DIYbanter - View Single Post

mike[_22_]

On 12/7/2017 2:38 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, 7 December 2017 04:50:38 UTC, mike wrote:
On 12/6/2017 6:23 AM, Foxs Mercantile wrote:
On 12/6/2017 2:02 AM, mike wrote:
and and switched to Ryobi lithium.

20 years ago, Ryobi closed all their parts warehouses
in the US.
Secondly, for example, if you blow the gear box in a
Makita, you order a complete new gearbox.
With Ryobi, you get to order each part individually and
assemble it yourself.

Yeah, I did this for a living for a while.

Like I said, if you use 'em to make a living, you might
want something better.

I've been buying tools of many brands at garage sales and thrift stores.
In 40 years of household use I've never broken a cordless tool.
It's always the batteries that go dead.

So, you end up with a Makita drill with a dead battery and a good
battery for a B&D drill you don't have and a similar B&D drill
that won't fit that battery. And a Porter Cable battery with no tool.
and a big box of perfectly good tools that need batteries.
And a 'toxic waste dump' of random dead batteries.

Any 18V Ryobi tool I have works on any Ryobi 18V NiCD or lithium
battery I have.
Yesterday, I bought a Ryobi 18V drill at a thrift store for $2.50.
Works great with a lithium battery pack.
I bought the $1.50 light and replaced the incandescent with LED.
And the second $1.50 light is gonna get turned into a 120VAC supply.
Not sure what I'm gonna do with the 3rd $1.50 light, I got carried away.
I passed on the $3 circular saw because I already
have more of those than I need.

Ryobi is the sweet spot for "good enough" tools cheaper than dirt,
available everywhere.
We don't need no stinkin' repair parts. ;-)

Take the NiCd cells out of the unuseful packs & recell the wanted ones

NT

One problem is that all the wanted ones have more cells than the
not-yet-completely-dead packs.

I've tried rebuilds on multiple occasions.
Problem is that if one cell is dead, the others aren't far behind.
I have computer controlled power supply and loads that I've used to
try to match used cells. Best you can hope for is matched crappy
performance. Most often encountered symptom is at least one cell
that works just fine after you charge it, but self discharge takes
it to zero in a few days.

Problem with tool batteries is reverse charge.
You're drilling along and the drill starts to slow down.
Well, you've only got two more holes to drill, so you do it.
Now, you have at least one reversed cell. And it gets worse
every time you do it. When a cell is damaged it's capacity is
lower, so it's the one that gets reversed again next time.

Tool batteries are overcharged, overheated, over discharged, vented,
left unused for years. By the time you need em, they've self discharged
and some cells are likely shorted, which means the others get
overcharged and vent.

You find that a new battery cost about as much as a new tool set.
Then the tool sits in the basement until you decide to clean up
and sell it at a garage sale or give it to Goodwill.

I've bought a lot of used tool batteries. They are almost never good,
And new cells cost about as much as a new battery.

Much of this can be avoided by paying attention and taking care of
your batteries. But 99.9% of the people don't know, don't care.
That's why they go bad and you find a dead cordless tool at virtually
every garage sale. People who take care of their tools don't sell
em for 25-cents at their garage sale.