On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 19:19:58 GMT, ray calmly
ranted:

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:52:50 -0700, Tim Douglass wrote:

Personally, on a price-performance basis the Ryobi tools at the orange
Borg get my vote. I've used several of them and they seem solid and
work well. Long term may be different, but for the price you can buy 3
sets of Ryobi's before you match the price of the good stuff. I
wouldn't recommend them if they didn't work, but if you close your
eyes you won't tell any difference between the Ryobi and, say, the
DeWalt.

YMMV

MMDV (my mileage did vary) I bought the 12 volt Ryobi contractors driver
a couple of years ago. The first one twisted off the chuck within a month
of purchase. Sheared it right off. HD replaced it, but now neither
battery will take a charge-- they just sit in the charger and blink red.
So in a burst of "brilliance," I went back to HD and bought the 12 volt
"consumer" driver for 50 bucks, since new batts for the old driver were
$40, and the new driver came with 2 12 volt batts. Imagine my surprise
when I discovered that the new Ryobi 12 volt batts do not fit the old
Ryobi 12 volt driver. Oh well. Might be a while before I buy another
Ryobi tool.

I've been doing Ryobi battery research today. Here's what I found
for the 14.4v batt packs I need:

Ebay:
PowerGears wants $25 for a new pack. "Good quality, Japanese-made."

Google:
PrimeCell: $40 2Ah, $55 2.6Ah, $68 3Ah nimh for rebuilds.
BatteryBarn: $54 for a 1.5Ah POS, $60 for a 2Ah rebuild.
BatterySavings: $50
Ebatts: $57 (same source as BatterySavings)
Voltmanbatteries: $30 (you pay shipping to them only, Sanyo 1.8Ah)
Powertoolbattery: $54
Batteryprice: $38.85 1.5Ah
Interbatteries: $34.53 1.7Ah exact replacement, new. $40 2Ah,
$7 UPS to ship 1 or 2 packs.

I may try a pack from each: PowerGears and Interbattery.


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