cordless tool battery rebuilds?

I have a couple cordless drill batteries that wont hold a charge anymore . I see where the regional Interstate battery dealer does
rebuilds of battery packs. Has anyone here had any experience with this? Or am I better off buying new OEM batteries ? I did get a
battery there to replace the one in one of my jumper packs and was satisfied with it.

i have a batteries plus bulbs store near me, they rebuild my 18 v dewalt batteries for about 35 dollars or so apiece. very happy with them. see if they have a store near you. had interstate do a couple years ago, took a while to get them back. batteries and bulbs do them in store, usually one day turn around.

I tried it a few years ago, ordered batteries online and soldered them together. Worked for awhile, didn't last nearly as long as original. Someone on here told me the batteries you get online are not necessarily very good, I probably won't do it again.

I have a Black and Decker cordless drill, and a Black and Decker cordless string trimmer. Both use the same 18 volt battery. I investigated rebuilding those batteries myself, and also sending them somewhere to be rebuilt. I found that is cheaper to just buy new batteries.

Any professional battery shop should be able to rebuild them with quality components that will last as long or longer than OEM.

Son raced both gas and electric Radio controlled cars years ago. Had an early really high end battery charger and matched. Our electric cars/trucks ran 4 or 6 cell packs, all sub-C cells. You wanted the packs to DUMP at the same time, typically about a foot from the finish line of the race while at full speed. That think could have identified the bad cells, and garden variety SANYO replacement cells were cheap, Buck or Two each. But my 19.2V Craftsman batteries have 16 (sixteen) cells each. The new Lithium Ion batteries are of course much better. But would have been no problem rebuilding cells with that old charger/matcher. I opened one of my Craftsman batteries, same Sanyo cells we raced with. Hobby shops back then had dozens of batteries in the display counters, probably hundreds, maybe thousands in the back. I even bought Double A in-class to run our reciever in our off-road gas truck. The extra voltage gave our servos more speed & torque, and less weight than Sub-C's. Hobby shops had the heat shrink plastic wrap to cover the cells, hot melt glue held them together.

If you have a real good high wattage soldering iron you can repair your own battery packs. Just need that cell matched to identify the bad cells.

(reply to post at 05:29:14 06/01/20)

Click to expand...

Before you rebuild try this simple trick to bring them back to life
Set DC welder at 100 amps, 20 volts. Use #8 nail in electrode holder. Attach ground lead to one terminal of battery pack, Tap the nail on the other terminal to spark, but do not hold to generate an arc. Repeat 5 or six times until battery will take and hold charge. The multiple chargings build up a barrier that will eventually result in zero battery life. The shock treatment breaks the barrier and will extend the life of the batteries. Works great on NI-Cad. have not tried on Lithium yet.

2X Batteries Plus

(quoted from post at 05:58:23 06/01/20) i have a batteries plus bulbs store near me, they rebuild my 18 v dewalt batteries for about 35 dollars or so apiece. very happy with them. see if they have a store near you. had interstate do a couple years ago, took a while to get them back. batteries and bulbs do them in store, usually one day turn around.

Click to expand...

Brand new, 18 volt Black and Decker batteries are about the same price.

Thanks for the idea. My arc welder is a-c only but I did a little online research and ended up hooking both of my jumper packs in
series to get 24v dc and then did several quick shots to the 12v cordless battery. It showed 3v before and 13v after the treatment.
I am letting it cool a little and then will put it on the charger and see if I rejuvenated it. If this works I will try it on an
18v cordless battery that wont hold much charge.