Makita LXT with Dual Tri-Rebel head

[maxspeeds]

This is an awesome soldering station light!

[donn_]

It's a fascinating exercise, although I wonder why you'd use battery power and a hot light source for microscopy. Presumably the scope is indoors and AC is available. Same with soldering stations. While they are pretty spendy, there are quite a few existing options using fiber-optic cool light, like these: http://www.tedpella.com/lights_html/Motic-MLC-150C.htm I'd like to see a twist on this design which uses an 18" gooseneck and an LED head, with a magnetic base and a ~5' pigtail ending in alligator clips, for use in automotive and marine engine compartments.

[trout]

Hi I stumbled on this post from a post on the taskled forum with the help of weylan, thanks mate , and the makita adaptor is the answer to my problem.

I have just bought a makita drill with the li ion batteries and was looking into using them also for my bike lights but have been pondering how to make a connector for the battery and this is just what I need .

so much so I have ordered 6 , as I want 2 for bike lights , 1 for a work light , 1 for a super power torch and 1 for a camping lantern plus a spare for any think that crops up in the future..

now I need some advise .
Is there enough space or potential to house a Taskled Nflex some where inside the adaptor also I would like to put 2 sockets there as well to plug in the remote light heads .
that is all for now more questions will follow later im sure
thanks Trout

[McGizmo]

trout,
Although I haven't gone through with it, I determined that there was sufficient "dead" space to host both a converter and clickie switch in the dock itself. I don't know about your application as I am not familiar with the converter or its physical requirements.

[Alan B]

Great battery adapter!

New question for this old thread. Just got some of these batteries and am considering some projects with this battery adapter. Do these batteries have an internal cutoff low voltage disconnect? Or must that be part of the project?

Would not want to over discharge a $75 battery!

[dat2zip]

I am not aware of any internal cutoff. You will need to monitor this and prevent over discharging. The uP board I made for the box monitors the battery voltage to drive a bi-color LED providing GRN, Yellow and Red for battery status indication.

What are you planning on making?

Shoot me an email.

Wayne

[Alan B]

OK. Thanks.

Will post something when it is further along.

[Alan B]

I am not aware of any internal cutoff. You will need to monitor this and prevent over discharging. The uP board I made for the box monitors the battery voltage to drive a bi-color LED providing GRN, Yellow and Red for battery status indication.
...
Wayne

I've been doing further research on these Makita LXT packs. As Wayne indicated they apparently don't have low voltage disconnect built in. They do appear to have a 7 amp thermal self-resetting circuit breaker that also interrupts current at high battery temperature. They also have a memory that communicates with the charger but it seems to only relate to the charger. The tools have individual low voltage cutoffs. One source mentioned this was adjustable inside the tool.

Several sources mentioned that the Makita charger does not do balancing and that these cells don't require it. If anyone has a dead Makita battery I'd like to take one apart to verify this and see what else can be learned. Perhaps a separate thread should exist for documenting this interesting power source.

So at 18 volts you can get up to 126 watts with 7 amps of current draw from this battery pack, and an external low voltage disconnect is required. The low voltage should be 15 volts or more, 3.0 volts per cell (these are reportedly 5S2P Sony Konion LiMN cells).

More than enough for most projects...