Sears tools

Scott wrote:

Could they be the sub-C size as quoted below from the Batteries America
website? (Says they are .91" in diameter and 1.69" in length.

KR-1300SC Sub C 1.2V 1300 mAh .910"
1.690" 1.56 $2.75 ea.BUY

http://www.batteriesamerica.com/newpage3.htm

Scott


That looks about right.
And that also looks like a very good price.

But look what else I found! (among other things...)

http://www.batterybank.net/digital/powertools/

Richard

"cavelamb himself" wrote

That looks about right.
And that also looks like a very good price.

But look what else I found! (among other things...)

http://www.batterybank.net/digital/powertools/

Yep.

You could go the route of replacing all of the cells with nickel metal
hydride cells and using your own case, if you don't mind the work, and save
yourself some money. That is the route I would go, personally.

The nearly double capacity is nice to have. You can shop around the web for
more battery sellers, for the best prices. There are tons of them out
there, with some pretty good competition. While you're at it, order enough
cells to do both packs, and you will get some more discount in price, from
some of the places.

Sometimes, you can find a place (not necessarily web places) that is selling
battery packs for video recorders, or power tools that is getting rid of
some stock for really cheap- cheaper than the price of individual cells.

While you are ordering batteries, I'll bet you have a dust buster or two
sitting around with dead batteries in it. Gather them all up, and see how
many you need, all together. Get your brother in law to see how many he
needs to buy, an order them all at the same time, while you are at it. Make
sure he understands he replaces his own, though! You might have enough to
really get a good discount, by now. And a lot more work, too!
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:
You could go the route of replacing all of the cells with nickel metal
hydride cells and using your own case, if you don't mind the work, and save
yourself some money. That is the route I would go, personally.

The nearly double capacity is nice to have. You can shop around the web for
more battery sellers, for the best prices. There are tons of them out
there, with some pretty good competition. While you're at it, order enough
cells to do both packs, and you will get some more discount in price, from
some of the places.

Sometimes, you can find a place (not necessarily web places) that is selling
battery packs for video recorders, or power tools that is getting rid of
some stock for really cheap- cheaper than the price of individual cells.

While you are ordering batteries, I'll bet you have a dust buster or two
sitting around with dead batteries in it. Gather them all up, and see how
many you need, all together. Get your brother in law to see how many he
needs to buy, an order them all at the same time, while you are at it. Make
sure he understands he replaces his own, though! You might have enough to
really get a good discount, by now. And a lot more work, too!

Interesting stuff. A few years back I bought a cheap harbor freight 12v
cordless drill with an extra battery pack. Surprisingly the drill was
pretty good quality for the money but the battery packs were shot in a
week. Now the drill is still sitting around here somewhere and pretty
much useless. I was thinking about adding a long cord and a cigarette
lighter adapter so the thing could be used out and about rather than
tossing it. I'm considering fixing it now.

Tony

Morgans wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote


That looks about right.
And that also looks like a very good price.

But look what else I found! (among other things...)

http://www.batterybank.net/digital/powertools/


Yep.

You could go the route of replacing all of the cells with nickel metal
hydride cells and using your own case, if you don't mind the work, and save
yourself some money. That is the route I would go, personally.

The nearly double capacity is nice to have. You can shop around the web for
more battery sellers, for the best prices. There are tons of them out
there, with some pretty good competition. While you're at it, order enough
cells to do both packs, and you will get some more discount in price, from
some of the places.

Sometimes, you can find a place (not necessarily web places) that is selling
battery packs for video recorders, or power tools that is getting rid of
some stock for really cheap- cheaper than the price of individual cells.

While you are ordering batteries, I'll bet you have a dust buster or two
sitting around with dead batteries in it. Gather them all up, and see how
many you need, all together. Get your brother in law to see how many he
needs to buy, an order them all at the same time, while you are at it. Make
sure he understands he replaces his own, though! You might have enough to
really get a good discount, by now. And a lot more work, too!


Well, there is also the charger to consider.

It was designed for NiCds of a certain size.
What would new technology higher capacity batteries do to the charger?

Richard

"Anthony W" wrote

Interesting stuff. A few years back I bought a cheap harbor freight 12v
cordless drill with an extra battery pack. Surprisingly the drill was
pretty good quality for the money but the battery packs were shot in a
week. Now the drill is still sitting around here somewhere and pretty
much useless. I was thinking about adding a long cord and a cigarette
lighter adapter so the thing could be used out and about rather than
tossing it. I'm considering fixing it now.

Two things to consider, here.

Cheap batteries, like you said. Probably very small capacity, too. Replace
them with the largest capacity batteries that will fit, if you go that
route.

Next, is that the charger is a cheap, no brain charger, and will happily
over charge your batteries, and charge your new battery to death.

If you don't have a smart, peak detecting charger from another drill or
power tool that you can rig a couple wires with alligator clips to, or slide
terminals (whatever will work the best with your cheap drill pack) you
should figure out what else you could do about charging.

If you have enough stuff you want to charge properly, you could get a remote
control car or airplane battery charger (a field charger that runs off of 12
volts is probably your cheapest good option) and charge all of your assorted
stuff with that. You know you are getting full charges, and not over
charges. You would have to make the call on whether it is worth spending a
fair amount of money on something like that.

Another fairly inexpensive option is to use the charger that came with it,
but add some "options" to it.

With the drill pack drained, put a volt meter in line, and check how many
milliamps the charger is putting out. As it is about half charged, and then
90% charged, read the milliamps again. That will give you some idea of how
much the charger is putting out on average.

Get yourself a 12 hour wind up timer switch, and make up a timed outlet to
plug your cheap charger into. You should then be able to make an educated
guess at how long it needs to charge, depending on how much you drained the
battery. You will need to put about 10% extra charge (when charging a full
charge time; pro-rate shorter times accordingly) into the battery, based on
straight capacity and charger output.

Note that this type of thing is not the best way to do things, but better
than killing new batteries with over charges. If you have a smart charger
around, adapt it to charge all of your stuff with dumb chargers.

Hope that is food for though. I need to rig up a new pack and alternate
charge method for a cheap drill, myself. It was so cheap I couldn't pass it
up! g
--
Jim in NC

"cavelamb himself" wrote

It was designed for NiCds of a certain size.
What would new technology higher capacity batteries do to the charger?

I have never seen a cheap charger that would hurt itself by trying to put
out more charge to a big pack. They just sit there and put out the maximum
they are rated for, for as long as you leave them plugged in.

Another note on that; don't trust the specs on the charger, as I have seen
chargers that would put out over 50% more than what they said they would put
out, and a few that put out significantly less.

They only thing you need to do when charging with a smaller charger than is
ideal, is to charge for a longer period of time.

If you have a 120 milliamp output charger (and that is what it puts out) and
you have a fully drained 1200 milliamp hour battery, it needs to charge for
11 hours. You'all have to do the math for your specific situation.

As I posted in another reply in this thread, you should definitely have some
type of system to turn the damn charger off, or it _will_ kill your new pack
by over charging.

I have also seen people plug dumb chargers into weekly timers after they are
charged to give it a bump once a week, to keep up with the self discharge
characteristics of the battery.
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:
"Anthony W" wrote


Interesting stuff. A few years back I bought a cheap harbor freight 12v
cordless drill with an extra battery pack. Surprisingly the drill was
pretty good quality for the money but the battery packs were shot in a
week. Now the drill is still sitting around here somewhere and pretty
much useless. I was thinking about adding a long cord and a cigarette
lighter adapter so the thing could be used out and about rather than
tossing it. I'm considering fixing it now.


Two things to consider, here.

Cheap batteries, like you said. Probably very small capacity, too. Replace
them with the largest capacity batteries that will fit, if you go that
route.

Next, is that the charger is a cheap, no brain charger, and will happily
over charge your batteries, and charge your new battery to death.

If you don't have a smart, peak detecting charger from another drill or
power tool that you can rig a couple wires with alligator clips to, or slide
terminals (whatever will work the best with your cheap drill pack) you
should figure out what else you could do about charging.

If you have enough stuff you want to charge properly, you could get a remote
control car or airplane battery charger (a field charger that runs off of 12
volts is probably your cheapest good option) and charge all of your assorted
stuff with that. You know you are getting full charges, and not over
charges. You would have to make the call on whether it is worth spending a
fair amount of money on something like that.

Another fairly inexpensive option is to use the charger that came with it,
but add some "options" to it.

With the drill pack drained, put a volt meter in line, and check how many
milliamps the charger is putting out. As it is about half charged, and then
90% charged, read the milliamps again. That will give you some idea of how
much the charger is putting out on average.

Get yourself a 12 hour wind up timer switch, and make up a timed outlet to
plug your cheap charger into. You should then be able to make an educated
guess at how long it needs to charge, depending on how much you drained the
battery. You will need to put about 10% extra charge (when charging a full
charge time; pro-rate shorter times accordingly) into the battery, based on
straight capacity and charger output.

Note that this type of thing is not the best way to do things, but better
than killing new batteries with over charges. If you have a smart charger
around, adapt it to charge all of your stuff with dumb chargers.

Hope that is food for though. I need to rig up a new pack and alternate
charge method for a cheap drill, myself. It was so cheap I couldn't pass it
up! g


Cerainly food for thought, Morg.

Thanks a lot.

Richard