Hello,
I've got a couple of home made 14 cell Ni-Mh packs which I've been using for a while to power by bike lights which I use for mountianbiking. I've been contemplating for a while moving to Li-ion and thought that using 18V power tool packs would be a good option as they are pre-built come matched with battery chargers, ruggedised etc.
I've just emigrated from London to Singapore and in the midst of the chaos of packing up I gave away all my Ryobi cordless tools to a friend. I now regret this as I quite liked those tools. They were powered by 18V li-ion packs which I had thoughts of using to power my lights and were quite decently priced, have a fuel gauge and on battery cell balancing - The only downside is they were not the most convenient shape, packs from other manufactures are now squarer which would have a lower profile when mounted on a bike.
A I bought a Makita drill with a 18V 3Ah pack (found I needed one urgently) and I was hoping that the Makita 'LXT' would be a good platform for both tools and batteries for lights etc. However, now I've looked into it further I think i've made a mistake as:
So I am assessing what my long term options are before I invest further in batteries or tools and I would really appreciate any info, experience or views that members here have.
I could go back to the awkwardly shaped but cheap and reliable Ryobi, or from a bit of research, Milwaukee and DeWalt appear to have packs that have cell balancing and are reliable.
Or if cell balancing is not that important I could stick with Makita packs, I could maybe buy an alternative slower charger and I would probably find it quite easy to find bricked packs to tinker around with.
Or I could forget the whole idea and just make separate Li-ion packs for use on the bike.
I've got a couple of home made 14 cell Ni-Mh packs which I've been using for a while to power by bike lights which I use for mountianbiking. I've been contemplating for a while moving to Li-ion and thought that using 18V power tool packs would be a good option as they are pre-built come matched with battery chargers, ruggedised etc.
I've just emigrated from London to Singapore and in the midst of the chaos of packing up I gave away all my Ryobi cordless tools to a friend. I now regret this as I quite liked those tools. They were powered by 18V li-ion packs which I had thoughts of using to power my lights and were quite decently priced, have a fuel gauge and on battery cell balancing - The only downside is they were not the most convenient shape, packs from other manufactures are now squarer which would have a lower profile when mounted on a bike.
A I bought a Makita drill with a 18V 3Ah pack (found I needed one urgently) and I was hoping that the Makita 'LXT' would be a good platform for both tools and batteries for lights etc. However, now I've looked into it further I think i've made a mistake as:
- Battery charger pushes out 7A with no option to throttle down the charge speed. It has a clever system that ventilates air through the battery with a fan while charging, but surely charging at 2.3C will still take it's toll on the pack.
- Doesn't have any cell balancing
- Charger handshakes with micro-controller on battery before charging. There are lots of stories of the pack rather exuberantly declaring itself dead which bricks the pack.
So I am assessing what my long term options are before I invest further in batteries or tools and I would really appreciate any info, experience or views that members here have.
I could go back to the awkwardly shaped but cheap and reliable Ryobi, or from a bit of research, Milwaukee and DeWalt appear to have packs that have cell balancing and are reliable.
Or if cell balancing is not that important I could stick with Makita packs, I could maybe buy an alternative slower charger and I would probably find it quite easy to find bricked packs to tinker around with.
Or I could forget the whole idea and just make separate Li-ion packs for use on the bike.
