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Decker Firestorm
Hot Rodding a Power Drill Battery
So, your power drill battery dies. What now? Fork over 85 bucks for a new one? I don't think so. After searching high and low on the internet for a good price for a replacment battery I found the retail for my Black & Decker 14.4V to range from 35-85 dollars. Right. Time to make your own!
At this point it would be good to mention you should really discharge the pack before you continue. Don't play with electricity unless you know what you are doing!
Let's find out what is inside!
I had a little brainstorm and decided to open this thing up and see what makes it tick. It's funny, I always thought there would be some mystical magical component of Dewalt power tool batteries that justified the outrageous prices...you know, custom made or ethereal glowing lights or little elves or something. Turns out they are just a rip off.
Fortunately for me the internals were looking familiar, a simple set of "Sub C" rechargable NiCd cells from my RC car racing days. I used to build my own racing battery packs so I couldn't help applying that here.
I had visions of using Firestorm drill batteries that power world championship RC cars and transform my moderately powered B&D into a drill that would make screws and yet-to-be-drilled holes tremble with unspeakable fear.
When you open the battery you'll need to save some plastic bits detailed below. Don't break them.
Replacement Sub C Cells
At this point I came back to reality. The racing batteries alone would cost a hundred bucks. So, I settled on a brand name NiCd cell from GP. The main difference from the stock batteries is that these are 2000 mAh cells and the stock ones are only 1700 mAh...so I should get more run time...basically a bigger gas tank.
These fellas cost me $1.79 each for a grand total of $21.48 from Budget Batteries . So far so good.
In case you aren't good at math, a 14.4 battery takes 12 1.2V cells to make up a pack.
Battery Bars
Next up on the bill of materials are some RC parts. These 24k gold plated battery bars are from Novak racing. I couldn't skimp everywhere. A bag of 28 was about $14.00 from Tower Hobbies .
I only needed 10 to assemble one pack, but I have another drill battery waiting do die. So, that's five bucks for the bars and up to $26.48 total. Still ten bucks shy of the best retail price I could find ($35.00) Incidentally that price was direct from Black & Decker. A Bit of Wire.
Finally we have some 14AWG high flexibility silicone wire from another RC company.
Just had this lying around and I only needed about 3 inches so let's call it free.
I would recommend using good quality wire here. Your Hitachi drill battery will only be as good as the weakest link. I prefer not to have any weak links. This will also be a likely spot for a meltdown if your wire is not up to the task.
On to the Assembly
I paried the cells and bound them with electrical tape just to make them easier to solder together. These buggers are a little hard to hold on to.
Don't forget to tin both ends of the battery before you try and attach the bars. A drop of flux and a drop of solder, not too much though.
I should mention that you will need a pretty serious soldering iron to get this job done. Don't overheat the battery...kind of a catch 22 here.
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Black and Decker 14.4v Firestorm NiCad Slide in Style Batteries?
i have about 5 batteries for my Firestorm drill and saw that no longer hold a charge, the charger led indicator blinks real fast when i try to charge these batteries. My question is, is there some thing i can do to recondition these batteries so that they can hold a charge and i may use them again? i payed a lot of money for these and now i don't want to dispose of them and i don't want to buy some thing else and start all over again.
Typical of batteries. When they get old, they die. Time to buy some new batteries. The voltage is a good rating, lower and they are weak, any higher and you can get injured if the drill bit gets stuck. I'm no fan of that series of equipment, it just did not last me. I wore out 3 drills in a 4 month job about 10 years ago. 2 or 3 batteries should be all you need unless you are doing some commercial work. In that case, get a new set and deduct the cost against the job.
Black & Decker FS1802BNB Firestorm