Cordless Drill Conundrum

Off-topic Chatter
1

I have a basic Craftsman C3 19.2v NiCd drill which has served me very well for the past 4, maybe 5 years. The Original battery is starting to not hold a charge so I'm looking at new batteries / options. Sears has the same NiCd battery for $35 right now. I can step up to a Li-Ion battery option (yes it's compatible) for $45 but I'd need a battery with charger combo - about $70. BUT for only $10 more you can get a new drill with Li-ion battery & charger! I hate to throw away a drill that works perfectly fine though! Oh, and all the Li-ion chargers are "multi-chemistry" and also charge NiCd's.

I'm leaning toward just saving money and getting the NiCd pack which will likely suit me for another 4 years. I'm looking for the "best bang for the buck" option here. What do y'all think? I bet many of you have run into a similar conundrum.

-Garry

2

If the drill works, I’d go with the new battery… I’m a cheap bastard… I did buy two 18V drills at a Harbor Freight Thanksgiving day sale over a year ago for like $20 each… haven’t even taken them out of the box… the old drill works fine…

3

similar, hehe, how about exactly the same

I wasted 5 nicad C3 batteries, one of the 5 I rebuilt with the cells from a harborfreight 18V ($10) and the best cell from a bad C3 pack.

IMO, nicads are a huge waste of time and money

thanks to slickdeals.net, I got a C3 ‘kit’ with blower, weed eater, multi-chem charger and high cap li-ion battery (not the slim one) for $115. I also have 5 or 6 other C3 tools. I beat the living hell out of the drill and recip saw.

The weed eater and blower are just a slight step above toys, the weedeater being the better of the two. basically, if you have 20 ft or so of sidewalk to trim, they’re ok.

Then I picked up 2 of the high cap C3s when sears clearanced them in order to offer a slightly different battery (edit, for about $37 each).

In short - I’ll never go back to nicads. The tool is more powerful, for MUCH longer (I’d regularly go through 3 nicads when working, even when they were in good shape. I rarely have to charge or look for a second li-ion)

plus you can’t over drain the batteries (they cut off) and if you don’t want to hit cut off, you can just barely tell when they are close to drained (power dips), plus there’s a button activated led indicator to check charge status (green, yellow, red). Also, the charger is superior (it doesn’t overcharge your nicads if left alone, like the stock charger does).

Watch for a sale, and go for the li-ions. They are worth it.

4

go with the new Li-ion drills, way superior! batteries last much longer and give you full power till depleted, and they are much smaller and lighter. for a couple of dollars more? no questions just do it. you can always sell your old drill in a garage sale to make up the difference.

5

I had the same problem lately when the NiCd battery packs from my cordless drill died. I went for the cheapskate option and bought an aftermarket NiMH battery pack on ebay, I can charge that with the original charger, it only takes longer.

Up to now it works fine, don't know how long it'll hold though.

6

The Harbor Freight 18v drill works pretty good as a driver drill, I think it’s only about 1200 rpm though. The battery POS charger on my Dewalt went off the reservation and fried a battery and replacing the battery and charger is like $150, so $15 later for the Harbor Freight unit I’m back at it. I’ve already dropped it off the roof twice and it’s still drillin’. It’s not nearly as good as my old Dewalt, the Dewalt is a hammer drill, but it’s actually better than I expected.

The better deals on the name brand tools are on the promotional combo packs that Home Depot sells with the drills/driver batteries and charger for about the same price as a bare drill.

7

Id go with new drill battery and charger you can always use older drll for mixing paint stucko etc… have aback up charger and drill:-)

8

^^^ This.

I went lithium-ion with the last drill purchase, and it has not disappointed.

9

I got a Craftsman lithium drill at Christmas, came with two batteries and charger. All conveniently in a carrying case! Works fine, has so much more power compared to my old nicad craftsman(bought that 6 years ago).

10

I have quite a few of the Milwaukee V28 Li tools. Those batteries lasted me only 2 years, then would virtually hold no charge. Great tools crappy batteries. I took them down to the warranty center and they replaced them with newer M28 It’s been 2 years now and they seem to have more power and still hold the charge.
My dad had a bunch of Bosch packs sent back to http://www.primecell.com/pctools.htm and he has been happy with the results. They claim to use top quality cells and rebuild your old pack with better cells.

11

I’m in/was in the same position and there are so many choices.
What swayed me was the fact that I had two older lower-voltage Makitas (which had impressed the crap out of me) and a couple of modern chargers for them that could cope with later batteries.
I noticed that in the rush to change over to Li-Ion, there are thousands of older tools shoved to the back of the garage/workshop and forgotten about - pro-grade tools with years of life in them and I picked up 3 Makita bodies with two good batteries (and another charger) for a total outlay of peanuts.
These are NiMH batteries, so I’m still behind the curve with that, but I found a couple of decent suppliers of genuine Makita batteries who don’t charge the earth for them.
They’ll do me for a couple of years and the next upgrade will likely be to Li-Ion powered tools, but I’m in no hurry.
I’m also kind of inclined to build my own Li-Ion battery packs - it’s not really that big a deal if I sort out voltage monitoring and charging properly. That would mean I wouldn’t have to spend much more at all.
As a result of all this cheapskating, I found a couple of interesting youtube vids on using LiPo batteries in cordless tools.
LiPO cordless

12

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm still not sure what I'll do. I've also never used a Li-ion drill and so I don't know how much better my drill would be with them. It's easy to think to just get the NiCd for now and go with a newer Li-ion set (new drill combo pack) when the new NiCd starts losing charge (about another 4 years). I'll watch for sales on the Li-ion battery / charger set and maybe price some new Li-ion drills too. Anyone have opinions on Ryobi's power tools?

BTW- the reason I ended up with this drill was because my first drill's battery had gone bad, couldn't get a replacement battery, and was more to recell than a new drill.

-Garry

13

Got tired of trying to repair the old DeWalt Nicad drill and got an 18V Li-ion Makita. 1/2” chuck, powerful little sucker, came with 2 battery packs and a quick charger that has a cooling fan built in, pretty cool stuff.

14

Wait for the sales at Home Depot and pick up a Ridgid 18V lithium drill with 2 batteries, charger and toolbag for less than $100. Register the lifetime warranty and have no more battery woes (actually the warranty covers pretty much everything)

15

I went Li-Ion about two years ago, best decision ever. Of course, with Ryobi, the switch was easy, since the tools are compatible with the new Li-Ion packs (called the One+ system). I have two drills, driver, weed eater, circular saw, LED converted light, and radio. Still need the reciprocating saw and 90 degree drill.
I converted one of the Ni-Cad packs to Li-Poly using a an 5-cell RC pack. Works great, but I have to charge on a hobby charger, since the Ryobi chargers do not recognize it and try a Ni-Cad cycle.

I recommend you bite the bullet and go for the Li-Ion upgrade. It should not disappoint.

16

Ryobi tools are not very good. the difference in li-ion drills is night and day. way more power and run time. you’ll be amazed. if you can, get milwakee you wont regret it. but even a craftsman will be good, and sears is easy to deal with.

17

I listed my Ryobi tool lineup above, no issues with any of them at all. Some of them are 4 years old, plenty of use, and still going strong.
Well, after driving 12,000 floor screws, my first Ryobi drill no longer has the electric brake feature. It still drills fine, just take an extra second to spin down. The only tool that has had any sort of failure.
Just my experiences with them. Of course, YMMV.

18

I think you need to look at how often you use the thing, i use mine once a month or less, so nicad is fine (i would have preferred nimh), lithium would be bad for me because after 4 years or so it will die from old age even if not used.
If you use it frequently then li ion sounds very good from what everyone in this thread is saying, and if it dies in 3 years from a combo of heavy use and age, then you’ve come out ahead.
Perhaps you could buy the new one with li ion, and sell your current one on craigslist or kijiji

19

I bought the Bosch 18V Lithium “Kit” about a year ago. This One

I joke not - you couldn’t give me a NiCd/NiMH based cordless tool. I’d either politely decline, or accept and drop it in the garbage when you turned around. The difference is that huge. Cordless tools are now TOOLS.

PPtk

P.S. If you can get the Ridgid Pack on sale for less than a hundred bucks, that’s a steal

20

li-ion all the way. my cheap one out performs my hitachi at a 1/4 of the price.