing pitches..I've jammed four 2800 mah 3s lipo cells,2s2p, 25c, instead of the old nicad crap. left out the balance plugs and charge them with a hobbyking charger,and I can guarantee you that rather than stopping it will spin the earth in the opposite direction.
you could get a 4s battery pack from hobby king, (15-30$ depending on capacity) an annoyer for when the battery gets low (2$), and a few wires to go to the balance leads for when you want to check/recharge the batteries individually.
You have plenty of extra space to add a protection circuit. You can find small cheap ones online. Stuff a small one in there and it should cut off when it gets low and also allows you to use the original charger as it will charge it up properly then cut off before damage to the cells.
The other thing is running a lower voltage, the motor will want to pull more amperage hence a quicker battery draw. If you up the voltage it should last a fair bit longer.
I realise the Lithium batteries were free but if you really like the drill, Rebuild the battery packs with Nicads. If you have to use your power supply to charge it, it will never be charged. the risk of fire, the reduced performance defeats all of the conveniences of the cordless tool.
You can make you a cool little bench drill just by making it a corded drill and makes you a nice flexible cord with a couple of disconnects and just plug it into that fancy dancy little power supply you gots yourself there! I have done just that with some Dewalt 12v stuff I have.
What happened when you sparked was your metal pliers were touching the side of the cell that was connected to the +, the entire sidewall of an 18650 is ground so you basically just short circuited the cell with the + facing up by connecting the sidewall through the pliers and the nickel strip
I got a real nice 24 volt lithium ion Makita drill many years ago. I got it and love it cause it's light as a feather. But when I'm at the shop I use a wired drill, nothing beats simplicity.
Turn it into a corded cordless drill take out the batteries add a heavy duty cord across the terminals clip to a car battery plenty torque lasts a week or more on a charge
I love my old Milwaukee mine even came with the work light and I am thinking of doing a little transplant
Hey! its like real life modifications, tons of screw ups, shorts, cuts and stitches, love your videos for the fact it doesnt have any added special effects
Some days I’m just in the mood for Ave. regardless of how shite I feel, he will make me smile😉
If you hook a motor directly up to a battery the battery voltage controls both the speed and the torque of the motor.
As a motor spins it generates a "back EMF" (voltage) -- which is linearly proportional to speed. The torque is linearly proportional to current, which is (applied voltage - back EMF)/motor winding resistance. So the "no load speed" is what happens when the forward voltage = back voltage + current (torque required to overcome friction) * resistance.
DeWalt has a battery adapter for their old 18 volt nicad tools to accept the new 20 volt lithium batteries. Unfortunately Milwaukee does not provide this upgrade path but you could make your own adaptor. Those 14.4 volt tools just run fine on 18 volt batteries, no problem. In fact you could adopt this to any tools with any batteries. For example I have my Ryobi 14.4 volt circular saw running on a Milwaukee M18 9.0 Ah battery all day long. Oh yeah that shitty Ryobi circular saw now runs like a pro tool. And my old V18 nicad Milwaukee tools on M18 lithium batteries got a new life as well.
the lithium batteries have a work volt of around 3.7 volt, so its only at 4.2 when fully charged, steps down towards 3.7, and holds it until it runs out =)
I've built a couple Li-Ion battery packs for various shits. I get those cheap-o low voltage alarms for model RC planes or something like that and just wire em in. When the battery gets too dead the pack starts screaming and annoys me into plugging it in, works well for me.
Also yeah, even the high draw cells out of power tools drop way down in voltage under load. Your probably running that 14v drill at like 11v. I'd add a 4th set in parallel, I bet the old Milwaukee will handle the extra umf just fine
I have the exact same model. With working nimh batteries. I also think this is Milwaukee's best model. I'll just keep repairing mine until it wont repair no more =) Love your channel.
i did this with my bosch drill 2 years ago. i just purchased a 3s lithium RC plane battery for 30 bucks. that worked really well.
Let the smoke out by touching the outside casing, with your cutters which where attempting to cut the positive link.
all you need to do is put only one more cell in there , cutt out some of the support material and put it in sideways next to the other batteries, i'v done it on 4 of my drills and they are as good as new batteries. that one extra cell makes all the difference. "don't keep your cells in the vice"
I have 2 Ryobi drills. A 14.4 (came paired with a work light) and an 18v that came both with Ni-Cad batteries originally. I just bought a bunch of 18v Li-Ions and a new charger. I had to mod the work light base with my rotary tool to get the snaps to fit right but it all works fine.
Home Depot’s website has replacement 14.4s with Nihm cells.