Power Tools!!! My very old Ridgid 14.4 NiCd units are dead

[Buck]

I bought the Home Depot drill/driver set many years ago. I don't use them much and recently I've had to charge the batteries every time before use. And then they only last 5 minutes.

Replacing or rebuilding the batteries is too costly for what you get. I'm leaning towards the $99 Greenworks kit at Costco.

Or, at Home Depot, I could get Ryobi for about $100.

What do you think?

[N-OS X-tasy!]

NiCad batteries suck.

[steve...]

Home Depot has a Ryobi Deal now:

Buy this $99 Ryobi One+ 18V drill & get any one of 32 Ryobi power tools FREE.

(up to $79 value on 2nd tool)

[Buck]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
NiCad batteries suck.

Yes. But, they lasted for years, so no real complaint.
Now I'm going Lithium - 18V, 20V or 24V

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Costco doesn't have the kit listed online.

Ryobi is okay, it's sort of the Home Depot house brand. It's not the best quality but they seem to be a decent value.

[Forrest]

Harbor Freight sells a 18 volt 3/8 inch cordless drill/driver for $19.99. I've been using a similar model for over 10 years - still works!

[Buck]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
Costco doesn't have the kit listed online.

I saw them in the store. Looks good and easy Costco return policy if needed.

[tahoedrew]

As a society, I hate the amount of stuff we just throw away, even when it's still good. That's just my personal feeling.

I had my Dewalt 12v NiCad batteries rebuilt.

~A

[Racer X]

tahoedrew wrote:
As a society, I hate the amount of stuff we just throw away, even when it's still good. That's just my personal feeling.

I had my Dewalt 12v NiCad batteries rebuilt.

~A

I really struggle with that about my Hitachi 18V system ni-cads. I could switch over to 18V NiMH but I would need a new charger too. Now we are at the cost of a new kit.

[space-time]

I read somewhere that NiCd batteries are supposed to last very long, if used regularly (daily). Supposedly contractors use NiCd batteries for this reason.

I also read that NASA did a study and they concluded that NiCd cells should be stored short-circuit for long term storage. You can probably google and find this paper. Whether that can be applied to tools, I am not sure since usually you have many cells in series and it is impossible to short individual cells.