I am actually building something right now that requires a 12V DC motor, boost converter and a LiPo cell. The current spike at the start of the motor kept tripping the over current protection of the cell. After some research it was apparent that the protection MOSFET voltage drop determines the current limit. Instead of digging through tiny SMD MOSFETS, I just used an ATTiny85 and a power MOSFET to make it PWM soft start and the tripping never happened again.
I bought one of these as a bare unit for about 8 quid purely for the disc mounting part as it is a remarkably convenient way of adapting sawblades to a 1/8" shaft used by small brushless motors for RC planes and such. IThe large bearing can be encorparated into a 3d printed housing quite handily. I build mini fighting robots for a hobby so power tool abuse is a way of life. The 550 brushed motor in these grinders is remarkably spicy from a current perspective.
The motor probably feels stiff because they applied grease to a bushing that needs oiling, I find that a lot with motors these days, they fit bronze bushings that for many a decade were known to need machine oil, but they gob on a lump of grease instead and it ends up reluctant to turn, worst offender I had was my desk fan, when new, it wouldn't turn on low speed at all and barely turned at full, found it was greased, cleaned it all out and oiled it, it's been running great for 12 years...
I have a similar sized grinder from Lidl. It is worth paying slightly more for one with a safety tested and approved charger and battery, also it ramps the speed up over a second or so to prevent the stalling issue with this one.
I actually opened some 18650 batteries from a failed battery pack for a cloned Dyson vacuum: A teeny battery and the rest was sand. I thought how nice, built in fire suppression sand....
When Lidl were selling off tools a couple of years ago I bought several of their version of this tool. Super useful in the workshop. I use one with a normal cutting disc, one has a fence attached for straight cuts and another I fitted a ROLOC pad and i use it for sanding, deburring etc. Some of my favourite and mot used cordless tools.
I have 2 of these from when Bosch first brought these out. Great, handy tools used professionally and at home. The original is a brushless motor. One of them stutters on start, but it still works after a good bang, its great. Life like.
I own two of these, and i can say they are pretty neat. If there is a small cutting job or hard to reach places these little things are best. Sometimes even a regular cordless grinder can't reach places that this one can. The only thing I did right after buying it was replace all the standard batteries, because they are all crap and do not hold the declared capacity right out of the box, and also added a soft start pcb, so than motor will not rape protecting circuit every time it starts.
I had one of these. It looked exactly the same but it was brushless. I used it maybe 7 times before it broke. I went and bought the newer 20v dewalt cut off tool and it is phenomenal! Tons of torque! Also there are batteries that work with your tool that have a couple extra cells. They are shaped like the Milwaukee 12v XC3.0 batteries. If the tool held up I would have bought the bigger batts to try. Thanks for the video as always!
At work we had the Bosch version of this, and they are very good. I have the Parkside PWSA12 (25 Euro without the batteries and a charger), and that is also very good.
Very much a 'cost reduced' version of Aldi's Ferrex F-CAG12S. I have one in pieces at the moment to modify it for a specific job. I paid about the same, but with only 1 battery and no charger. No battery gauge on the Ferrex, but it does have variable speed. Overall I was quite impressed with it's mechanical build quality.
That reminds me… I’ve got some old makita ni-cd that I should rebuild with lithiums… I’ve got an old makita mini-grinder that still works a treat, but the old-school 90s battery packs are toast.
I have 5 of the cordless "makita" battery type grinders. I got 5 for the price of 1 "genuine " grinder as I wanted to keep a different type disc on each grinder to avoid the need to change discs so frequently. I use them everyday for almost 3 years. Powerful and no issues. Genune batteries are a must though as the cheap knock offs don't run a power hungry grinder very long.
Just so people know: there is a brushless motor version of this I received from Temu here in the US, it was about $20 shipped and is of a much higher quality. It came with 2 metal wood blades, 6 cutoff discs, and 2 grinding discs. I use it daily, it still runs quiet, flawless and smooth.
That is certainly a cute little tool. I am impressed to see a ball bearing supporting the shaft so it might actually last a reasonable amount of time for light duty use. The little ratchet looks interesting too. But like all the cheap lithium powered devices, I’m afraid of fires. As a matter of extra caution I only buy authentic name brand OE tool batteries.
Thanks for the analysis, always interesting to see what the cheaper tools offer and what the trade-off is, and if it can be worked around!! I guess the tool is what in the power tool market is sometimes called 10.8V (though Milwaukee irritatingly calls it M12...), since the three battery cells seemed to be marked 3.7 V [ 7:00 ]. Which probably would make the charging voltage 4.2 per cell, or 12.6V over the whole pack.
I have one of those and took it to work to try it out, not bad but as you said the batteries they are sending with it are not strong enough to cut anything substantial but as you guessed you can buy bigger batteries for it and with it it works great and even able to cut metal and wood.
I have a Ryobi shop vac, and it does the exact same thing with certain batteries. It will spin for a sec, then stop. It works if you flip the switch twice though. It only does it with certain batteries, and no other tools do that with those batteries.
These grinders (i have a Parkside one) are the best for grinding small parts (i've successfully tried converting some standard hex to non-standard-tamper-proof screwdriver bits) and removing excess PCB material from the edges. I've once tried to run it with a different battery form another Chinese tool while original one was charging. Apparently the other battery was not designed for such current as its protection FETs turned into significant amount of smoke after some 2 minutes :)
I'm wondering where one could buy such small grinding discs - assuming they wear out before the tool gives up the ghost! It looks like the disc guard (which you cerefully marked before removing!) can be rotated to suit the angle the tool is being used at - there's a row of dimples around the central hole...
I got a similar tool as a bare tool. But the handle off and just hold the motor motor section sort of like a rotary tool. Just use a inline switch with a XT60 connector on it then an RC lipo battery. Not the safest thing out but does the job i needed it for.
i got one a few months ago for like 15 bucks on ali with 2 batteries. it works great... well unless you want to cut something bigger than a 10mm threaded rod. i used it so little im still on the first disc those batteries are horrible. it turns off all the time as the voltage drops too much under load
I have one of these but it lacks voltage indicator and it says brushless motor on the box. :) I love it, it's great for small tasks, but over time it developed a rear motor bearing play. Battery capacity is not far from advertised (1160 mAh if I remember correctly) but they are discharged in maybe 5 minutes and take forever to charge. So I bought 3 of them. :)
I am pretty new to watching your channel, but if you have not done so already, a compilation history video that shows the moment of every bit of damage ever done to your workbench (on camera) could be good fun to watch :D
When you first pulled the grinder out of the box it immediately remind me of the "Playskool" tool toys; comically proportioned plastic "tools" so toddlers can hammer and saw at other plastic accessories. I was half expecting the grinder wheels to be plastic too!
A very budget compact disk cutter for "those with nefarious intent" 😀! Those 3 inch / 75mm cutter disks are an excellent buy for legit. purposes, fitting all 75mm cut-off tools (e.g. Ryobi) and very widely available from all the usual sources for a pretty good price (esp. if bought in bulk).
Great to see inside one of these, I have been looking at them on eBay, there where some misleading listings giving the impression they had a brushless motor inside them. haha.
I couldn't find a datasheet for the MOSFET in that package but in the sop8 package it is supposed to handle 80A at 25C or 240A pulsed which should be more than enough to start the tool. I wonder if the cells are so out of balance that even when "fully" charged they are well below optimal.
I didn't actually test the cells for balance, but they would be close, as the end of charge voltage was above 12V and the first to reach 4.2V ends the charge.
I have one very similar from Lidl. It will shut off if the wheel jams or takes a slight drag now. I don't remember it having this problem when I bought it in 2017.
I have the OG bosch and its pretty handy. There is some blades available for plastic cutting that might be worth looking into if you are going to use it for cutting electronics apart :D
You now have the perfect tool for marking your bench or any where else for a quick game of noughts and crosses 😂 Well I think you need to test out Aldi own brand Ferox 4" 240v angle grinder! I bought one and thought I smelt something after plugging it in and within 5 minutes in had gone up in smoke whilst in my hand!
I actually got 2 of these off ebay @ £14 each delivered, which is frankly ridiculous.. one had the earth pin snapped off the charger, I didnt bother reporting it because of the silly price. I`ve not used them in anger yet, just using one to cut some thick, "structural" type cardboard for some creative packing. I got it for removing rusty bolts/nuts/fixings off in confined places, like bumper mountings etc. Part of the reason I got it because I also have 2 of the ratchets with the same battery (used at least weekly for the last 4-5 years with no issues), although the batteries that came with this are a fair bit lighter than the ratchet ones. I`d like to get hold of the charger receiver ports to convert some wired car accessories to cordless, like lamps & a tyre pump (I did convert a ring analogue pump to cordless with a Makita LXT battery adaptor, but the voltage was too much for the Ring motor & burnt it out quite quickly).
they got me with that on ali. some device they didnt put a power button on. they asked me to send a picture of the missing power button. because thats insane i lost my money.
Video.. I just had a problem with a set of headphones which died 17 months into an 18 month warranty. Sent a video showing it being charged, and then pressing the power button. They returned 1/2 price. Seems fair enough
Mine is blue, but it works ok. It overheats easily, but 10 second wait works fine. So, the engineer designed it well, but the finance department decided to leave out parts. 😂 Tanks for saving me from having to take mine apart. It works on reasonably heavy stuff if you take your time. The 3” wheels were mostly used in air-driven grinders. I’ve got a selection of types, including Diamond for cutting glass & ceramic tile as well as metal and masonry. I carry it in a small box on many jobs, just in case I need to cut/grind something. It’s great for quick cutting heavy wires or pipes.
Do you have a recommendation as to where I can pick up some decent 18650 batteries? I've picked them up from eBay, Amazon and Temu, and all them had a capacity printed on them at least 1 1/2 times the actual capacity. The higher capacity ones were even worse. As it rated at 2400mah, but actually being 500 mah. Thanks,
The best ones do command a higher price. They can be got from vape shops or salvaged from existing battery packs. As usual with lithium cells, handle with caution and avoid shorts, as they store a lot of energy.
Lidl was selling something similar. I bought it and wasn´t impressed. The safety thermistor inside the battery pack was just too hysterical and after a minute or two it cut the battery off. Cutting a hard wire from fence mesh was "so so". Anything bigger like a thick screw or nail was a problem.
1500mAH in the other one, 1200mAH in this one... what kind of craptastic cells are they sticking in there? Get some nice tabbed 30Qs or similar. 3000mAH and good high current output as well.
@@Tore_Lund not if they are in a hurry lol ,to much pressure on the grinder and it stops ,not a lot of torque in this bit of kit .thinking about as the risk of a copper appearing they could use a nail file and not get caught
Nice video, Clive. It got me thinking. Would an inductor or even a suitably sized inrush limiter work to stop startup spikes and the tool not working intermittently? I don't know if an inrush limiter would work in this application as they dissipate heat, although I like the idea of giving the tool a 'soft start'.
"Super Mini Small Grinder 99,000 RPM. NASA designed XL Laser Pointer AmazeBalls Power. Cuts Titanium/Steel/Wood/Plastic/Porcelain/Ice. Home Space Military spec."...
My concern with these cheap tools is if something was to go wrong such as a fire from charging, or injury due to faulty cutting dics or grinding etc, who do you blame, i mean lots of sellers from ebay are located in china now, most of time you can never get a reply from them. I do like a good cheaper alternative, but i have found over the years if i have problems you are stuck with the product.
I'm curious if you put another mosfet like the big one already present and put it in would it actually work and stop the cutting out issue. I see that this runs on 12 volts. Sounds tempting to wire this to a car battery. I wired an 12 volt drill to a car battery.
Wow. Only China would look at what is arguably the most dangerous powertool in anyone's shed & think "This needs to be made more portable & pocket-sized"
Clive do you have the cutting wheel mounted the correct way ?? I was always preached to that the metal ring on one side of the cut off disc had to go outside towards the locking nut ?? so the flat surface of the disc was in contact with the "inside" to lay flat to the spindle collar.. Just asking for a friend 🙂
Every time I've bought a cordless power tool for less than $100, it has required at least a little bit of work to make functional. Sometimes that's worth it, because no reasonable big name tool maker is going to produce certain tools, like one-handed 6" chainsaws... Sometimes you get a DOA tool and get a refund and the seller doesn't want to pay shipping to have it sent back, so you're left with a broken tool for free, and if you have a bit of soldering skill and a 3d printer you can convert almost anything to a standard tool battery... For this one, I'd sneak a second mosfet into my next electronics order to take advantage of the board already being set up for that... I bet doing so drops the resistance by more than half, due to the extra heat dissipation. I like that this one has no real brain, though, at least on the tool side.
...Thinking the same (if drop across mosfet is triggering current protection)...but....If voltage dip is causing cutoff, extra Mosfet might scare battery into cutoff even more easily?
@@leybraith3561 Yeah, in retrospect I might just skip the existing brains in the battery pack entirely and build a new battery pack with a properly-implemented BMS...
LOL. Got the same thing two weeks ago here in Romania. One battery at 8V charge, the other one 3V... both came alive once charged. Seems to work fine every time, but didn't run it yet for more than a minute at a time.
i dunno. i got a no brand bike tool kit from lidl years ago. cost me about $15. when i opened it it was all stamped with 'kmc' logos. it was the same set kmc were selling for hundreds😂 nice and solid german product. marketting costs a lot it seems.
Would it help to put a chonky capacitor across the battery terminals before the switch? Then that would charge when you popped in a battery and would assist with the startup load. I'm not sure there's enough room for one of sufficient size though.
They didn't populate the other mosfet becasue the designer was a noob and didn't include a separate source balance resistor for each mosfet, to prevent one mosfet from going nuts. Probably kept blowing one of the mosfets. So they decides to just use one. I wouldn't trust the grinding wheel to not explode and disintegrate in my face. I suffer from "grinding wheel in the face" phobia.
Going for cheap, I would have ditched the custom protect circuit and used protected cells. Unless a cell was bad, which would be easy to test for, you wouldn't run into that strange inrush problem at all. Besides, if we're honest, even the big tool manufacturers like to saddle tools with subpar included batteries.
The ones i built using an Ali.... Kit had ex laptop cells in so far better than the ones in the two original battery packs .Need to bodge my cheap Ali battery terminal welder i could get a bigger spark from a ronson lighter .Any thoughts on fitting a big capacitor in them to improve the output so you can get better welds on thicker metal?
This is my favorite new bench damage since the squiggle shaped burn mark
I still prefer the plastic welder squiggle.
that plastic welder squiggle stares me in the face every time i see it!! it's odd watching old videos and NOT seeing it lol
That bench has got LORE
I agree the squiggle gets my vote 👍🏻
The plastic staple is still my favorite.
They even added a ball bearing to the drive shaft instead of only relying on the motor bearings.. you must have picked the premium version ;-)
The premium one has brushless motor in it I think 🙃This one is the business class version 😉
Bar is in hell's basement.
@@WooShell I suspect it was cheaper than getting a motor with a usable bearing. Without it would last maybe 10 minutes.
I am actually building something right now that requires a 12V DC motor, boost converter and a LiPo cell. The current spike at the start of the motor kept tripping the over current protection of the cell. After some research it was apparent that the protection MOSFET voltage drop determines the current limit. Instead of digging through tiny SMD MOSFETS, I just used an ATTiny85 and a power MOSFET to make it PWM soft start and the tripping never happened again.
I bought one of these as a bare unit for about 8 quid purely for the disc mounting part as it is a remarkably convenient way of adapting sawblades to a 1/8" shaft used by small brushless motors for RC planes and such. IThe large bearing can be encorparated into a 3d printed housing quite handily. I build mini fighting robots for a hobby so power tool abuse is a way of life. The 550 brushed motor in these grinders is remarkably spicy from a current perspective.
The motor probably feels stiff because they applied grease to a bushing that needs oiling, I find that a lot with motors these days, they fit bronze bushings that for many a decade were known to need machine oil, but they gob on a lump of grease instead and it ends up reluctant to turn, worst offender I had was my desk fan, when new, it wouldn't turn on low speed at all and barely turned at full, found it was greased, cleaned it all out and oiled it, it's been running great for 12 years...
That's called Cha Bu Duo engineering
An old rule of thumb I heard a long time ago. If it spins oil it, if it slides grease it.
@@twocvbloke a proper amount of carefully applied light oil does wonders for the life of the sleeve bushings in small motors.
I have a similar sized grinder from Lidl. It is worth paying slightly more for one with a safety tested and approved charger and battery, also it ramps the speed up over a second or so to prevent the stalling issue with this one.
I actually opened some 18650 batteries from a failed battery pack for a cloned Dyson vacuum: A teeny battery and the rest was sand. I thought how nice, built in fire suppression sand....
Thanks for the upload, its 3 am and you just reminded me to unplug my dewalt I left charging!
The Bosch original version of that tool actually works really well and i use it much more than i expected
The Bosch original is such an amazing problem solver.
They also copied the battery layout as it seems.
We have one at work and it's handy for sure
@@semifavorableuncircle6952 I am a big fan of the Bosch 12v tools. Every one I own has performed perfectly since day one.
When Lidl were selling off tools a couple of years ago I bought several of their version of this tool. Super useful in the workshop. I use one with a normal cutting disc, one has a fence attached for straight cuts and another I fitted a ROLOC pad and i use it for sanding, deburring etc. Some of my favourite and mot used cordless tools.
Thanks for this teardown , adding a capacitor before the switch may reduce the Inrush current viewed by the battery.
I have 2 of these from when Bosch first brought these out. Great, handy tools used professionally and at home. The original is a brushless motor. One of them stutters on start, but it still works after a good bang, its great. Life like.
I own two of these, and i can say they are pretty neat. If there is a small cutting job or hard to reach places these little things are best. Sometimes even a regular cordless grinder can't reach places that this one can. The only thing I did right after buying it was replace all the standard batteries, because they are all crap and do not hold the declared capacity right out of the box, and also added a soft start pcb, so than motor will not rape protecting circuit every time it starts.
I had one of these. It looked exactly the same but it was brushless. I used it maybe 7 times before it broke. I went and bought the newer 20v dewalt cut off tool and it is phenomenal! Tons of torque!
Also there are batteries that work with your tool that have a couple extra cells. They are shaped like the Milwaukee 12v XC3.0 batteries. If the tool held up I would have bought the bigger batts to try. Thanks for the video as always!
At work we had the Bosch version of this, and they are very good. I have the Parkside PWSA12 (25 Euro without the batteries and a charger), and that is also very good.
They offer it in a choice of colours and don't sell it in pink? Disgraceful!
Bosch sells or sold a pink IXO with a strange grip texture that made it look like a proper s3x toy...
Very much a 'cost reduced' version of Aldi's Ferrex F-CAG12S. I have one in pieces at the moment to modify it for a specific job. I paid about the same, but with only 1 battery and no charger. No battery gauge on the Ferrex, but it does have variable speed. Overall I was quite impressed with it's mechanical build quality.
That reminds me… I’ve got some old makita ni-cd that I should rebuild with lithiums… I’ve got an old makita mini-grinder that still works a treat, but the old-school 90s battery packs are toast.
Hey, I have one just like that!
Finally I managed to get my hands on a weird tool before Clive, appreciate the teardown as always
I click on your videos when I see em, and I just have to say that you have great audio. Not a ton of treble, just enough lows. My ears are pleased
I have 5 of the cordless "makita" battery type grinders. I got 5 for the price of 1 "genuine " grinder as I wanted to keep a different type disc on each grinder to avoid the need to change discs so frequently. I use them everyday for almost 3 years. Powerful and no issues. Genune batteries are a must though as the cheap knock offs don't run a power hungry grinder very long.
Just so people know: there is a brushless motor version of this I received from Temu here in the US, it was about $20 shipped and is of a much higher quality. It came with 2 metal wood blades, 6 cutoff discs, and 2 grinding discs. I use it daily, it still runs quiet, flawless and smooth.
Wow great purchase
That is certainly a cute little tool. I am impressed to see a ball bearing supporting the shaft so it might actually last a reasonable amount of time for light duty use. The little ratchet looks interesting too. But like all the cheap lithium powered devices, I’m afraid of fires. As a matter of extra caution I only buy authentic name brand OE tool batteries.
This case seems as precise as something someone did on the first day after getting their 3d printer.
Thanks!
Thanks. Very much appreciated.
I have the electric ratchet and for infrequent use it just does the job as described
Thanks for the analysis, always interesting to see what the cheaper tools offer and what the trade-off is, and if it can be worked around!!
I guess the tool is what in the power tool market is sometimes called 10.8V (though Milwaukee irritatingly calls it M12...), since the three battery cells seemed to be marked 3.7 V [ 7:00 ]. Which probably would make the charging voltage 4.2 per cell, or 12.6V over the whole pack.
I have one of those and took it to work to try it out, not bad but as you said the batteries they are sending with it are not strong enough to cut anything substantial but as you guessed you can buy bigger batteries for it and with it it works great and even able to cut metal and wood.
I have a Ryobi shop vac, and it does the exact same thing with certain batteries. It will spin for a sec, then stop. It works if you flip the switch twice though. It only does it with certain batteries, and no other tools do that with those batteries.
These grinders (i have a Parkside one) are the best for grinding small parts (i've successfully tried converting some standard hex to non-standard-tamper-proof screwdriver bits) and removing excess PCB material from the edges.
I've once tried to run it with a different battery form another Chinese tool while original one was charging. Apparently the other battery was not designed for such current as its protection FETs turned into significant amount of smoke after some 2 minutes :)
Three inch...seems to be the standard size...I'm used to the bigger ones
I'm wondering where one could buy such small grinding discs - assuming they wear out before the tool gives up the ghost!
It looks like the disc guard (which you cerefully marked before removing!) can be rotated to suit the angle the tool is being used at - there's a row of dimples around the central hole...
3 inches is the standard size? I thought it was 6 inches! 😂😂
@FamilyOfEyles Screwfix in the UK.
that size is common on small air powered grinders, both straight and angle. They are handy for tight spaces but the small discs wear quite fast.
Size queen 🤦♀️
Aw, isn't it just the cutest little thing.
i got one on ali express . paid $35 about 3 years ago and it work really well
It's a good day when we get a new mark on the bench!
I got a similar tool as a bare tool. But the handle off and just hold the motor motor section sort of like a rotary tool. Just use a inline switch with a XT60 connector on it then an RC lipo battery. Not the safest thing out but does the job i needed it for.
Im glad you did a review of these grinders because I was thinking of getting one... It's ust a shame that they do not do them in Barbie Pink 🙂
Yeah. I'd have bought the pink one.
Now I know what a 3 inch tool sounds like.
Some girls like it that wide 😉
@@jasonstclair1329 wide? 😰
@@kisielthe1st wide.
@@jasonstclair1329 see what I'm wondering is if that's diameter, radius, or circumference.
@@kisielthe1st Hydraulic press mishap
i got one a few months ago for like 15 bucks on ali with 2 batteries.
it works great... well unless you want to cut something bigger than a 10mm threaded rod. i used it so little im still on the first disc
those batteries are horrible. it turns off all the time as the voltage drops too much under load
Finally the right tool this Christmas for your one relative that has 30 year old gout and bunions.
Any good for stealing bicycles?
😂 what ?
Probably, but I won't test that.
@@dennismugweru2325 It is cheap, light weight and small. Easy to carry and conceal. If they can cut padlocks I can see a big market for them.
Nice little tool there I might actually get one, it looks pretty sturdy 😊 thanks Clive
I have one of these but it lacks voltage indicator and it says brushless motor on the box. :) I love it, it's great for small tasks, but over time it developed a rear motor bearing play. Battery capacity is not far from advertised (1160 mAh if I remember correctly) but they are discharged in maybe 5 minutes and take forever to charge. So I bought 3 of them. :)
Others have mentioned a need to lubricate the rear bearing of these motors.
Ahh, love these BOLTRs from Clive. Something's missing though... Oh yes, "Focus you f***!"
Yes i hear AVE in the background
I lock focus to avoid those issues.
gentlemens. welcome to the shop....
@@miscellaneousHandle "...ladies, other..."
Hi Clive, maybe strong magnets in motor make it feel notchy. Many thanks from Nr Chester.
I have got one of those with a brushless motor. I like it as it is handy for small things to work on.
16 GBP death wheel?!? Sign me up.
I am pretty new to watching your channel, but if you have not done so already, a compilation history video that shows the moment of every bit of damage ever done to your workbench (on camera) could be good fun to watch :D
When you first pulled the grinder out of the box it immediately remind me of the "Playskool" tool toys; comically proportioned plastic "tools" so toddlers can hammer and saw at other plastic accessories. I was half expecting the grinder wheels to be plastic too!
A very budget compact disk cutter for "those with nefarious intent" 😀! Those 3 inch / 75mm cutter disks are an excellent buy for legit. purposes, fitting all 75mm cut-off tools (e.g. Ryobi) and very widely available from all the usual sources for a pretty good price (esp. if bought in bulk).
Great to see inside one of these, I have been looking at them on eBay, there where some misleading listings giving the impression they had a brushless motor inside them. haha.
I couldn't find a datasheet for the MOSFET in that package but in the sop8 package it is supposed to handle 80A at 25C or 240A pulsed which should be more than enough to start the tool.
I wonder if the cells are so out of balance that even when "fully" charged they are well below optimal.
I didn't actually test the cells for balance, but they would be close, as the end of charge voltage was above 12V and the first to reach 4.2V ends the charge.
I have one very similar from Lidl. It will shut off if the wheel jams or takes a slight drag now. I don't remember it having this problem when I bought it in 2017.
It's a nice looking little grinder. I could have made use of something like this last year when I was changing the sway bar links on my Honda.
Ah, just like the squiggly plastic melt staple, we can now see the grinder cut, and know where we are in the BigClive timeline.
I have the OG bosch and its pretty handy. There is some blades available for plastic cutting that might be worth looking into if you are going to use it for cutting electronics apart :D
You now have the perfect tool for marking your bench or any where else for a quick game of noughts and crosses 😂
Well I think you need to test out Aldi own brand Ferox 4" 240v angle grinder! I bought one and thought I smelt something after plugging it in and within 5 minutes in had gone up in smoke whilst in my hand!
Looks identical to a Parkside brand mini grinder I had, same triangle battery etc. That had opposite problem of not turning off!
my dremel has started doing that
I actually got 2 of these off ebay @ £14 each delivered, which is frankly ridiculous.. one had the earth pin snapped off the charger, I didnt bother reporting it because of the silly price. I`ve not used them in anger yet, just using one to cut some thick, "structural" type cardboard for some creative packing. I got it for removing rusty bolts/nuts/fixings off in confined places, like bumper mountings etc. Part of the reason I got it because I also have 2 of the ratchets with the same battery (used at least weekly for the last 4-5 years with no issues), although the batteries that came with this are a fair bit lighter than the ratchet ones. I`d like to get hold of the charger receiver ports to convert some wired car accessories to cordless, like lamps & a tyre pump (I did convert a ring analogue pump to cordless with a Makita LXT battery adaptor, but the voltage was too much for the Ring motor & burnt it out quite quickly).
"and asking me to send a photo of the grinder not working." lol that would be a very interesting picture
they got me with that on ali. some device they didnt put a power button on. they asked me to send a picture of the missing power button. because thats insane i lost my money.
Video.. I just had a problem with a set of headphones which died 17 months into an 18 month warranty. Sent a video showing it being charged, and then pressing the power button. They returned 1/2 price. Seems fair enough
What about adding a starting cap to the grinder, wouldn't that stop the spike, seems thats what they do with all the big ac motors.
It could be used as a reservoir for a pulse of current. In the AC motor application it's usually for the start winding.
Mine is blue, but it works ok. It overheats easily, but 10 second wait works fine.
So, the engineer designed it well, but the finance department decided to leave out parts. 😂
Tanks for saving me from having to take mine apart.
It works on reasonably heavy stuff if you take your time.
The 3” wheels were mostly used in air-driven grinders. I’ve got a selection of types, including Diamond for cutting glass & ceramic tile as well as metal and masonry. I carry it in a small box on many jobs, just in case I need to cut/grind something. It’s great for quick cutting heavy wires or pipes.
That would be useful for cutting metal packing bands, very intermittent use.
The hot staple wiggle makes me giggle 😂
I have some older Ryobi one+ branded batteries that do that. if the inrush surge is too big they lockout.
Do you have a recommendation as to where I can pick up some decent 18650 batteries? I've picked them up from eBay, Amazon and Temu, and all them had a capacity printed on them at least 1 1/2 times the actual capacity. The higher capacity ones were even worse. As it rated at 2400mah, but actually being 500 mah.
Thanks,
The best ones do command a higher price. They can be got from vape shops or salvaged from existing battery packs. As usual with lithium cells, handle with caution and avoid shorts, as they store a lot of energy.
5:19 Could you just add the second mosfet to that empty pad and solve the cutout issue?
It might also be the cells dipping in voltage under load.
Getting fancy with the schematics these days, Clive! Nice!
Lidl was selling something similar. I bought it and wasn´t impressed. The safety thermistor inside the battery pack was just too hysterical and after a minute or two it cut the battery off. Cutting a hard wire from fence mesh was "so so". Anything bigger like a thick screw or nail was a problem.
1500mAH in the other one, 1200mAH in this one... what kind of craptastic cells are they sticking in there?
Get some nice tabbed 30Qs or similar. 3000mAH and good high current output as well.
Bike thieves' new favorite!
@@Tore_Lund not if they are in a hurry lol ,to much pressure on the grinder and it stops ,not a lot of torque in this bit of kit .thinking about as the risk of a copper appearing they could use a nail file and not get caught
@@MrMan-f9c True not worth much. Maybe it can be useful for scratching your initials on a subway window, as I've seen done?
meretricious tool and a merry Christmas Clive . Your channel is excellent 🎄💡🪛
I have the DeWALT DCS438, 3” cut-off tool and it’s amazing. Can’t imagine how this thing might compare. Getting ready to be entertained!
Thanks Clive.
Very interesting.
Nice video, Clive. It got me thinking. Would an inductor or even a suitably sized inrush limiter work to stop startup spikes and the tool not working intermittently? I don't know if an inrush limiter would work in this application as they dissipate heat, although I like the idea of giving the tool a 'soft start'.
That is what us in industry call a muffler cutter. Not enough power for angle grinder duty.
Would a Milwaukee m12 battery fit that lal beastie?
I don't know if they're based on a specific battery.
"Super Mini Small Grinder 99,000 RPM. NASA designed XL Laser Pointer AmazeBalls Power. Cuts Titanium/Steel/Wood/Plastic/Porcelain/Ice. Home Space Military spec."...
My concern with these cheap tools is if something was to go wrong such as a fire from charging, or injury due to faulty cutting dics or grinding etc, who do you blame, i mean lots of sellers from ebay are located in china now, most of time you can never get a reply from them.
I do like a good cheaper alternative, but i have found over the years if i have problems you are stuck with the product.
I'm curious if you put another mosfet like the big one already present and put it in would it actually work and stop the cutting out issue. I see that this runs on 12 volts. Sounds tempting to wire this to a car battery. I wired an 12 volt drill to a car battery.
Ahh a nice cheap, cordless angle grinder, that’ll keep the shed thieves happy!
Thank you for the explanations, I have a lot of these batteries.
Wow. Only China would look at what is arguably the most dangerous powertool in anyone's shed & think "This needs to be made more portable & pocket-sized"
What batteries do these Chinese tools take? Are they milwaukee ect?
They seem unique to the generic tools, with built in charging and overdischarge protection.
nice, could use something between a dremel and the big beasty. csn aslo recomend pulitio..palutio...drills 😂, dirt cheap but great devices.
Nice look inside Big Clive. A lot of times the brushes on the commutator has some tightness until seated well.
Clive do you have the cutting wheel mounted the correct way ?? I was always preached to that the metal ring on one side of the cut off disc had to go outside towards the locking nut ?? so the flat surface of the disc was in contact with the "inside" to lay flat to the spindle collar.. Just asking for a friend 🙂
Normally I'd put it on label out. Not sure why I put it on that way. It seems to be a divisive subject online.
Made ideally for the bicycle theft market.
Every time I've bought a cordless power tool for less than $100, it has required at least a little bit of work to make functional. Sometimes that's worth it, because no reasonable big name tool maker is going to produce certain tools, like one-handed 6" chainsaws... Sometimes you get a DOA tool and get a refund and the seller doesn't want to pay shipping to have it sent back, so you're left with a broken tool for free, and if you have a bit of soldering skill and a 3d printer you can convert almost anything to a standard tool battery...
For this one, I'd sneak a second mosfet into my next electronics order to take advantage of the board already being set up for that... I bet doing so drops the resistance by more than half, due to the extra heat dissipation. I like that this one has no real brain, though, at least on the tool side.
...Thinking the same (if drop across mosfet is triggering current protection)...but....If voltage dip is causing cutoff, extra Mosfet might scare battery into cutoff even more easily?
@@leybraith3561 Yeah, in retrospect I might just skip the existing brains in the battery pack entirely and build a new battery pack with a properly-implemented BMS...
I bought a Dewalt, it works fine.
Thats nearly a 1:1 clone from the Bosch GWS12V-76.
Design wise, yes. Except they didnt clone the quality or performance.
lol
they all use the same factorys. probably closed the line down so the factory kept producing under another label or three
@@semifavorableuncircle6952 bosch use the same factories. not what thwy used to be. its going to be very similar.
@@luminousfractal420 Unlikely, the Bosch actually is made in Germany.
LOL. Got the same thing two weeks ago here in Romania. One battery at 8V charge, the other one 3V... both came alive once charged. Seems to work fine every time, but didn't run it yet for more than a minute at a time.
I wonder what the internal cell voltage was. When the cells run low in charge, the protection will kick in and give a weird voltage reading.
Looks alot like the parkside one from Lidl but hazard to say it's not as good as the parkside one
i dunno. i got a no brand bike tool kit from lidl years ago. cost me about $15. when i opened it it was all stamped with 'kmc' logos. it was the same set kmc were selling for hundreds😂 nice and solid german product.
marketting costs a lot it seems.
@luminousfractal420 love lidl products, alot of their stuff tastes the same as branded, same goes for some of their tools
You know you watch far too much youtube when you recognise every battlescar on Clive’s bench …
Would it help to put a chonky capacitor across the battery terminals before the switch? Then that would charge when you popped in a battery and would assist with the startup load. I'm not sure there's enough room for one of sufficient size though.
It might help with that initial spike.
They didn't populate the other mosfet becasue the designer was a noob and didn't include a separate source balance resistor for each mosfet, to prevent one mosfet from going nuts.
Probably kept blowing one of the mosfets. So they decides to just use one.
I wouldn't trust the grinding wheel to not explode and disintegrate in my face. I suffer from "grinding wheel in the face" phobia.
Going for cheap, I would have ditched the custom protect circuit and used protected cells. Unless a cell was bad, which would be easy to test for, you wouldn't run into that strange inrush problem at all. Besides, if we're honest, even the big tool manufacturers like to saddle tools with subpar included batteries.
For Office use only!
Would it be worth installing the second mosfet?
It might need the cells upgraded too.
The ones i built using an Ali.... Kit had ex laptop cells in so far better than the ones in the two original battery packs .Need to bodge my cheap Ali battery terminal welder i could get a bigger spark from a ronson lighter .Any thoughts on fitting a big capacitor in them to improve the output so you can get better welds on thicker metal?
It looks like a child's toy from the 70's, Big Clive! ... Is it "Bob The Builder" branded? Does it say, "Age 3 and over?" 🤣
Those batteries look VERY similar to the Rigid brand 12v batteries.
Clive I might be totally wrong but I think the tool cuts out every so often to prevent the motor from overheating. And burning its self out. ?
This is from cold. Some have a thermal switch too.