12volt B&Q cheapy drill batteries

[#1]

Nope... for that I will use the Bosch drill (mains powered)  that I found in the middle of a road, about 40 years ago..... !...  But, then again, I won`t be drilling many holes at one go, anyway........

[#2]

Quote from: shutter

Thanks HPsauce.... Having looked at the cost of those batteries.. ( see previous post )... I decided on buying a new drill...

I must admit that thought went through my mind too, but my drill is a more serious piece of semi-professional kit that I've had for many years. It cost many times that originally.
It's got the odd visiting tradesman out of a hole when theirs wasn't up to the job!  
And I've still got an ancient mains-powered B&D one somewhere that still deals with almost anything.

[#3]

Another possibility for more powerful drills, is a complete battery replacement. I've swapped the NiMH cells from an 18v Makita Drill battery pack for an 18.5v LiPo pack.
The pirmary modification required is to expose the balance lead,  and I also used a battery level sensor to help prevent discharging the battery too much.  It's best if you already have a LiPo charger,  otherwise you'd need one of them too.

[#4]

Photonicinduction points out how to test the battery packs and a good cheap source of drill battery cells, to repair a duff pack easily, for a lot less than buying a new drill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96foswY1m58
Makes me glad my drill uses three of the rather common 18650 cells, they're cheap as chips these days individually...

[#5]

Yes, I checked individually all the cells in my battery pack first and most were failed or failing, so I decided to replace the lot.

[#6]

a lot of those 18650 cells are dodgy though with fake protection circuits which is why there so cheap /

[#7]

Quote from: billnotben

Quote from: PowerLee A 15 volt output charger will not fully charge an 18 volt rechargeable battery. I suspect that is the case as voltage is the pressure which would explain that chargers are normally a higher voltage than the batteries they are charging.

The reason being is that the strongest voltage is the one to push the electrons around the circuit. If you have an 18V battery being charged by a 15V charger then you could end up with the circuit being reversed instead and that could damage voltage rectifiers etc in the charger.
You need something around 20-25V to charge an 18V battery.

[#8]

Quote from: nanotm

a lot of those 18650 cells are dodgy though with fake protection circuits which is why there so cheap /

That's why you buy cells without protection and rely on the protection built into the devices they're used in (and if they don't have it built in, then more fool the end user for buying cheap junk!!), after all, most laptop batteries are packed with unprotected 18650 cells but have protection in the charge controller circuitry...