[Shop-talk] 18v battery dead? Reviveable?

[Mark Andy]

Howdy,

So, following up on this...

In a feat of rationalization, I managed to turn the accidental death of a 
battery due to my stupidity into buying a four tool combo set.  :-)

A milwaukee 18v combo set on ebay was advertised as new, with the sawzall, 
circular saw, drill, light, two 18V (ni-cad) batteries, & a charger. 
Shipped to my house, it was $300.

If you're interested, here's how I got there.  :-)

I'd told myself a while back that my next set of batteries would be the 
v18 Li-Ion deals.  I was attracted to the lighter weight / more power per 
charge.

Milwaukee has a deal on those where for $200 you get two batteries & a 
charger (the old ni-cad chargers that I have a bunch of don't work).  It 
was kinda a lot of money, but I've got a battery impact gun that uses the 
Milwaukee batteries (bought when it was one of the only games in town) and 
a drill I bought because it used the same batteries (important at an 
event).

Downside was that none of my existing chargers would would with the new 
v18 li-ion batteries, including my 12v car charger which is how I charge 
the batteries at events.  But I was gonna suck it up anyway for the coolio 
new tech.

Anyway, I figure I should look at the v18 combo kits.  The ones at the 
retail places (coastaltool, etc.) are all a decent bit more than I want to 
spend and there aren't any real deals.

So I look on ebay.  Ebay has one (new) kit that has a sawzall, drill, 
light, two v18 batteries, and a charger.  Best part?  $290 with shipping. 
That's $90 over the cost of just the batteries/charger kit.

Then I notice the seller has some combined shipping deal, and I kinda like 
the idea of getting one of the cordless circular saws.  So I hit "show me 
seller's other items".

I don't see a circular saw by itself, but I _do_ see another kit, using 
the older 18v ni-cad or whatever batteries, that has a circular saw, 
sawzall, drill, light, two batteries, charger, and a toolbag.  And its 
only $10 more than the kit above.

In the meantime, I've read somewhere about how Li-ion battery technology 
may not be the best in terms of "overall battery life" (i.e. # of charge 
cycles before battery doesn't work).  And I've not really had any issues 
with battery life really.

So for $10 more, I get the full kit.  I mostly ignore that I'm now no 
longer getting the v18 stuff, considering it to be a positive that I can 
use my existing chargers.  However, even if you ignore the v18 vs. 18v 
battery technology, I still got two tools I didn't have and wanted, plus 
another drill, plus a light, plus another charger (that I'll keep in the 
RV) for only about $180 over the cost of two replacement batteries alone.

Mark


On Wed, 14 May 2008, Randall wrote:

>> Anyway, now the battery won't charge.  I seem to recall
>> something somewhere saying that if you drain it all the way
>> dead, the charger won't recognize the battery on there and
>> won't try to charge it?
>>
>> Is that right?  How do I convince it to try charging anyway?
>
> My Ryobi charger is like that.  To work around it, put a little charge into
> the battery some other way.  If you can figure out which terminal is which,
> an ordinary 12v automotive trickle charger will probably do.  I use my
> adjustable bench supply.
>
>> Or, did I just really kill this battery and I should write it off?
>
> Unfortunately, it's likely that one or more cells is now shorted.  Running a
> pack completely flat reverses the voltage on the weaker cells, which can
> cause crystals to grow and short the plates.  There are potentially ways to
> (partially) recover shorted cells, but they require disassembling the pack
> and zapping the shorted cells with high current (from a capacitor).
>
> Randall
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