[DeTomaso] NPC - Cordless Drill needed

[gow2 at rc-tech.net]

I spent a lot of time thinking about new drills last winter.

My main beef is with Ni-cad batteries. Often chargers are not peak voltage
but timed chargers. If you put a battery intended for a 3hr charge on an
overnight charge your batteries are toast in pretty short order. For years
many battery appliances have been built this way; it sells a lot for
batteries.

Ni-cad batteries suffer from other problems such as memory. They suddenly
have very little capacity. Over the years I have came up with a solution
which has given life back to many old Ni-cad batteries.

I have gotten capacity back in old dry cell ni-cads by batteries by
charging them with car battery chargers on high till hot. Internally not
all of the battery internals are touching and therefore not being used. By
charging it with high current and getting it hot makes the internals
slightly moltant and they begin to touch again. This makes areas of the
battery which were not participating in the program participants again.

Keep in mind this is a little risky. It is not always a great idea to
bring high current to batteries. It should be done outside and you should
be back away from the battery a little in case it ruptures. Needless to
say this is for batteries in seemingly un recoverable condition.

In my search for drills, I layed down some "have to's".
1. No Ni-cads
2. Lithium only
3. 18v min
4. Multipurpose meaning used in other tools.

I ended up with Ryobi from lowes. I bought a drill which came with 2
batteries then bought an additional large capacity battery.

The nice thing about the Lithium is they charge to voltage then the
charger shuts off. You can put the battery on charge and walk away.

I abuse stuff like drills. Despite not being considered as industrial as
Dewalt, it has held up to my torchure and then some. I am not easy on
these things by any means. The batteries have too. Price is a fraction of
Dewalt as well.

I also got the Ryobe Impact driver which uses the same batteries. That is
an underestimated tool. That thing is pretty handy and it is pretty
strong.

After what I have done to them, i they would burn out now I would
understand why but they are as strong as ever.

If I had to do it all over again I would not hesitate to do the same thing.

GAry


>
>
> The cordless drill that I have had about 5 years has finally quit.  Don't
> know if it is the batteries or the drill - but figure it's probably just
> as cheap to buy a new one as to buy new batteries.                --------
>               So, my question is what brand and model does anyone
> recommend?   Normal home type use.
> Thanks, Bill Lewis
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