Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire cordless drill batteries

so I've now got 3 or 4 cordless drills ( makita & hitachi) that are still working but the batteries are about shot. Have any of you experience with the non-branded after market batteries that are made to work in these drills or should I just have the current batteries rebuilt?

advise?

Pretty often rebuilding the batteries yourself is no big deal. Pop open the case, and see what you need. Lots of sources on the web for replacement cells.

one thing you could check into is having your batteries rebuilt, i dont know for sure if you can do those, but i have had all my de-walt 18 volt ones rebuilt and it cost about athird of the cost of a new battery and they are still running strong 2yrs. later

I have an old Sears 19.5 drill and a new one. The contacts on the battery's are different and you can't buy the old ones any more. I discovered that you can buy a new one and swap cases with the old one. I just drilled off the spot welds and re soldered it. miles

Rigid.........lifetime guarranty. Chuck, batteries,switches. Motor

www.voltman.com

But be advised, at least in the case of Dewalt, that if you catch a sale at Lowes or Home Despot they will sometimes have new batteries for sale almost as cheap as rebuilding them. I now own four 18V Dewalts for that reason. At some point I guess I'll rebuild the old ones.

I bought Black and Decker equipment for that reason. Everytime I pick a new device up, I get a new battery, and 8 years later they still sell them at Chinamart.

Ellis Battery....they rebuild all drill cells cheap. See if there is one near you.

Ted, I'm pretty much far from everything...do you think they have a website I could check for repair costs/shipping info?

thanks

If you have a local Batteries+ take em there, they are good & reasonable. They even redid my little electric scooter batteries for about 1/3 of the factory replacements and they work BETTER than the originals did.

Absolute worst in the industry have GOT to be DeWalt. Last the shortest time. Cost the most money. Zero warranty.

I googled... no real website other than a phone number which I hope to remember to call this week just to check it out. Though I"m now more interested in taking an old one apart and see if I could order the cells and do it myself....

We went the rebuilding route for a while, and,...well, they sucked big time!
We had over 200 guys at the time, and we were trying to save money by rebulding rather than buying new, but the performance just wasn't there.

I'm not sure who did the rebuilds, but it was someone local that the field super took them to. Mostly DeWalts.

I've had crappy new DeWalt batteries too, but the 18v I'm running now is the best DeWalt batteries I've run...and I've run alot of them!

The DeWalt chargers have an auto tune up mode that equalizes out the cells if you leave it on over 8 hours. I've made a point to do this to this set and it's really worked well.

I've run alot of Panasonic cordlesses too, and I don't think their drill batteries can be beat. They last forever!

I actually like the Panasonics better, but I just don't think they're as tough. My last DeWalt impact survived 3 falls to the concrete at heights over 30 feet! They're heavy, and I hate 'em for that...but they pass my "tough" test!

I have tried most all the new cordless tool brands, For my money the Makita Lithium Ion 18 volt battery/tools is the way to go, The 3.0 AH battery will last 3 or 4 times what a Dewalt will, its an amazing difference,the Dewalt tools are good but the batteries just go downhill from the first charge, and they arent cheap.

I've had good luck with Dewalts..
Currently i am running Milwaukee M18's a V28's.I've replaced a few of these batteries under their guarantee without hassle. Good stuff,IME.
Seems a truth about cordless tools is it is often just as cheap to buy a new tool with case,charger, and two batteries as two batteries. Not as bad as it sounds,IME, as often it is a good excuse to upgrade.