Take them back. Used/no receipt - chances are they will still give you a store credit. My Dad was told by a tool department CSR that he could bring back his kit for a credit on a bigger kit that included a small circular saw; 6 months after he bought his kit. When he purchased the upgraded his kit, he also picked up a Christmas gift for me; my first Ryobi drill kit.
When I was building my kids’ fort/swing set a few years ago, I was on the 4x6 top beam after drilling the holes for the swing chain eyes. I had no qualms about dropping the drill 14’ off the top rail onto the grass to my Father-In-Law’s horror. As I was getting on the ladder to climb down, he reached up and told me to pass him the drill. I said, “don’t want to risk it hitting you” and dropped it on the other side clear of him. This is how I have used/abused these tools and haven’t managed to break one yet. People say Makita, DeWalt, Porter Cable, Bosch, et. al. are worth the premium prices because they will hold up longer. If I ever manage to break one Ryobi I still will won’t consider spending the extra.
To relate this to flashlights, it’s sort of like having a reliable and sturdy SolarForce light. You know that many people swear by their SureFire, but the SolarForce will stand up to the abuse, and perform just as well for a much lower price.
During a Black Friday sale at Home Depot, they were selling an 18V WorkForce cordless drill with NiCad battery for $10. I bought like 6 of them. A contractor friend of mine asked me to sell him one for a “last resort spare”. Couple of years later he came to me all excited, exclaiming that he had it in the back of his truck the whole time and went to use it and it STILL had a near to full charge.
Those are NiCads for you.
BTW, I recently found out that NiMH cells have nearly the same energy density in them as Li Ion. That is taking in account the lower voltage per cell.
Each cell type has it’s own advantages and disadvantages.
You can upgrade your existing pack to a lithium source as long as you resolve the charging issue since you won’t be able to charge on the present charger.
I’m working on a pack that’s an upgrade for a very nice Dewalt 14.4 drill with dead batteries. It consists of four Panasonic CGA103450A cells (1850mAh) salvaged from a Dell E4310 battery slice. The slice contained 12(!) of these batteries.
Charging will be done with a TI7805CKCS voltage regulator to bring a standard 12v supply down to 5v. The 5v at 1.5A will drive four MAX1555 single cell lithium chargers, each wired to a single battery. The four batteries will be wired in series to get the required voltage but during charging they don’t realize it as the MAX1555s will essentially act as a balance charger. One difference is that it will not be able to be charged via the output pins as the TI7805CKCS would be in the way. Instead, a separate barrel jack will be present for a standard 12v wall wart.
Does anyone see an issue with that system? I already have all the parts and just need a bit of free time. It seems like an elegant and cheap solution with all reclaimed parts. It lets me reuse my old drill while vastly improving capacity and power. It would overvolt the drill a little bit and have a capacity of 7.4Ah vs 2.4 for the original.
I’d thought of using some of my salvaged laptop cells for just that, with 4S2P pack and a balance charger flylead going to a HobbyKing charger - but I haven’t thrashed out the details. I’d need to be charging four parallel pairs at once, in effect.
The cells I have, even the good ones, I wouldn’t trust at more than 2C, therefore the 2P layout. These drills will draw up to 30A under heavy load.
For this reason, I might splash out a bit and get some fresh, new Panasonic CGR18650CH from Fasttech.
A bit late, but I was in a similar situation with my Ryobi.
When I saw a good deal on a drill with 2 lithium batteries and charger, I bought it and sold the boxed new drill on ebay - result was that I paid about £25 for two batteries and the charger I think (accounting for ebay fees etc). Drill was the same as my old one, bar a different colour case.
However, turns out the protection on the 1.4ah lithiums cuts in pretty quickly and is a bit annoying - the NiCds would still spin the tools at least, even if at a reduced rate, rather than just stopping.
If anyone’s thinking of using laptop pulls or any other cells in their drill, here’s a handy comparator
to set out what kind of power the cell should be capable of.
As I mentioned above, the only way I’d use my pulls would be paralleling them up - maybe tripled and that would
get bulky and awkward. I think I’ll spring for some decent ones that can cope with a 20A draw. Power tool lithiums
BLF gets a mention, too.