My batts be dead. They are about ten years old. Should I replace with oem? Replace with Chinese clones, or upgrade my cordless fleet? I only have a drill and a work light that use the batts.
My batts be dead. They are about ten years old. Should I replace with oem? Replace with Chinese clones, or upgrade my cordless fleet? I only have a drill and a work light that use the batts.
I would seriously consider updating the fleet. The newer lithium, brushless stuff is impressive.
I'm running Rigid tools for the company and had very good luck with them. The lifetime warranty on the batteries is nice too.
Upgrade the fleet. The aftermarket batteries are terrible. We’ve tried a few and they always die within a year. The name brand batteries cost as much as a new set of modern tools. You’ll be blown away by the performance of any of the modern LiIon battery tools. I’ve seen some awesome deals from Home Depot on the Milwaukee M18 brushless stuff. Any of the main line brands are going to be good though. I use Dewalt at work and Ryobi at home and am happy with all of them. The high amp batteries made my Ryobi told way more useful. (4-6ah) now they have a 9 amp battery! That thing must be a hoss.
I would upgrade.
I have an 18V fleet that even includes the 1/2" drive impact, and I am on the fence since everything still works great aside from the batteries, but I certainly would upgrade from 14.4.
I know it makes it less portable but could you rig up a 12v small motorcycle battery and a short cord. ?
My $0.02 : I replaced the batteries 2 yrs ago for my ancient Dewalt 14.4 NiCad and Panasonic 15.6 NiMH with UpStart batteries from Amazon. They have been every bit as good as the originals. Make sure to match the mAh to the originals for the same power/feel.
Edit: 2-packs are less than one OEM, which I had done also.
Cooter said:I would upgrade.
I have an 18V fleet that even includes the 1/2" drive impact, and I am on the fence since everything still works great aside from the batteries, but I certainly would upgrade from 14.4.
Dewalt sells a $35 adapter that lets you run new 20v lithium batteries in old 18v tools. Buy one new tool with two batteries and a charger and then get the adapter for use with your old stuff.
In reply to Woody :
I bought the adapter and a couple lithium batteries when the pair of NiCads I have gave up the ghost.
In my opinion, the adapter is terrible: it is hard as hell to get on and off the tools -- I'm going to have to disassemble and customize it, and I should've heeded others' warnings in online review comments.
Worse, you can't leave a battery attached to the adapter, as the adapter drains the battery when it's not in use.
But DeWalt wasn't content to end the design brilliance there: neither of the two tools I have is much good at staying upright when I set them down (admittedly a minor issue, and pales in comparison to the auto-drain "feature").
To show my appreciation, I've decided to move on to another brand of cordless tools.
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