Drill battery charger blown up

[KAM]

Some SMDs have blown on my 18v drill battery charger. Buying a new one seems a total rip off at nearly £50. Has anyone found a good solution. It's easy enough to replace the PCB with something similar. Has anyone found a source. Seem to be a confusing variety of boards available.

 

[savageseadog]

Buy a second hand one off eBay. Those chargers can be very hard to fix even by an experienced electronic technician.

 

[vas]

Some SMDs have blown on my 18v drill battery charger. Buying a new one seems a total rip off at nearly £50. Has anyone found a good solution. It's easy enough to replace the PCB with something similar. Has anyone found a source. Seem to be a confusing variety of boards available.

did you by any chance use a cheap modified sine inverter onboard to charge the battery? if so, probably blown due to inverter. Will do the same again when you replace it, so be warned.

 

[KAM]

No not used on board. Just went bang when I plugged it in without a battery. 2W resistor blown but also some SMDs . I would have thought the boards don't cost much certainly the one that blew was pretty cheaply made and the supplier is doing a bit of profiteering. Cant justify £50 to replace when I could buy a decent drill, battery and charger for not too much more. Best option seems to be to buy a cheap cheap one as opposed to an expensive cheap one and swap the guts over so the battery interface matches.

 

[William_H]

Not certain but most, I think, lithium drill batteries have the charge control inside the battery. This means that the charger is just a power supply of about 22 volts DC. hence possibly any power supply or plug pack might do the job. albeit possibly more slowly than original. The power supply that has blown is almost certainly a switch mode power supply where AC mains is rectified to about 380vDC then switched at high speed (100Khz or more) into a small transformer coming out rectified at dc output volts. There is a feed back mechanism output back, to control the switch circuit to keep output regulated. The complexity and interdependence on different sections makes failt finding and repair quite difficult. (and dangerous) So I doubt you can fix it.
Another consideration is that many house fires around here seem to be attributed to burning lithium batteries on charge. Be careful with any lithium battery charging but especially if you tinker with charging arrangements.
ol'will

 

[Alex_Blackwood]

No not used on board. Just went bang when I plugged it in without a battery. 2W resistor blown but also some SMDs . I would have thought the boards don't cost much certainly the one that blew was pretty cheaply made and the supplier is doing a bit of profiteering. Cant justify £50 to replace when I could buy a decent drill, battery and charger for not too much more. Best option seems to be to buy a cheap cheap one as opposed to an expensive cheap one and swap the guts over so the battery interface matches.

Are you sure that the SMD's are "Blown" and the fault is not just the resistor?

 

[savageseadog]

From what the OP is saying I suspect he doesn't have a lot of electrical/electronic knowledge or experience. Working on those advanced chargers requires both, plus information and test equipment and fixtures which will be unavailable. Working on mains powered switch mode power supplies is complex, potentially dangerous and not for the uninformed or inexperienced.

I'm trying to be helpful

 

[Refueler]

Most battery powered drills etc can be charged using RC Model Chargers .... these cover NiXX ... LiPo ... LiFe ... Li Ion .... Lead Acid ..... from literally 0 to over 25V and rates that make the original chargers look daft !!

Even if drill battery has own controller - some do - some dont ... (label of charger will be good indicator for this) .... the RC Charger will still do the job if set to the old chargers numbers .....

No need to mortgage the wallet on OEM Drill chargers - just need to sort how to connect the RC charger and enjoy capability to charge anything you have at home !!

 

[Stemar]

I've never used any of their cordless stuff, but I rate Aldidl's tools as being as good as B&Q/WIckes stuff for a lot less money. However, while I rate value for money as high on my must haves, two things where I do go for quality are cordless drills and screwdrivers. My current drills are DeWalt, still going strong at 10 years old, and before that, Makita, which lasted 15 years. Both bought as special offers at Screwfix or Toolstation.

If you only want one tool, this looks worth a look: DeWalt DCD778D2T-SFGB 18V 2 x 2.0Ah Li-Ion XR Brushless Cordless Combi Drill

 

[Refueler]

For those who buy and few years down the road end up with a working drill but useless batterys ....................

I can swap out batts till that drill finally goes to meet its maker !! 2hr charge ............. better torque than original .....

I did change to a 3S LiPo after ..... (12.6V) .... still works excellent.

 

[KAM]

Good idea Refueler. Being a non electronic engineer I changed the obviously blown resistor but abandoned things when I got to the blown SMDs. It's an Erbauer drill (BQ/screwfix) I've had it a long time quality has been good and battery capacity still good after years of abuse. Using an RC charger wired into the existing charger enclosure seems a good solution.

 

[BobnLesley]

For those who buy and few years down the road end up with a working drill but useless batterys ....................

For boat use I had great success from simply connecting a couple of wires/crocodile clips directly to our 18v drill and hooking it up to the boat's battery bank, with an 'extension lead' (more cable and a two wire twist) I even once did a job with it at the masthead; the slower rotation speed from using 12v made it excellent when drilling stainless

 

[KAM]

I did that with my Makita drill but had to fit a thermistor in the handle to simulate the LION battery otherwise it wouldn't work.

 

[Refueler]

For boat use I had great success from simply connecting a couple of wires/crocodile clips directly to our 18v drill and hooking it up to the boat's battery bank, with an 'extension lead' (more cable and a two wire twist) I even once did a job with it at the masthead; the slower rotation speed from using 12v made it excellent when drilling stainless

Absolutely ..... converting to 12v wire from domestic is good solution .....

The only advice I would give ... is leave old battery in place - to maintain weight balance in use ... BUT you must disconnect it to isolate from the new power ..... guy I knew forgot to do that and after about 30 mins use - he had a very hot drill in his hand !!

 

[Refueler]

I did that with my Makita drill but had to fit a thermistor in the handle to simulate the LION battery otherwise it wouldn't work.

OK ... never heard that before ... but it worked !!

 

[BobnLesley]

I did that with my Makita drill but had to fit a thermistor in the handle to simulate the LION battery otherwise it wouldn't work.

Dunno, I've done it twice with nowt special needed and one of them was with a Makita

 

[savageseadog]

For boat use Ryobi have a 12v inverter charger that charges their 18v batteries

 

[vas]

good to hear that your drills survive and end up with dead batteries, mine it's the clutch/torque mechanism that goes first :-( counting 4 in 20yrs now KRESS, metabo, einhel and a B&D iirc

 

[KAM]

Doesn't seem to be any solution to this. Tried several chargers but battery seem to be electronically coded (looks like a computer inside) to match the charger. Cant see any way to rig something to charge. I wonder if that proposed legislation to make manufacturers make spares available for a reasonable time ever went through.

 

[Refueler]

Doesn't seem to be any solution to this. Tried several chargers but battery seem to be electronically coded (looks like a computer inside) to match the charger. Cant see any way to rig something to charge. I wonder if that proposed legislation to make manufacturers make spares available for a reasonable time ever went through.

Not unusual .... many battery packs today carry a BMS board that also has a 'signal detect' ...... this prevents use of non OEM chargers etc.
If you replace the pack with similar voltage pack without the BMS - you can often revive use of the unit. The BMS is normally of no matter to the unit itself ... its to control charge and life cycles of the battery pack.