Ridgid drill/driver kit with 2, 2.0AH batteries

[sternwake]

A while back, either 18 or 30 months ago, my dad tossed an old Electrolux dustbuster/ floor vacuum into the trash.  Its battery was done.  I pulled it from the trashm and hid it in the attic.

Even well before the battery became totally useless, i recall it just slowing down from the moment the button was pressed, and the performance not all that great even when new. But it was good enough for a quick go over of tile floors.

Dad bought a newer 'shark' dustbuster earlier this year, no floor vac body to install it into.
Not very impressive performance, but convenient.

I was using it yesterday when I noticed the time and started preparing dinner.

Left dustbuster on my workbench, did not rehang it on the hook I made for it.

This AM.....

Bang !
Slam!
 Mutter, curse curse, crash! slam! curse, and new shark slides across counter top and dad stomps off like a child.

I'd left it filled with sawdust, not clogged mine you, but he had to look for it on my table.  Oh the Humanity!!!

I thought it was broke or the battery had died when he most needed it, but it was fine and emptying it takes one button and about 1/2 second.  I vaccuumed up anything I saw which might have sent him in pursuit of the vaccuum in the first place, and went into the attic, and pulled out the dustbuster I pulled out of the trash 18 months ago.

12vDC says a sticker on its underside.

I open it up, and it has 10 AA NiMh batteries in series 2 packs of 2, 2 packs of 3, distributed all over inside the dustbuster.

Snip Snip solder solder and Anderson powerpoles  with  short 14awg leads are attached to where the original battery was attached.
My 3series 18650 holder with andersons is right there, my wattmeter says it is 11.3v, I mate the powerpoles, turn dustbuster on and it fires to life, drawing about 55 watts.

Some masking tape holds the battery pack to dustbuster body temporarily.  I put dustbuster inside larger floor model with spinning brush, and use the on off button on that device and it fires right up. I go and hit the floors inside and a rug.  Worked pretty well.

I put the 10S AA nimh pack on am adjustable voltage power supply.  Was up in the 17v range before they started accepting one amp, and after about 25 minutes, were getting warm.

I know from previously playing with a voltage bucker to charge a single AA eneloop battery, that I had to bring voltage up into the 2.4v range before the battery would accept 0.15+ amps.

I did not check voltage output of original charge cradle for floor model unit, but figure it has to be at least 18V to charge the 10 nimh batteries in series and that the circuit board components have to be able to handle that much.

Look at 18v 2.0 AH ridgid battery.

Say a prayer to the magic smoke gods, and hook 17.72v Ridgid battery with 'powerwheels adapter' and anderson powerpole output of its own,  to anderson powerpole now on Dustbuster through wattmeter.
press On button and it fires up and is a suction MONSTER. 184 watts!

Place unit back into floor unit and go hit the deep rug that gets loaded fast, and it makes short work of it.
Vaccum whole house high traffic areas quickly, and never notice any slowing of the unit over a few minutes.


So I pull out the fully charged ridgid 4.0 battery.  5 extra cells, should maintain more voltage, be even more powerful.
Unit refuses to turn on.
put outer 2 bar battery in, it fires right up.
Put 4.0 Ah battery measuring 2 bars in it, and it fires right up
put 4.0 AH battery measuring 4 bars into it, and nothing.

I've not determined the absolute max voltage at which it will still turn on, but the half charged 2.0Ah battery was more than enough to do anything I will ask of it, and a half charged 4.0 battery would do it twice as long.

The exhaust ports were not exhausting very hot air with 50% more voltage than it should expect from original battery pack.
The thing is far more powerful than the newer dustbuster, and seems to be built far better.

I attached the 'power wheels adapter to the body of the dustbuster and can now easily switch 18v Ridgid batteries, and as long as they are not fully charged, the unit seems to work better than ever.

I hooked the original 12v nominal NIMH battery pack to some test leads with anderson powerpole and fuse, and the wattmeter dimmed before showing 6.23v, and 2 seconds later buster shut off.

i figure much of the circuit board is dedicated to the NIMH battery charging, and the controls to the contacts to teh floor model unit.  Here' s hoping it can handle the extra hundred watts long term.

Dad had noticed clean floor and rug, and apologized for his childlike tantrum earlier, and I showed him the reborn dustbuster inside the floor model, powered by the Ridgid 18v battery.
  "Where did you get that, I threw it away years ago!"

Its getting tuned a little bit more, before I return it to where it used to reside years ago.

Makita to Ridgid battery  and Ridgid to Makita adapters are  en route.

No landfill for you
and better than ever.

   
   

[sternwake]

I ran the electrolux ergorapido until the ridgid battery BMS kicked in, and found my 3 other ridgid batteries all fully charged, and would not work.
I dragged one down to 3bars, sharpening  chisels on angle grinder, and then it worked, and i was surprised how much crap it pulled off floors just vacuumed yesterday, when i emptied the dustbin.

Looks like a new 18v lithium ergorapido is 229$

   

https://www.electrolux.com/en/p/floor-ca...EHVS3510AR

[sternwake]

Also otn going into the landfill anytime soon nis a comoact 1.5 gallon shopvac. Which greaTky outperformed my buckethead vaccuum. Until recently.

It had started getting loud, and i found a motor mount broken, and a dry bronze bushing surrounded by dry felt.

JB WELD onto cleaned deep sharp mechanical tooth adjacent to break, and on the side which did not, too.

I removed some safety/lazy engineering manufacturing inspired restriction to flow on both intake, and exhaust.
Oiled the bushing and felt, reassembked, and

It now works better than ever.
Quiet and powerful.

[rvpopeye]

Good saves ... 2 for 2 !

[Scott7022]

Keeping shit out of land fills is a good thing. People leave that shit beside the Bins here in Kazakhstan and a guy picks it up and takes it back to his lair to make it live again and people can buy these rejuvenated items.

Something green that actually works. But just easier to replace.
Electronics
Cars
Friends
Wives
Husbands
Soul



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rvpopeye]

That guy doing the recycling is classified as a CLACer , A sub group of YARC.
The "Can't Leave It Alone Club". (We have members here on the vandweller. chapter)

So , are you having any fun yet ? There MUST be at least one storytime worthy scenario by now !

[sternwake]

Leaving it alone is difficult when it can be fixed or improved.

The shopvac had the cup in side the filter, so that if if was picking up wet stuff, and tilled on its side, the cuo gets sucked into intake and prevents ingestion into motor.
But i never expect to use it to lpck up wet. Without this cup, there is no need for cup to seal around opening to centrifugal impeller, which spins at 20k rpm. So i drilled a bunch of holes around the perimeter of where it once would seal in case of tipover

There was also this 'finger grill' guard just below impeller. With it spinning, placing my finger 1 inch from opening and motor started making a different noise and exhaust flow significantly attenuated.

I cut out one row of guards, and tapered leading and trailing edges of the remaining and the repeated test was way quieter, flowed way more air, but fingers near intake still caused attenuation of flow.

The exhaust port, i like to hook a hose to it and direct the exhaust, but this adds restriction, and i dont have a bunch of extra 1.25" id hose. I do have tons 1.5" id hose from the pool cleaner, but it did not fit he shop vac exhaust.
Now it does.
Previously hooking a 1.25" hose to exhaust, while running, changed the tempo of motor. NOw, with 1.5" exhaust hose installed in exhaust port while running, tempo stays the same but motor noise is attenuated.

The efficacy of my modifications exceeded my expectations.
Usually tiny improvements fall into unmeasurable placebo possibility, but there is no doubt the shopvac is now quieter and has significantly more suction, at all speeds.

I often run it on a router speed controller when i dont need Nuclear grade suction, and or want to reduce noise generate or want to prevent tripping a breaker when using it to collect tablesaw dust.

And im going to be making huge quantities of dust soon. But tablesaw needs some improvement as to where it pulls the dust from.

Online purveyors are getting 1200$ for a 40x 60" bahama/bermuda shutter, before freight charges.

My tablesaw louver jig prototype, is in version 2.
Fractions of MM's matter.

[sternwake]

This last weekend, I got to use my sister's landlord's Brushless Ridgid impact driver.

Mine is not brushless.

I could not tell any difference, driving a few 3 inch screws into the door jam through hinge, whose bottom hinge stock 1" screws had stripped.

It had some buttons on the back, i imagine controlling the impact hammer torque, but the trigger felt exactly like mine and stopping at one hammer click earned a nod of approval from octogenarian carpenter who was reluctant to not do it himself but whose knees could not object to my offer to do it.

He was raving about the Ridgid battery deal he got, 2 4.0 ah batteries and charger for 80$, and the lifetime service agreement which he registered on day one of the 90 day window.

Said he had a bunch of dewalt tools whose batteries were dead, and ridiculously priced replacements pushed him at Ridgid replacements.

I showed him a 22$ Ridgid to Dewalt battery adapter on my phone and my sister ordered one for him to be deducted from her rent.

I had my 92mm and 60mm delta pocketfan and ridgid battery powersource and showed him.

He was like 'you can buy a Ridgid fan.
I was like is it 25$ , 7500 rpm, ridiculously powerful, fits in your pocket, and fulfills your need to tinker?

We agreed to disagree.

[sternwake]

I got an 8$ 'power wheels adapter' for Makita 18V batteries.

Though I,ve not yet opened it to see the wire/contact joinery, I dont expect to use the provided wiring I think it is 14awg and very stiff, and short, but this was 5$ cheaper than the Ridgid 'power wheels adapter.

With it being June, in Florida and so freaking hot in the garage through the night, I have moved all the Ridgid/Makita and Ryobi lithium batteries and chargers into an Airconditioned space.
Not sure of the decay rate of Lithium vs lead acid, but every 10C degree increase in average temperature double the rate of degradation, all other factors being equal.
Made a shelf up out of the way, and have ordered some battery hangers to store the batteries below the shelf, when not in use. Been trying to store them at 2 or 3 bars and just plugging them in If I expect to need the full capacity in near future. but with the ridgid to Makita or makita to ridgid adapters, running out of battery is unlikely.

[sternwake]

Slow round here.

My lithium charger and battery shelf in air conditioned laundry room,which was assembled quick and dirty, bare plywood held with two screws, is not quite large enough. I think am going to hang the blowers in there too.

I saw the neighbors were throwing out some cabinet doors.
I spied them.with binocs, then skated over.
Looks like solid cherry frame. One corner of one door was chipped.

They look extremely well made.
I don't think I could replicate them without 500$ more in tools and lots of practice on cheap lumber, before committing with a quality hardwood.

My old man pointed out a tree with a few dead limbs.
"You dont have to do it today'

I waited 2 weeks, till the summer solstice, noon, it was only 92f and 77% humidity.

Busted out 120vac bosch sawzall with pruning blade, 100' 12 awg extension cord, ladder, plywood feet for 6 ' step ladder.

CLeaned out a bunch of dry dead underbrush, determined which if the intertwined branches need to be cut, and where, but was standing on very top of unstable ladder holding onto tree at that point.


Basically if i were to attempt to use sawzall, standing onnthe very too of the Aframe ladder, I'd likely fall, onto grass.

Maybe 30 years ago I would have risked it.

"Dad, I need a taller step ladder, or a polesaw to get those ugly dead branches'
Hem haw no rush, not that important, makes no difference. ,cant be worth it.
Dad's predictable boilerplate.

2 days later, to my surprise,
A Dewalt 8" "20v" polesaw , with 4.0ah battery and charger, has been ordered.

It Was significantly less than Makita or Milwaukee options at the Despot.

The 20v "MAX" marketing is BS. It is still an 18v nominal battery system, like Ryobi, Ridgid, Makita, Milwaukee. 5 series cells, or 5 series, 2 parallel configuration for the 4.0ah or larger capacity batteries.

I know the usual recommendation is to pick one battery/tool system and stick with that tool brand, but the 20$ battery adapters nullify a lot of the argument.

They do add some height to the battery, might throw off some tool's balance perhaps not physically fit in some tools due to clearance issues.....

The Makita to rRidgid adapter on my modified elctrolux ergorapido does screw with the tilting head, requiring a bit more wrist input to steer normally, but it was the nobrainer option when my 4 Ridgid baTteries were all 20v plus and would not work in the modified vacuum, but 2 bar Makita was right there, click click snap go.

I found the electrolux original charge cradle and wall wart power supply/charger.
It says 18v, 100ma on the wart.
I measured a no load OCV of 19.12v

10 AA nimh cells in series, originally.
These are usually around 1.42v, fully charged, rested.

My AA eneloops need 2.37v each, to charge at 150ma.

1.91v per cell max, might be safe for all day low current safe e ough charging of NIMH, but far from Ideal.
No wonder the nimh battery performance was so dismal, even when new, and so much worse shortly after.

The 10 AA cells it came with, claim 1300mah capacity, at 1.2v nominal, so 15.6 watt hours of original battery capacity.
The ridgid 2.0v bTtery has 32 wh,
Makita and Ridgud 4.0, 72 wh
2x the power, 2x+, the capacity.

Wonder if he Dewalt '20V MAX' battery will claim 72, or 80wh.





Not sure i will pick up a Makita to Dewalt or Ridgid to Dewalt adapter, or the opposite. I dont see needing more than one battery for polesaw, on this property.

Now if i were to modify the polesaw to use as a propulsion wand for my skateboard,......
Probably aligned as a pusher would be more effective.
Hmmm.