Beemerider

I figured no one around had more lipo experience than the folks here so figured I'd ask.

I need to replace the cells in the battery pack for my 18V Ryobi drill. It uses 14 sub c nicads. They're 1500 mAh cells. I'm thinking I might try to take a few of my older lipo packs and make something that might work. I've got a couple 3s 2200 packs that are excess and thinking of making up a 5s 2200. They would easily fit inside the battery case and I could wire up the appropriate balance and charging leads and use my B6 charger for the occasional charge. Anyone here ever done something like this?

CHELLIE

most of the lipo cells are fuse welded together, you wont be able to solder or desolder lipo cells together, also you wont be able to monitor the voltage of the lipo cells if you did manage to get a lipo pack together, Ryobi drill motor batteries are a Piece of Junk IMHO, they dont last very long, and they are expensive as heck to replace, Harbor freight tools has a 18v drill motor on sale from time to time for about 15.00-19.00, i bought 2 of them and they work great, you are going to spend more than 15.00-19.00 for replacement batteries alone,

http://www.harborfreight.com/cordles...olt-68239.html

rcers

I agree with Chellie the best thing to do is not to do surgery on existing packs.

That said I use a 4s pack in one of my drills with great results. LiPo's are cheap and make excellent replacements with a little work.

Mike

Henry Sistrunk

I have been using a 3 cell lipo in mine for years with no problem. It don't look so hot but works. Picture later.
Henry

Beemerider

What voltage was your drill originally spec'd with? My Ryobi was supplied with an 18v pack. A 4s would give me about 15v. I can come up with 4s or 5s. I'll have to play some with voltage and see how the drill handles it. This is not the commercial grade of drill, but the homeowner variety. Something else of importance is the weight savings of using lipo. Big heavy battery packs work on your wrists after a while.

Henry Sistrunk

Everytime I would need to use the drill both packs would be dead. Every 2 years new packs cost almost as much as a new drill. This mod eliminated both problems. I soldered a pig tail inside the drill handle so I could use any pack I needed. For drilling I use a 3 cell pack. For driving large screws I use a 4 cell pack. Now my drill is allways ready to use.

Beemerider

I like it. I agree with you in that new nicad packs cost more than a new drill. My drill is nearly identical to yours except mine is the 18v version. Mine was a Christmas special that included the circular saw. Could you not find lipo packs that would fit inside the oem battery case?

My battery case has 6 screws and is (or appears to be) easy to rebuild.

Henry Sistrunk

I played with trying to fit cells into the pack but found this much simpler to do. And I can use any pack I have at any time. But, It sure don't look factory.
Henry

solentlife

Just to ressurrect the thread !! .... many people modify old drills that the battery packs have died on.

I have a 12V (8 cell NiCD) drill that I really liked ... small, powerful for size ... had it years ... but later couldn't get packs for it as the size changed by a mm or so .... What to do ? I looked at opening the pack and replacing the cells ... tagged cells are available but would be NiMH instead...

In the end I decided that a portable drill that I could use on the boat ... in the car at field ... etc. was better served by a wandering lead from a 12V source. Yes - the good old ciggy socket came to the rescue.

I removed the contacts so the old cells were then just ballast in the pack. Wired up a lead that exited just above the pack ... so now I have a balanced well powered druill again. It works of those Car Emergency start packs, my boats 12v system, car ciggy socket ... wherever I can get 10 - 14V ...

My next is to take the other drills I have bought over the years (drills complete beuing cheaper than battery packs !) and convert to LiPo .....

One of the main points I found ....... balance of the drill ... if you take away that battery weight - the drill is then unbalanced and tires the wrist and arm quicker.


There are other uses for the old drills as well ... fix them to a mount and create pillar drills, lathes, all sorts .... then the 12v lead doesn't matter ... its fine.

Nigel

kyleservicetech

Yeah, I've thought about doing that. I've got an old reliable Porter Cable electric drill that has had its battery cells replaced by RC2400 Nicads. It's been working very well.

Nowdays, I've picked up the Sears Craftsman Nextec series of 12 volt drills and impact drivers. These units use a triangle type of battery pack that is very similar to many other brands of triangle packs. Only they are not interchangeable due to lead terminations. I've found they all use the same internal cells.

That said, the replacement battery packs for the Craftsman units are around $22 or so, half of the price of the Ridgid and other brand identical battery packs. I even bought a Craftsman 12 volt battery pack, stripped out its cells and rebuilt a Ridgid pack. It works great, but not recommended, its a lot of work.

One place, www.voltmanbatteries.com sells those A123 cells for $9.99 each. The main business of voltmanbatteries is rebuilding battery packs for existing portable battery operated tools. They can rebuild any Nicad or Nih battery pack.

http://www.voltmanbatteries.com/serv...sh--ANY/Detail

solentlife

In UK is a similar small biz ... in fact they built a new pack for my JR with 2300mAh NiMH ... $20 all in ...

But at end of day - a LiPo that is tired and just about over for flying is a good deal to strap onto the drill.

I'm a great believer in finding other uses for gear .. tired LiPo's are great bench power supplies .. can work that drill .... Rx power supplies via BEC ... etc.

I'm actually considering taking my servo tester ... fix to a box containing a spent LiPo and BEC ... as a permanent rig. Easy enough to fix balance and power leads so I can charge it up as well ...
I have a few LiPo's that 1 cell has died .. a couple of others that are good enough for this but not enough oooomph to fly ...


Nigel

DHC Beaver

I did more or less the same as henry sistrunk.The battery on one of my dynalink drills was dead,so i soldered an XT60 connector to the contacts,and presto,1 working drill.I'm using an 1800mah 3-cell pack.I couldn't use the original case,as the locating lugs had broken years ago,and the pack was held in place by a rubber band.
The lipo pack is held on by a velcro strap.

BillDeLong

Hey Guys... I know I'm late to the party on this thread, but I just finished doing a conversion tonight and was curious to see what other folks might have been doing. I see a lot of great ideas too!

I decided to recycle the pack holder and drilled a hole to expose some 4mm bullets and the balance port so that I could attach an LVA when in use:

larger image


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CHELLIE

Hi Bill Welcome to Wattflyers good conversion, all a person needs is a way to keep track of the lipo from draining down to far, Hmmmmm maybe build in a low voltage warning buzzer take care, Chellie

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...rm_2s_4s_.html

pizzano

Anyone have a suggestion for the Makita cordless model 6095d....DC9.5v........Ni-Cd.....neither of the old batteries I have hold a charge very long or have any punch left in them.....?

CHELLIE

What size is the battery that slips into the handle, might be able to get a 2 cell lipo in there. use the top part of the original battery with the old batteries removed for the contacts, or maybe you can get the lipo to fit in the old battery case with the old batteries removed and with most of the sides removed.just my 2 cents worth.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...Lipo_Pack.html

solentlife

If it's variable speed drill - I would try a 3S pack.... even though it's a 30% increase in voltage.

Nigel

CHELLIE

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzbKOeui63A[/media][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGCUb2oHTnY[/media]
Here you go Pizzano

BillDeLong

thanks Chellie, if you look carefully on the second pic I embedded, I'm using the very same LVA... only problem is that every time I activate the drill, the alarm temporarily sounds... I'm thinking of disabling the buzzer and then rely on just the LED's switching from Green to Red and only worry when they remain Red at rest.

I think the LVA is set to be far too sensitive unfortunately... I might look into a better quality LVA that is adjustable if this becomes a long term problem

BillDeLong

I would go 3S too... my Ridgid drill is rated for 14.4V but I've been running larger 18V packs in it for the past 10+ years with no problems, having the added speed + torque is really nice

hayofstacks

I really wanted to do this to my makita drill. other was the only lithiium-ion and brushlessmotor drill made at the time I got it. $150 for 2 batteries though.

BillDeLong

yeah, I could convert my Ridgid over to LiPo at $50 for the dual charger + $80 per battery... my solution cost only $20 for a 4S LiPo battery and then use my R/C Grade charger which gave me a net savings of $110 for the conversion from NiCd to LiPo.

Only pickle for me is that I have 2 NiCd battery packs under lifetime warranty, I usually have them replaced free of charge once every 2-3 years, but the prospect of LiPo is really appealing to me so I may suck it up and convert those packs over just for convenience sake, plus I could charge as many packs as I want at a single time using a paraboard

pizzano

Thank you Chellie.........that blue Makita is the same model I have.....I just may give it a shot, if I can fiqure out the proper wiring.

rcdrifter

I've converted my 14.4V Ni-Cd cordless drill to 3S lipo, only balance plug sticking out.
Drill is a bit slower since original battery voltage is 14.4V and 3S only 11.1V but torque is amazing.

With this kind of wire harness I'm able to charge with accucel 8 only via balance plug.

4*60

Converted a 19.2V drill to 6S Lipo(2X3S) and works great.