Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff

Cordless Drill Hacking

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T3sl4co1l:
Yay, my corded cordless drill is cordless again!



If you don't recognize that, it's a Horrible Fright special, $20 cordless drill, originally with NiCd battery (long since deceased -- overheated and overcharged, because the charger is literally an AC adapter, diode and LED).

Well, instead of giving up on it, I soldered wires onto the battery terminals, and used it as a corded drill, within reach of my bench supply.  (Amazingly, the chintzy speed controller -- a MOSFET, an SO-8, and a few chip resistors and "////" region on the PCB emulating a potentiometer -- is able to suck down quite a lot of current, enough to brown out my beefy supply!)

Somewhat more recently, I built a 12-24 to 18V converter box for it.  This is based on my LED flashlight (written up elsewhere on here :) ), with extensive but fairly straightforward mods to adapt it to a much more powerful output stage (50V 40A peak switching, versus the original design's 10V 5A), in a Ćuk converter.

https://www.seventransistorlabs.com/Images/CukHack1.jpg

Also, it feels nice to finally spell Ćuk correctly here. :)

So, I happened to have a 12V gel cell handy, and needed a cordless use tonight.  So, I put two and two together.  That was tonight's story. :P

Tim

JS:
Is it really cordless???

I'm about to do a similar thing but with 18650 batteries, I have 2 cordless drills and one screwdriver. One of the drills is serving fine with a car lighter adaptor, mostly on the boat but I still want it back to cordless and I wanted them to have no outside cords when using them as cordless. They will probably end much lighter than the NiCd versions of themselves.

JS

Monkeh:
I applaud your ingenuity, but that's a horror show. Please go treat yourself to something better.

T3sl4co1l:

--- Quote from: JS on May 30, 2018, 01:57:25 am ---I'm about to do a similar thing but with 18650 batteries, I have 2 cordless drills and one screwdriver. One of the drills is serving fine with a car lighter adaptor, mostly on the boat but I still want it back to cordless and I wanted them to have no outside cords when using them as cordless. They will probably end much lighter than the NiCd versions of themselves.

--- End quote ---

4 or 6 x 18650s would fit in the old battery pack, which I've thought about doing as well.  Don't really have a good way to weld cells together though (hmm..).  Will definitely be lighter!


--- Quote from: Monkeh on May 30, 2018, 02:23:56 am ---I applaud your ingenuity, but that's a horror show. Please go treat yourself to something better.

--- End quote ---

Nah, I use it so little, it's not worth getting anything fancier.  Plus, the converter was a nice weekend project to keep my designing and hacking sharp.  Still impressed I packed everything into that little box!

Tim

JS:
I have a few microwave transformers on my bin, planning to use one to make a spot welder for this kind of things...

JS

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