14.4v Drill Battery Revival/resurrection

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Isotel

Isotel

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You can give it a try but don't be surprised if they don't last. Honestly your best best is to either buy new packs (spendy) or rebuild the existing packs with new sub c cells (R/C car/robot batteries). I have rebuilt several packs for family and friends with very good results. If you can solder pretty well rebuild them with new cells and you'll be ahead of the game. New 2400Mah cells are around $4.90/cell. I don't know what new Dewalt 14.4v packs go for but you'll have a much better drill battery.
 
where does one get the sub c cell batteries?

thanks.
 
save your money on that link. here is is for free :D
http://www.instructables.com/id/EPV474YLF3EV2Z8V9V/?ALLSTEPS
also, here is some other info i got from other boards.

I have somthing of a system going for battery packs, mostly from when I ran RC cars alot, but it works on any battery.

Get a baseline for the battery, this can be done with fancy discharger (West Mountain Radio CBA-II), a charger with built in discharge (nicer RC chargers) or a simple lightbulb or array of bulbs that are rated for around the voltage. If you do the lightbulb way, simply time the battery till it significantly dims unplug it and calculate the capacity by looking at the drain from the bulb(s) multplied by the time in hours (the bulbs should tell you how much they draw)

Next I usually give it a slow charge, 200-300 mAh overnight, then test capacity again. If there is not significant improvement, I shock the battery by BRIEFLY tapping leads from a car battery to the pack. This should clear out any crystalization that is in it.

Slow charge and test capacity again, then if it improved, do a normal charge discharge about 5 times and measure the voltage. If it is 1v or more below the rated capacity, you have a dead cell, (1-1.2v low per cell dead) I would recommed replacing at least those cells (pull apart and test with volt meter)

Most drill packs use Sub-C size batteries, which are common with RC people. I would try and find one that is close to the same capacity as the original, otherwise the charger may undercharge the new cells and you would see no benefit.

I usually buy cells either as the cheap 1500 mah packs from the local hobby shop ($12 for 6 cells) or from cheapbatterypacks.com
 
This place has some reasonable prices for the 2000mAh (2.0Ah) cells. Scroll down to the sub c cells. Don't use anything less than 1500mAh (1.5Ah).

http://www.powerstream.com/NiB.htm
http://www.batteriesamerica.com/newpage3.htm
http://www.onlybatteries.com/showitem.asp?ItemID=11052

There is no point giving you links for the packs used currently in RC cars because they are using high capacity NiMH and Lipo packs that will not be compatible with the drill chargers and they are far more expensive.

There is no worry about under charging the batteries, it may take a little longer because of the increased capacity but you will still get full charge. It's no different than charging your car battery at a trickle or 6A or fast charging at 10A. The lower the current (typical of drill chargers) the less heat will be generated during the charging process. Less heat with Ni Cad packs is a good thing.
 
Thanks for the info! I was pretty sure somone had the info for free!, and thanks for the links to the new cells!

I used to Race R/C Cars, so ive built alot of RC Packs! ill try Zaping these first!

:cool:
 
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