Replaced Black and Decker "Single Source" 18V battery with HarborFreight, but charging not stopping

Those old nicad packs can do that if they have been sitting around in a heavily discharged state for 5+ years like your packs have been. The simple wall wart charger from Black and Decker detects a low voltage and thinks the battery is a 12 volt model and not an 18 volt model so it doesn’t start the charging cycle or if it does, it takes 12 hours or more to reach charge termination.
Hobby charger to the rescue.

fix dead battery video

iirc those have a timed charger.i have a b&d “grass hog” at the shop.it seems to be a dumb timed charger.
i rebuilt the packs and i dont remember if it even has a thermal switch in it.lots of fast chargers use it for termination by temp.

Hi,

Ok, I will try the hobby charger when I have a chance, but I tried it in the saw, and it wouldn’t go in all the way. Not sure why yet, but it could either be the blades are too wide in the Harbor Freight connector, or the black dividers between the blades/contacts may be in the wrong position. Darn :(!

you could have a “brand lockout” tab you need to break off.
common when the same tool is sold with different brands.
ryobi and craftsman is an example.
an extra tab on the pack to prevent cross use.i sliced it off with a dremel.

Hi,

You all would be SO PROUD of me :), I found the problem!

So when I tried to put the battery into the saw, it would hit something. I could tell whatever it hit was pretty solid, but couldn’t tell what it was.

So, I borrowed my daughter’s white nail polish, and put some on all the leading edges of the battery connector part and shoved it into the saw. The white nail polish stuck to the part inside the saw that was contacting, and it was the “bottom” part of the grooves, so I dremeled the bottom part of the 3 grooves on the battery connector, and then, VOILA, the battery connected fine and it locked into the saw!

So now I am going to do the 2nd Single Source battery (I had bought two of the Harbor Freight batteries, way before. I am glad I can finally actually use them!

Also, I am putting the first one I modded into the charger again and will see if it ever terminates (red light goes off).

Thanks,
Jim

So I was checking the original B&D battery (the one I took out earlier) and it’s showing like 2+V. Any chance that if I zap it with my lab power supply, say at 18V, that it might come back to life?

If not, how do I setup the hobby charger? It looks like there are a total of 15 batteries in the pack. Someone said for 5S NiCD? Is that right?

I have found soooo many of those Black and Decker 18V NiCads in the recycle bins. Many, many of them looked to be brand new, tosssed there by Home Depot.
NEVER have I ever been able to get one to perform. I have tried zapping, slow charging, fast charging etc.
Believe me, I have tried.

Ok, thanks, dchomak. You WOULD be the Homedepot guy :)!

So do I just charge it as 5S Nicd on my hobby charger (the one that has the Harbor Freight battery in it now)?

Also, FYI, the reason I was asking about trying to resurrect the old battery is that Harbor Freight doesn’t carry the ones that I bought before - they have a “new design” and I am not sure if that is swapable.

I said 5S, yet not Ni-Cd.

I'd dare to buy 10 high discharge li-ion cells and assemble a 5S2P pack, or a 6S pack of ANR26650M1-B LiFePO4 cells LoL. Easier alternative: 5S LiPo packs. Mooch (E-CigaretteForum) reviewed some 3S packs recently, may be worth checking out.

Cheers ^:)

Hi,

I am not “rebuilding” or building a new pack using Li-ion, but rather I have another “new” Nicd pack (the Harbor Freight on) that I want to fully charge (but which does not terminate when I charge it using the original B&D charger, so I think the suggestion was to use my hobby charger (an Accucel 6) to charge the Harbor Freight “18V” battery pack, which is now in the B&D pack “body”.

So I was asking, how/what do I set the Accucel to charge?

Actually, I am trying now, and when I select Nicd, it looks like I only get to select the current, not the “S” or voltage. I am charging the “new” Harbor Freight pack on my Accucel 6 now, setting for Nicd, and 0.5 amps.

I am also confused about something else. As I said this has 15 Nicd batteries, so wouldn’t that be 15 in series to get 15x1.2V = 18V?

Thanks,
Jim

EDIT: Ok the Harbor Freight pack (in the B&D enclosure) finished on my Accucel 6, at 22.91V, 00062 mAh. That was with the Accucel set to Nicd and 0.5 amps.

So now I am going to try to recharge the 2nd B&D battery (unmodded) on my Accucel and see what it does.

its 15s.
set it to 1a.nicd mode
cycle a few times to “wake up” your new cells.
the old cells are goners.
the reason these die is cheap cells and the fact they get fast charged and used at a high rate.then forced to continue running after the first cell drops.
if you run it till it slows way down you just damaged it.reversing one or more cells.

Hi,

Thanks. What voltage should I discharge the pack down to? And discharge also at 1A?

15v.thats 1v/cell
and 1a is fine.

This is for the 2nd original B&D battery (I haven’t decided to replace the pack with the last HF pack I have):

- Charge @ 1A - ended at 23.12V and 1312 mAH

- I’m running discharge to 15V, but I have it set at 0.5A, but it looks like it only is pulling 0.2A (it doesn’t seem to be able to output 0.5A). My wife was complaining that when she used this pack, that it “seemed to be slow”, so maybe she was right? And maybe I need to replace the pack with the last HF pack that I have?

Thanks,
Jim

Ok, the battery finished discharging, but it discharged at only 0.2A max. I don’t understand why the battery is only able to discharge at 0.2A but can charge at 1.0A? What does that mean? Is the battery now bad?

EDIT: I was just reading this: http://www.scarpaz.com/Attic/Documents/NiCd.pdf and it seems like discharge rate is supposed to be 0.2C.

From the charge/discharge, it seems like capacity of the battery is about 1300 mAh - 1400 mAh, so 0.2C would be about .26A. Is that correct? If so, then maybe the 0.2A I was seeing from discharge testing is ok?

your hobby charger is probably limited in discharge power.
my original tritons have a fan and can discharge an 18v pack at 1a.
sounds about right for the hf packs.
nothing high quality about them and they are 5+ years old.
i used sanyo 1800’s a friend got a deal on a large qty.
they are a high rate fast charge rated cell.
they hold up longer than the higher capacity cells.

Hi,

I am pretty sure that the Accucel can discharge test > 0.2A, at least for non-Nicd (this is really first time I worked with Nicd), but anyway I tried other B&D battery, the one that is supposed to be still good, with the original B&D batteries, and it is only discharging 0.2A also.

So maybe they put something into the packs to limit the current draw to 0.2A?

read the manual for your accucell.
it is power limited.
a power tool is useless with a .2a limited pack.

Sorry, I must have missed it. Turnigy Accucell 6, Accucell 8, or Accucell 8150…?
The 8150 can discharge 150 watts.

Agreed. I gutted all my 18V single source Ni-Cd cells and converted them with an adapter to take ryobi 18V li-ion packs. Best thing I ever did.