Cordless Drill Flashlight mods

missionaryman · Oct 20, 2005

Hello all, I have just joined up (against my dear wife's wishes I think) and I have a question that's been eating away since I started looking through these forums: Has anyone/does anyone modify a cordless drill flashlight? I just though these might be a good base to work with because of the large and high voltage batteries. If you look at some of the really Good HID's like the X990 they actually look exactly like a power tool torch. I know there are vast differences but it seems the basic architecture is there...

PaulW · Oct 20, 2005

- - a good idea to ask this question. I'm going to be watching for answers.

Welcome, missionaryman. Hope to hear more from you in the future.

Paul

Geologist · Oct 20, 2005

I have seen a post or too with people doing projects. They were 1 of a kind projects - not sure what happened with them.

and welcome to CPF! Hide your wallet and buy both!

mobile1 · Oct 22, 2005

I know someone who was thinking about this.... but like we all way too many other projects going on.
Welcome - hold on to your wallet and time.....

Makarov · Oct 22, 2005

Hi MM, it has been discussed here and wquiles made a mod that he posted here.
I've been thinking about doing something about my Dewalt light, but haven't really come around to it yet.

Welcome BTW, and really; Hold on to your wallet!

Geologist · Oct 22, 2005

What I think is great is that you can buy these hefty 18V drills for like $25 sometimes with two batteries. If the batteries are even halfway decent, then they would make a great host!

DFiorentino · Oct 22, 2005

I've made of few with some coworkers Craftsman 18V lights. All using 5mm LEDs. One had 35 26kmcd's, another with 25 30kmcd's, and a third with 55 30kmcd's. All turned out exceptionally well for being dd/resistored. I'm building one for myself using a Craftsman flouescent worklight that will include 1 or 2 regulated LuxI emmiters as well as the ability to toggle between/include 35-ish 35kmcd 5mm LEDs. I have high hopes for that one :grin2:

.

I really like the Craftsman worklights because of the simple ergonimic constuction and the cheap, cheap prices they can be had for.

andrewwynn · Oct 23, 2005

i've seen a number of them and made a couple myself..

http://rouse.com/mega is my first 'real' LED mod. it has up to 6 1/2 hr runtime full blast and will run 4-5 days straight on low..

I'm working on a 'drill battery' mod that will output 90,000 lumen.. http://3k.rouse.com (3000W arc lamp powered by V28 milwaukee drill batteries)

-awr

missionaryman · Nov 9, 2005

andrewwynn - that's what I'm talking about! (read your post)

paulr · Nov 9, 2005

Any LED mod in a light this heavy seems kind of silly. An automotive HID lamp transplant resulting in something like an X990 makes more sense. Or to be a bit less hardcore, one or two MR16 lamps would be a pretty good match for the larger tool batteries.

andrewwynn · Nov 9, 2005

only makes more sense if you want brighter and less runtime for far-throwing results.. for near-by lighting and far more runtime LED is where it's at.. i can run the megasonic for 10hrs straight at 50%

I get 70% more light at the same power as when the mega was an incan. light..

Wasn't cheap, to be fair.

-awr

missionaryman · Dec 19, 2005

I've run some tests with my Ryobi cordless and found the packs are made up of high current/low capacity sub C cells. Mine's a 12v but has room for another 5 cells to get up to 18v. I pulled two packs apart and made one 14.4v pack and ran a 64625 (crudely wired to my MAG951) which it powered quite well for all of 7 minutes. If you were to replace the stock cells with say IB3800's you'd improve your run times significantly (from 1200mah to 3800mah).

To help with the heat absorption you could replace the plastic head with an automotive Auxillary light head (one that's made from stainless steel with a replaceable spun aluminium reflector like the high end Hella units) and fit an HID system. That would be the way to go - not that I could ever build anything like that myself but I think the Orsram's would chew the battery too quickly and LED just doesn't have the throw of HID/Incan.

andrewwynn · Dec 19, 2005

the megasonic has high current high capacity cells.. 3.5AH sub-c.. they are not cylindrical.. they are rounded squares.. interesting. 13 cells for 15.6V and 60+WH.

Very interesting idea with the automative aux. head.

-awr

BentHeadTX · Dec 20, 2005

As I look at my Milwalkee 28 volt 3AH Lithium-Ion battery pack....
Tested the drill and beat the living crap out of it for hours trying to kill the battery pack... drilled into concrete walls that are mixed with marble chips (Marble is junk rock in Turkey...even asphalt has marble mixed in) Smoked some masonry bits but it drilled over 100 holes!
Slapped the dead battery on the charger and 30 minutes later it was fully charged. Yeah, 30 MINUTES! That puppy charges at something like 8C for a rate and it acts like a Ni-Cad in operation (even has a 4 LED battery meter built into the battery) I think it can discharge at a 60 to 100C rate so with 84 watt hour battery... give me about 6 SWAH Luxeon K2s running at an amp each through a buck regulator and I'll get 600 lumens with a 3 hour runtime!
Sure, the batteries are $129 each but...

andrewwynn · Dec 20, 2005

did you check the battery level before charging? i seem to remember it taking a full hour or 70 minutes to charge, i think you had it half depleted only.

I sawed about 60 cuts through 3" diameter trees with my v28 sawzall and still had 1/4 charge left.. those batteries are the strongest per volume i am aware of.

The cells inside are made by molicel and are good for 100A that is 288W EACH!

I have measured over 1 1/4HP on my sawzall with NO LOAD! insanity! They will kick the SNOT out of any nicad.. no acting like wimpy NiCD.. there is no 26700 NiCD that can output 300W!

The cells in the v28 would be wasted on less than 20-30 Luxeons.. just a normal 3AH NiMH can easily run any reasonable quantity of luxeons, there is no need for a molicel. I've been trying to figure out a use for these high-power cells in a flashlight and the only thing i can think of is a 100W like the USL, but the cells are soo big you'd need a 6C light to host the 4 required to do it (it would be a cool light though.. 2500L from a 6C maglight with 30 minutes runtime!).

missionaryman · Dec 25, 2005

andrewwynn said:
did you check the battery level before charging? i seem to remember it taking a full hour or 70 minutes to charge, i think you had it half depleted only.

I sawed about 60 cuts through 3" diameter trees with my v28 sawzall and still had 1/4 charge left.. those batteries are the strongest per volume i am aware of.

The cells inside are made by molicel and are good for 100A that is 288W EACH!

I have measured over 1 1/4HP on my sawzall with NO LOAD! insanity! They will kick the SNOT out of any nicad.. no acting like wimpy NiCD.. there is no 26700 NiCD that can output 300W!

The cells in the v28 would be wasted on less than 20-30 Luxeons.. just a normal 3AH NiMH can easily run any reasonable quantity of luxeons, there is no need for a molicel. I've been trying to figure out a use for these high-power cells in a flashlight and the only thing i can think of is a 100W like the USL, but the cells are soo big you'd need a 6C light to host the 4 required to do it (it would be a cool light though.. 2500L from a 6C maglight with 30 minutes runtime!).

Do you have any details of pictures of these cells? perhaps the model number of the battery, I would like to do some testing on how to package and charge them so they can be put to good use so maybe I can locate a used pack on eBay or something.

andrewwynn · Dec 25, 2005

the battery is just the 'v.28' milwaukee cordless tool battery. The cells are 26700 cells made by molicel. you can google to find their website.. they talk about making all kinds of cells but they won't sell that cell to people or even companies i'm sure. I believe that Milwaukee and molicel teamed up to create that cell and have exclusive use of it.. so you'd have to buy V.28 batteries and rip them apart to get cells.

You can buy brand new batteries for like $100-120.. that comes with 7 cells inside. The problem is that flashlight solutions do not need 400W per cell of power, so even with having designs like the Mag100R.. that would only be 25W/cell with 4 cells.. it's the energy density i'm interested not power density.. there are already better solutions out there.

HOW ever.. with a couple of those cells and a nice boost ckt, like the 50W monster LED driver i have coming from taskled (very custom order).. I could use just a couple of those cells and run like 35W worth of light from a pretty small host.

-awr

vandrecken · Dec 28, 2005

Recently picked up one of these flashlight bodies to work with the 15.6v packs of my Metabo cordless. These are rated 2.4 Amp hours and built from decent quality Sanyo NiCd cells.

The appeal to me is being able to use a high quality microprocessor controlled charger that maximes the life of the battery pack as well as giving a fast charge.

I was seriously disappointed with the reflector, output and overall beam quality - "pitiful" isn't being unfair. I think this will make a good candidate for a mod.

Cheers

missionaryman · Jun 4, 2006

has anybody had a look inside of a Makita BL1830 18v 3.0ah LiIon pack? I can get one for $45 and if it had 26500 or 26650's inside (4 @ 3.0 Ah each) they would be very handy, I also imagine they would handle a bashing in the current drain department.

andrewwynn · Jun 4, 2006

18V will be 5 cells.. even using miwlaukee's 'lie like hell' philosophy of over-rating batteries.. there is no way to stretch 4 cells to 18V.. if they are 3AH.. they are going to be sizable cells.. most likely the same as the 3AH 26700 cells like the v'25.9' batteries.

-awr

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