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"Re-celling" rechargeable batteries


Alan Zoff
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Alan Zoff.

How did your recelled batteries hold up in use? The ones I did for others years ago were OK I think but I never got any long term feedback.

I have just bitten the bullet and bought 78 cells to refurbish the 6 batteries for my 3 drills, it was that or another new Makita, it was very tempting as B&Q have 18 volt ones with two li-ion batteries for £99 less the OAP discount on thursday.

But I just could not in all conscience keep replacing perfectly servicable tools, I have 3 good professional battery drills with batteries that are foutu, the Makita ones have now joined the others.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? You have to keep one battery on constant charge to be able to use the tool when you need to, you put the other one on charge while you work with charged one in the tool which always dies before the second one is fully charged, then starts the dance of swapping partially charged ones between the charger and tool, the first lunch break gets you the first fully charged battery, the next morning you have another one, and so it goes on.

Hopefully my marathon recelling job will liberate me from this servitude.

 

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The drill is still working fairly well but while the replacement batteries are better than those originally supplied by Silverline, it is still a Silverline drill! I suspect the motor is inefficient compared with better makes as it doesn't have the outright power of other drills and the batteries have to be recharged more frequently. But you get what you pay for.

So I am undecided as to whether it was worth the hassle or whether it would have been better to have put the cost of the new cells towards a new drill. It was an interesting exercise and satisfying to achieve a DIY result. Would be more worthwhile to do, of course, with a better quality tool.

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Thanks for the reply, mine were all good pro quality and powerfull drills when the batteries were new and when I replaced the dewalt ones with genuine batteries but they did not last very long at all before going like the others.

Time will tell with these happygoluckybrightsunnyshinystari'macelebritygetmeoutofhereelectronicstradingcompany ones, they havnt got to be much good to equal the expensive dewalt replacements or the new makita ones bought a couple of years back.

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[quote user="Chancer"]

...But I just could not in all conscience keep replacing perfectly servicable tools, I have 3 good professional battery drills with batteries that are foutu, the Makita ones have now joined the others.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? You have to keep one battery on constant charge to be able to use the tool when you need to, you put the other one on charge while you work with charged one in the tool which always dies before the second one is fully charged, then starts the dance of swapping partially charged ones between the charger and tool, the first lunch break gets you the first fully charged battery, the next morning you have another one, and so it goes on.

Hopefully my marathon recelling job will liberate me from this servitude.

 

[/quote]

Yes, sadly that definitely rings a bell. Both batteries on my Bosch pro hammer drill and both on my Dewalt drill have pretty much died off.

The problem is that my use is very erratic, with bursts of intense usage and then long periods of inactivity with just the odd holes here or there to drill and 9 times out of ten I find all batteries flat and when charged, only have enough puff for a few holes before becoming discharged again.

One of the Dewalt batteries was a non-branded replacement that I bought from ebay a year or two ago, and despite having a higher Ah rating than the standard one, lasts no better at all. I cant complain too much about the others though - they have given many years of service.

I am toying with the idea of zapping one with the welder to see what that does for it. Assuming I still have eyeballs at the end of the day, I hear that it can work well - will need to do further research on this.

 Thinking of replacements chaffs my chuff though - replace the cells or even the whole packs....not too devastating cost-wise, but will they be any good? my exprrience of the replacement for the Dewalt hasnt filled me with confidence, or do I splash out and replace the whole lot? Modern drills with lithium batteries seem to be quite impressive performance-wise and are much lighter, but it grates to consign perfectly good tools to the scrap pile. If I did do this, I would get two the same so batteries could be interchanged.

Last year one of my clients got a bunch of stereotypically dirty hippies in to build what turned out to be a very impressive tree-house on his grounds. They were all using the latest Dewalt Lithium drills and for such lightweight, feeble-looking (certainly compared to my chunky Bosch thing) drill they were bloody impressive, getting intense use all day and with very short recharge times. Some were traditional drills and some were impact drill/drivers, which gave frankly stunning power.

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I can vouch for the quality of DeWalt drills.  After years of buying cheap no-name drills from Brico sheds I was given a De Walt as a Christmas present last year. So now instead of drilling a few oval holes on one charge I can go on and on drilling round  holes.  OK I'm only a DIYer but it is nice to use quality equipment.
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ive been using Makita professionnally (that is to say instensively) for about 8yrs...in terms of qulaity/price ratio for these tools, it is very good...if you really want pro-pro....then buy Hilti or Spit, which will set you back 700euros for the cordless drill....and i'm being very kind on Hilti and Spit. I have three Spit machines and a big jack hammer Hilti....they really are unbreakable and demand practically no TLC. But to be honest, who on earth is going to spend 1400euros on a jack-hammer?? apart from someone who uses it every month!!!
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My Elu was the fore-runner of the Dewalt range (they bought Elu) pretty much identical except that Dewalt improved the gearbox with an all metal one, I have been using it professionally since I reckon about 1994 so close to 20 years [:-))]

Mind you its a bit like Triggers broom as I have replaced a few bits, the casing when I dropped it from the roof (I did patch it back together like Humpty Dumpty until I coud find another second hand one for bits) a trigger, gearbox, a chuck, loads of batteries, the damaged ones that I bought for spares have procreated so now I have 2 Elu cordless drills and another pile of bits for spares.

Luckily people dont know of the Elu as they werent made for long before being bought by Dewalt so I can always pick them up for buttons on Ebay.

I still have one of the original batteries from 1994 and it is no worse than the others which are 3rd generation replacements despite them being a greater capacity, they dont make em like they used to, my Makita is OK but really not in the same league as the Elu/Dewalt.

It will be interesting to see how they perform with the new cells especially the batteries that get left for long periods in the UK.

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Have just taken delivery of 79 new cells and refurbished the first of 6 batteries with very dissapointing results, the new cells are supposed to be 2500mah (my old ones were 1300mah) but seem pretty useless, they take a charge ok but on a current test they will only give 5 amps compared to 7 amps of one of the remaining functional 10 year old cells.

I then powered up a 45 watt headlight bulb from the refurbed battery pack and the old one, bearing in mind that the drill takes around 300 watts, the voltage drop on the old pack was 7% and 30% with the new cells fully charged [:-))]

I am requesting a refund or a decent replacement but want to ask Alan Zoff which ebay seller he bought his batteries from?

I have tested all the cells individually and they all give the 5 amps, I also tested the voltage drop across each soldered joint under the test load and that varied between 20 and 120 millivolts, so for 12 batteries the volt drop across the connections accounts for one volt of the five volts drop, significant but doesnt seem to be the real culprit.

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The Seller was citybestbuy  I don't know much about the technical stuff you have mentioned. All I can say is that the drill works better now than it did with the original cells, but that not might be saying very much! The ones I took out were rusty and falling to bits, even though the tool wasn't old and had been stored in the dry.
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Same seller!

Will wait to see what they propose.

I have been faffing about again and made up a sausage of 12 cells to test on the bench thinking perhaps the issue may have been dry soldered joints, not much difference the cells do have enough oomph to melt a soldered joint if the battery is shorted (around 60 amps flowing) but the volt drop even on a 45 watt headlight bulb is still 20-30% and my old knackered ones drop 7%.

With a new dewalt battery I can drill 20 or 3/4" holes in wood, with these cells fully charged the drill runs for no more than 3 seconds [:(] even the old knackered ones are far better than that and they were only 1300mah when new!

Its astonishing how much time I can waste trying to fix up things in order to save money, if it wasnt through necessity I really can see why some people just throw things away and buy new.

What colour were the cells that you bought? The colour changes with the capacity, mine are yellow.

Delivery was ultra fast, ordered Tuesday night and the factrice tried to deliver them on Saturday, I hadnt even returned to France by then, the estimated arrival date was from the 6th to 28th December [:-))] work that one out!!!

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Just as a matter of interest how did you join the cells together? I seem to remember (from RC modelling) they are normally spot welded a sort of short sharp heat rather than soldering which is lower temperature but longer which can damage the batteries.
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They have solder tags Quillan but the soldered joints create an undesirable  resistance and hence a volt drop under load that a spot welded battery pack would not suffer from.

The heat from the soldering is dissipated along the tag and does not overheat the cells, however the heat from the resistance of the joints in the confines of the battery pack when the drill is under load is another thing.

I did notice that the battery with these cells was a lot lighter than before, seemed like a good thing initially [:(]

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It was just a thought was all.

I bought new batteries for my old Black and Decker drill, sander and jigsaw unit I bought oh must be fifteen years ago. They were sold as originals via Ebay and certainly look identical down to the numbers embedded in the moulding and work fine. They were not really expensive either around £38 each if I remember correctly. I do have an old Makita (?) whose battery went years ago and was too expensive to replace plus it is the old long thin type. That’s the reason I am watching this thread because if there are good results I might try and rebuild the battery as it was a nice drill.

 

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My last couple of replacments were genuine Dewalts bought from Screwfix and were nowhere near as good as the originals, TBH honky shonky chinese ones would have been as good.

I have 6 batteries to replace it is cheaper to buy new drills than replace them but it goes againts everything that I stand for, the cost of honky shonky pattern batteries is quite high as is the cost of getting them recelled hence the DIY approach.

I have recelled batteries several times in the past with great success but then I was buying the cells from one of my main suppliers CPC and they were a good make (G.P.) and other than some soldering problems through not having a big enough iron it worked really well, back then I only replaced the dud cells but some of my batteries are now so old that I am better off changing all of them, if only I could find a good supplier, serves me right I suppose for trying to save every last penny, I am £98 down at the moment which would have bought a new Makita Li_ion combi drill [:(]

If you can find good cells Quillan, and I guess had I researched I could have done, then if they have solder tags I reckon that you will do a good job, I too have a 9 volt Makita somewhere which I bought new batteries for once although come to think of it its another thing that seems to have dissapeared.

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I have never done it before hence following the thread to see how people get on, if it works and does it work well or just not bother. I now it is a bit sneaky letting others do the work and watch them go through the pain but if you haven't done it you could save a lot of money at the expence of others. In the nicest possible way of course. [;-)]
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[quote user="Chancer"]I did notice that the battery with these cells was a lot lighter than before, seemed like a good thing initially [:(][/quote]And there you have it I think.

When it comes to quality in rechargables it is very much a case of you get what you pay for and weight is actually quite a good first indicator so if yours are so noticeably lighter then you've probably bought cheap Chinese tat !

What size are the cells ?

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[quote user="Quillan"]I have never done it before hence following the thread to see how people get on, if it works and does it work well or just not bother. I now it is a bit sneaky letting others do the work and watch them go through the pain but if you haven't done it you could save a lot of money at the expence of others. In the nicest possible way of course. [;-)][/quote]

Perhaps I am unique but I am always happy to share my disasters with others so that they may make a more informed decision themselves, I take a lot of risks but overall come out on top, sometimes doing something that everyone tells you cant be done (because everyone tells them!) yields real dividends and again I am happy to share that knowledge.

An example, everyone tells you not to use old cement, plaster, tile cement etc, any dried materials that have gone hard, all except the local brico selling bags of cement 5 years past their date which they insist is the manufacture date!

Well in my usual way I decided to put the myth to the test and bought a couple of cheap garden seives of different grades (tamises) I have used hardened cement after 3 or 4 years (a few whacks with a lump hammer and the majority can be recovered) and recently hardened tile cement that was 7 years old both worked as well as new ones, however the wallpaper paste for intissé that had bulged in its packet due to damp in my cellar just would not thicken.

ANO the batteries are claimed to be 2500mah, below is the sellers reply to my complaint

Hi, these batteries were made for manufacturer use. The quality may not as good as the branded batteries, but the difference of capacity should not be this much.
Would you like to keep the batteries for partially refund your payment which can save from return postage and time from posting back the item?
Thank you

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