I let the smoke out...

[fabricgator]

Hey folks...

 

I was abusing my Milwaukee M-18, 1/2" hammer drill (perhaps six years old) about four days ago and *pop* or *snap* a wisp of smoke arose... 

I am an active member in all other things I love and thought 'there must be a battery tool forum'

 

I was turning a 2 1/2" bimetal hole saw in aluminum. It was kinda grabby and while I was certain that these amazing drills could handle it, I presume, I was mistaken.

 

I am in seek of advice and guidance in the most economical solution to repair or replacement.

I am seldom a tradesman these days and I did not have a whole lot of mileage on this tool. 

Should I pursue repair or simply replace it?  Unfortunately, I have more time than money.

 

I've yet to perform troubleshooting. What torx bit is required to get inside? 

Is there any sort of guide available? Are there any unexpected springs or parts to misplace?

 

Thank you for your anticipated assistance.

fab 

[reddawg60]

Maybe try and go to ereplacementparts.com and input your model number. Maybe nosing around there may help you. Worth a try anyway.

 

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[fabricgator]

Thank you reddawg60.

I'll check out ereplacementparts.com

Cheers!

[OldDominionDIYer]

Not sure what the cost of repair would be but you can purchase a brand new Gen 3 2804-20 M18 Fuel Hammer drill on Amazon for $119 and the older 2607-20 M18 Hammer Drill for $71 which are both great deals. I actually caught the 2804 on sale and got it brand new in the box for $95 not long ago. the Gen 2 2704-20 can be had for $112 if that model is more to your liking.  All of these are M18 Hammer Drill bare tools.

[OldDominionDIYer]

You can get them each even cheaper if you don't mind purchasing them used or in the "open box" category from as low as $51....

Seriously doubt you can buy a motor for that cheap from Milwaukee (if that turns out to be your issue)

[Biggie]

Ereplacementparts has pretty decent pricing and I usually will use them for a parts diagram but if you use ebay it's worth checking to see if someone has a discounted part.  Like others have said though with the deals you can find on complete tools it gets pretty hard to justify replacing parts.

[fabricgator]

I checked e-replacementparts and saw that the complete assy (control board, trigger, brush assy, etc) was about $58 plus s&h. I got out my T-6 drivers and opened her up. I couldn't identify anything looking fried on the micro semiconductor board but I did see that there were two transistor with heat sink that were obviously damaged and had that recently electrocuted smell I get in my shorts when wiring ceiling fans in a damp environment without turning off the breaker.

 

I ordered four (need two) from eBay for $9 delivered from China... I'll report my imminent success (or failure) when the parts arrive next week.

 

I have more time and skill than money. I'd usually just buy a new gun or the repair assy and be done with it. That, and I get a kick out of repairing things at a component level...

[paulengr]

If you have a smoked drive transistor, it's probably not your only problem. They work by using a very thin piece of silicon that has pathetically little thermal mass so if something shorts elsewhere, the transistor is gone in a flash, literally. With that in mind you might have a bad capacitor or something like that but my money is on the moving part...the motor.

Also looking on eBay might take a bit to locate a relatively decent vendor but there are lots of m18 hammer drills on there cheaper than your parts price. I've bought some pretty expensive items off eBay and never had a return problem if they turned up duds but I try to look for vendors instead of individuals. Example: a Greenlee cordless hydraulic CCX 12 ton crimper with most of the dies, a knockout punch adapter, a few cutter dies, and charger and a couple batteries. It's about $5000 for everything. Bought it off a tool repair shop, bought 3 more dies to complete the set, and a charger after we lost it. Machined an adapter to use stainless knockouts instead of just mild steel. Very happy with this setup. All totaled we've got the original $1000 EBay plus about $250 into it and it's far better than $3500 we would have paid for a cheaper and smaller crimper and dies.

Another example, bought a 40,000 V probe off EBay for $60 and paid $2 for a ground clamp to fix the one it had compared to thousands for a new one.

As you said when you have money, it doesn't matter. If you don't have money, then you get creative.

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[Biggie]

I guess I didn't consider that some people have the ability to work on circuit boards and individual components.  I wouldn't know where to begin when it comes to that stuff so if I reck something I'm stuck paying the $58+ for the complete part assembly or finding a discounted new tool for $100ish.  At that point the new tool usually looks better.

[paulengr]

Back in the day...lol. I’m not quite 50 so I don’t consider myself old enough to say those words.

They used to make circuit boards with through hole technology and typically single or double sided. One off boards were wire wrapped or used perf boards and/or dead bugs technique, or outright bread boards. Chips were usually socketed. My grandfather had the more time than money issue and grew up in the depression so he would take junk circuit boards and strip them for parts. You could do that back then. Pretty much all chips were one of the couple dozen members of the 7400 then 7400LS family where you had as many as 4 gates on a chip. The 741 op amp was your only analog chip for the most part other than individual transistors. Engineers were still taught this same stuff in college even in the early 90s because that’s what they did at my school, Back then with about $40 in tools I could fix anything electronic. Still can today in some cases.

Then chip miniaturization was on steroids. Gate counts exploded to hundreds then thousands then millions of gates. Chips became programmable. First fuse technology then modern
FPGAs. The old 0.1” pin spacing gave way to microscopic spacing like “gull wing” chips then pin and ball grid arrays with hundreds of pins. The circuit boards went multilayer and everything went to surface mount. Today you can email your design files and have boards built and shipped in a week if you have the money and they take credit cards.

Today you can still repair boards and I’ve worked with people that do it. But the tools are specialized like vacuum tweezers, conductive and insulative epoxies, and they tend to just put dots of solder under the chip and heat it with a heat gun while working under a magnifying glass or microscope. They use machine that automatically tests most of the connections and parts. Similarly little brushless “servo” style motors are repairable. But realistically most “production” parts are no longer component level repairable, and the cost to repair only makes sense when repair is the only option. So not saying it can’t be done but it’s moved from hobbyist to professional skill levels.

Changing brushes or whole assemblies is one thing. Popping off a tiny chip capacitor never mind a chip and replacing it is quite another, never mind using microscopic hooks and logic analyzers to troubleshoot.




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[Mycrossover]

I just ran into that. The freezer in my fridge has an led light fixture that they want $60 for. The actual led is worth less than a buck from Mouser. The pc board is the heat sink. There is no solder showing on the sides of the led. I was not sure if I should heat the pc board from the back or hit the led with my heat gun after putting dabs of solder on the pads. It is a 3030 led (3mm square). The old one became intermittent from a bad solder joint and I let out the magic smoke testing it. My bad. At this low price I can screw a couple up. Man, I miss through hole and .1 mm spacing.

Back in the day...lol. I’m not quite 50 so I don’t consider myself old enough to say those words.

They used to make circuit boards with through hole technology and typically single or double sided. One off boards were wire wrapped or used perf boards and/or dead bugs technique, or outright bread boards. Chips were usually socketed. My grandfather had the more time than money issue and grew up in the depression so he would take junk circuit boards and strip them for parts. You could do that back then. Pretty much all chips were one of the couple dozen members of the 7400 then 7400LS family where you had as many as 4 gates on a chip. The 741 op amp was your only analog chip for the most part other than individual transistors. Engineers were still taught this same stuff in college even in the early 90s because that’s what they did at my school, Back then with about $40 in tools I could fix anything electronic. Still can today in some cases.

Then chip miniaturization was on steroids. Gate counts exploded to hundreds then thousands then millions of gates. Chips became programmable. First fuse technology then modern
FPGAs. The old 0.1” pin spacing gave way to microscopic spacing like “gull wing” chips then pin and ball grid arrays with hundreds of pins. The circuit boards went multilayer and everything went to surface mount. Today you can email your design files and have boards built and shipped in a week if you have the money and they take credit cards.

Today you can still repair boards and I’ve worked with people that do it. But the tools are specialized like vacuum tweezers, conductive and insulative epoxies, and they tend to just put dots of solder under the chip and heat it with a heat gun while working under a magnifying glass or microscope. They use machine that automatically tests most of the connections and parts. Similarly little brushless “servo” style motors are repairable. But realistically most “production” parts are no longer component level repairable, and the cost to repair only makes sense when repair is the only option. So not saying it can’t be done but it’s moved from hobbyist to professional skill levels.

Changing brushes or whole assemblies is one thing. Popping off a tiny chip capacitor never mind a chip and replacing it is quite another, never mind using microscopic hooks and logic analyzers to troubleshoot.




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