18 Volt Tool Battery rebuild ?

[Milkman]

Hello All,

I have a 18 Volt Milwaukee Cordless Drill/Sawsall combo with one DEAD battery. Has anyone had a battery "rebuilt" ? A local vendor wants $50. Is this a good price ? (NiCad Battery) Can I do-it myself? Thoughts ?

Thanks

 

[XS650]

That sounds like a fair price if you know he does a good rebuild.

DIY of battery packs can vary from simple to not simple at all. It's probably not worth going through the learning curve to rebuild one or two battery packs unless you just want to do it for the satisfaction of doing it yourself.

Google DIY battery pack rebuild. Even if you don't find your battery pack, you will get an idea what it can take.

 

[SZR48207]

Sounds like reasonable price since you are, I assume, a DIY home guy. I worked at a local battery store and rebuilt my share of mostly dewalt 18v packs but also some hilti rigid and b&d companies. A 18v pack uses 15 cells and we charged a little over $3 per cell (labor included) so $50 is right around there.

I think we had reduced rates for contractors, but they were bringing in boxes of packs every month for rebuild.

As far as rebuilding yourself: it can be done but you will need source for the cells, metal straps to connect the series and ideally a (iirc) spot welder. I was taught that soldering could be done if you were very skilled but the heat could cause the cells to overheat and vent.

 

[scott37300]

I have rebuilt a bunch of my 18 volt battery packs. It's not to hard at all. I bought my cells off ebay for a decent price, think around 25 bucks to do one pack. They come with nickel tabs already spot welded onto the cells and you just solder the tabs together. DO NOT TRY TO SOLDER TO THE CELLS. You just align the tabs to so it's just like the old cells and solder them together.

Couple tips on soldering tabs together. First make sure you have a good solder station. I had a nice weller solder gun and also a butane weller solder pencil and neither of those would solder the tabs good. I bought a hakko soldering station and it makes soldering so much easier. You have to prep the tabs for solder, sometimes you need to scuff them up to accept the solder, then use flux, then tin the tabs.

 

[Milkman]

Thanks for the input. I don't have a soldering gun, nor the skills to DIY. After some reasearch and your input, $50 doesn't sound like a bad price at all.

Carry on...

 

[Blacksmoke]

Early this year I had 3 packs rebuilt by a family owned company in Ohio. I got nicads at about $50 each as I just couldn't afford the Lithium packs at $75 each. The rebuild was great and my drill really had some snap. I think the company was Voltman Batteries. Turnaround was real fast too.

 

[IndyIan]

All I can add is don't get a cheap noname pack off ebay. I got one for my old 14.4 milwaukie drill and it lasted for maybe 6 months...
It also seemed very hard at the time to find good individual cells to build your own pack.

 

[Milkman]

I was gonna buy a "generic" pack from Ebay, but the local guy that I talked to seemed like he knew the problem and was cheaper by a few bucks. He has the pack now. I will let you know how it turns out.

Thanks again,,,

Oh, forgot to add that he will warrantee it for a year.

 

[Solo2driver]

Batteries Plus will also rebuild for set prices per voltage size of battery pack. I want to say my 24V was going to be $70 for the high-capacity battery or $55 for the standard. I ended up buying a new electric impact gun with battery for that price as I have misplaced my charger. YMMV.

 

[97prizm]

Batteries plus is a definite good place to try. I had an older battery pack for a dust buster, and nobody made an off-the shelf replacement, nor did the company. I went to batteries plus and for $10 they removed the dead battery and installed the new battery. I couldn't beat it.