PutnamEco

I have only had 3 Ni-Cad failures, The first was a 9.6 Makita stick, I'm guessing that it had an internal wiring failure, I was hammer drilling with a freshly charged battery and it just stopped. It was replaced under warranty. Next I had a 12v Milwaukee fail on the charger, it had goo coming out of it when I took it off the charger, never worked again. It was an old battery. The last Ni-Cad failure was with a Milwaukee 18v in one of those Hatchet sawzalls, It overloaded to the point that a whiff of smoke came out and never took another charge. I have always been amazed at the longevity of Makitas 9.6v sticks, even back in the day when I was using them daily, it was not unusual for them to last 6 or 7 years, granted they were not as good as new at the end, but they would still hold enough of a charge to get a few holes drilled. I find it even more amazing that I can go to my local big box and still get this battery, Can' say that about Milwaukee, I can't find any of there older Ni-Cads for sale.

I would hardly call worn brushes an end of motors life, more like routine maintenance. Most of the failures I have had with cordless tools have not been the motor. Switches are a sore spot with me. both trigger, speed range, and reversing have all given me grief at one time or another. The newer drills seem to work a lot better as far as the reverser goes. I suspect the speed range selector on my LXT drill will eventually fail as it has never really shifted well from new. I have also had bearing failures, gear failures, and chucks that jammed. Most of my motor failures have happened to corded tools with either the armatures ending up open circuit or the field melting down, and very rarely having the commutator wear down to the point the tool no longer functions. I should probably look into if a motor fails on these new can less motors, will we be able to purchase new motor components or are we going to have to purchase the whole motor as a unit. It could end up cheaper if we can just purchase the components we need, although I have a feeling the components may cost more than the older can motors themselves.

All the manufacturers are pushing their batteries by charging them in an hour or less. I really wish we had some options on chargers to slow charge them when we have the time. Would be real nice to have this option on a multi-bay charger. I for one would happily pay (a lot) for this option even more so if it had some onboard diagnostics like a lot of the hobby chargers do. I guess the manufacturers think us power tool guys are just to dumb to appreciate any thing like this though.

My Milwaukee V28 batteries were/are very short lived, they loose half their power in less than a year and I had one that had a self discharge issue, wouldn't stay charged for more than a few days if left idle. I got nothing from Milwaukee. I have had Makita LXT batteries just shut down, and refuse to be charged, Sometimes very early in their life. All have eventually succumbed around the 2 year mark (which I can't complain about because by that time I've gotten my moneys worth out of them), No joy from Makita, they claim overload/abuse on the short lived ones and normal wear and tear on the longer lived ones. I'll assume your not interested in my Ni-Cads, which I have had far less problems. I will comment that I have had much better life from rebuilds.

I have heard they deny a lot of battery warranties quoting normal wear and tear vs. the manufactures defects that the tools are warranted against. I believe most manufacturers can tell how many charge cycles their batteries have gone through. You might find this review of batteries interesting http://reviews.ebay....000000072044555

Anything less than 1000 cycles is a short life, even then 1000 cycles is still a pretty short life. I would prefer to see 2000 cycles. Some particularly "hot" cells have as short a life as 500 cycles, luckily, it would seem the tool manufacturers have steered clear of the really "hot" cells as they are even more sensitive to improper charging.

You know the CPSC are still working on passing this law NATIONWIDE to require this on ALL tablesaws, so the option to go out of state to purchase one may soon come to an end.

Yes, I have had problems with power tool batteries.....

That is why I recommend the remote control modelers, they are very brand agnostic when it comes to power tools, and are a lot more likely to sit down with a multimeter and figure things out. They do like to experiment too. The flashlight guys take batteries pretty seriously as well. Hate to say it but, they make us tool guys look lame.

I linked from http://www.keeppower.com.cn, which specification is wrong? The 15m is a custom battery made for Milwaukee, spec sheets are hard to find...

From http://lifehacker.com I know I've used a couple of these, #4 and #5 in particular.

Exactly which cells are we talking about here, and in whose batteries? Here is a "hot" cell, Milwaukees red lithium http://www.keeppower...=92&Language=en Here is a "cool" cell. Panasonics http://www.keeppower...=94&Language=en these are available today.... And the manufacturers push the limits of these cells by insisting on charging them in one hour or less, without letting us have the option for an optimized charge cycle.

Bosch seems to me to be one of the more conservative tool manufacturers, with the few Bosch batteries that I do have, have been most dependable, so I'm not complaining if they are not the latest and greatest, I'll take dependable any day. It would seem to me that most other manufacturers are putting in "hot" cells, that is cells that have a high discharge rate, to make a good show for the press, who seem to only be interested in how NEW tools perform. These "hot" cells work good for a short while, after which the performance falls off pretty quickly, and they do not have as long a life as batteries with "cooler" cells. If you really want to stay up to date with batteries the model electric car and airplane guys are always hanging out on the bleeding edge. They are already a generation or two ahead with Li-Po batteries.

And that brings us around to my original question, where is that point. What safety feature gives the illusion of safety without actually providing any? What is a safety feature that could make one feel stupid? I get what your saying. How some safety equipment could give some people a false sense of security. In the case of the Sawstop would this really be a false sense? Is it going to far to require this on all saws? Most of the jobsite injuries that I have witnessed, have just been stupid mistakes or out right accidents. Most have happened to people I would consider as having good common sense. As Ron White says, you can't fix stupid, so what does that leave us with? I can almost see the day when we will be doing all our work through a keyboard or whatever the latest and greatest input device we come up with is. Some of the CNC machines are doing incredible things and it is only a matter of time before we see a machine that you put a raw tree in one end and end up with a living room set coming out the other, and there is the whole 3d printing universes that can already "print" structural components.

Looks great, do yo have the cabinets set up to accept DVDs?

Without seeing a schematic on them I could not guarantee that it would work. I have no clue how Dewalt has engineered their batteries. Chances are though that you may be able to do just as you suggested. You may kill the 20v max pack or some of the cells in it if they lack an on board low voltage cutout or you may run into an overload protection circuit. I would not attempt it unless you were willing to chance loosing any or all of what your experimenting with or were willing research the cells and then monitor them closely with a voltage meter through a discharge cycle or two. The remote control crowd would be a good place to research info on the cells and be able to tell you how low a voltage you can safely take them to, some of them are into buying power tool batteries and dissecting them for their cells. Then again if you just wanted to throw money at it. http://www.batterygi...m_pack_builder/ may be a place you could try.

I'm not entirely sure that it is a law that we can't have those tools here in the U.S., I have also heard that Americans all have large trucks and don't mind carrying dedicated tools, so there wouldn't be a large enough market here to support bringing and marketing them here. I have also heard that Americans would not be willing to pay the extra cost that these tools command, though I'm pretty sure Festools CMS is out because it doesn't meet our regulations. We could talk about the saws you have available that take dado blades... How about Sawstop tech.? From what I've seen it is pretty unobtrusive, Is there anything wrong with requiring it on all new saws? Even if it had to be adapted to portable circular saws? Could come in handy on chainsaws too? At one time all those previously mentioned "basic andessential" safety devices were not included on tools, I can remember some people complaining long and loud about some of them, granted, saw guards have improved over their lifespan to the point they are at today, so, makes me wonder if a lot of what we are crying about today will be seen tomorrow as "essential".

That could be a pretty wide and fuzzy line. Lets take the retractable blade guard on a circular saw for example, couldn't a person with "common sense" operate one effectively without it, without injuring them selves, or have blade guards crossed the line? I personally think the blade guards on circular saws are a wonderful thing. Having had the pleasure of working with saws that were not equipped with them and having to take the extra care to work without it was not really something I would want to deal with on a daily basis, even though the guard often gets in the way for plunge and miter cuts and adds weight and complexity to the saw, I think it is a worthy addition to a circular saw.

While I won't argue the point that you should be able to cut your own finger off if you want, what happens when your responsible for someone else's safety? How safe a tool would you feel comfortable giving your son or daughter or other significant person in you life to use? Would you let them use a circular saw without a blade guard, knowing what a pain they can be at times? How about a drill without a safety switch? An ungrounded tool? What about something like the Sawstops technology? Where would you draw the line?

Lith-Ion batteries are a lot more sensitive towards improper charging, a bad charge could easily result in fire. If a Ni-Cad is overcharged it can dissipate a fair amount of overcharge through heat. The additional terminals are for monitoring/controlling the charge cycle of the Lith-Ion cells.

A previous post got me thinking about tools and safety. I'm going to assume that we all agree that safe tools are better tools. Can we go to far insuring safe tools? At what point do we cross the line where additional safety features are deemed excessive?

If you dumb, you've got to be tough, http://youtu.be/AzksL5-jVbk or you'll end up on the Darwin Awards

It certainly would be possible to make an adapter, the question is are you willing to put the time, energy, and money into creating one? I would assume you will need a sacrificial 36v battery and you would need to source a couple of 20v Max battery mounts or be willing to manufacturer your own. You may end up messing up the on board circuitry of the batteries so there is always the possibility that it could turn into an expensive period of trial and error, or you could reverse engineer the circuitry to insure that no harm would come to them. Might have to do some electrical engineering to overcome the batteries on board circuitry, they might not like being run in series. To bad your not a Makita fan, The offer an adapter off the shelf.

While I usually use my old PC Speed-Blocs, I got caught out without my small sanders and rather then drive all the way back to the shop, I went to the local big box and picked up a PC 342. I have been surprised by the effectiveness of this little sander. The paper mount tabs are worlds easier to use then my Speed-Blocs, the light weight makes sanding vertical or overhead a piece of cake, and it is has very little vibrations transmitted to the user. They might be worth a look. The old PC Speed-Bloc sanders, I have had for 20+ years have been faithful workhorses, but they are heavy, which works as an advantage when sanding on the bench or other instances when you can use it upright, but can be a bit of a pain otherwise. All that mass does wonders to absorb vibrations making them a real pleasure to use for extended times. The paper clamps are backed by a very strong spring and make it interesting to load, once it is loaded the paper does stay in place, even when loaded with multiple sheets. I've noticed that PC still produces the Speed-Bloc, but I'm guessing it is probably made in Mexico or China now. I'm surprised that you have had problems with the Milwaukee, I have one of their new generations of ROS and it is a pretty good little machine. Does Milwaukee use some weird non standard method of paper mounting that is causing the problem?

From what I've seen of them, it is just a cheap knife with a fancy name attached. I think you could find a better way to spend your money. As someone who has a fair bit of wilderness experience, the lack of any consideration for carrying water in his survival kits, is something I find quite disturbing. I sure hope no one actually has to rely on one in a real survival situation.