Archived from the Tools In Action forum (All others not listed). This thread is read-only.
Well, just got off the phone with Skil. I have a Skil battery powered tool set which uses 18v LI batteries. Couldn’t find the batteries anywhere or a substitute LI battery to use. Customer support says my tools are now worthless and unusable as batteries are no longer obtainable for them. Great, a lot of money down the drain. I will NEVER by another Skil brand tool again that’s for sure. I’ll stick with other brands such as Makita, DeWalt and such. Too bad, I really loved my Skil tools.
yukon42 wrote:
On 12/11/2020 at 12:58 PM, yukon42 said:Well, just got off the phone with Skil. I have a Skil battery powered tool set which uses 18v LI batteries. Couldn’t find the batteries anywhere or a substitute LI battery to use. Customer support says my tools are now worthless and unusable as batteries are no longer obtainable for them. Great, a lot of money down the drain. I will NEVER by another Skil brand tool again that’s for sure. I’ll stick with other brands such as Makita, DeWalt and such. Too bad, I really loved my Skil tools.
That sucks, unfortunately those Skil tools come from the transition period between NiCad and Li-Ion batteries, when a lot of tool brands ultimately either compromised to maintain compatibility (notably Ryobi and Ridgid) or scrapped their designs for new ones optimized for Li-Ion batteries. My Porter Cable experience was similar, where I ended up with most of the 18v lineup while failing to see that 20v Max was going to replace it. On the plus side, we got larger capacity batteries in smaller and more powerful tools, albeit at the expense of those who are/were heavily invested in the older platforms.
With a little soldering know-how and the help of the internet, you could replace the cells in your batteries (do so at your own risk), and you may be able to find an adapter to use other batteries with your tools, but otherwise those Skil tools are as useful as B&D Firestorm, Milwaukee V18, PC 18v, and Kobalt 18v/20v Max once the batteries die. While I’m sure there are others, the only brands I can think of that actively support tools originally powered by NiCad are DeWalt (18v batteries are still available, along with the 20v Max adapter), Ridgid 18v, and Ryobi One+ (both allow the use of any battery in any tool).
That stinks. Thats one thing that Ive always loved about Ryobi though: any battery from the last 20 years will work with any tool, no matter if its a blue Ryobi or a lime green one.
Batteries are expensive and it stinks when a company decides to phase out an old battery system and youre forced to invest in a whole new system.
Der_Dachs wrote:
On 12/20/2020 at 6:56 PM, Der_Dachs said:That stinks. Thats one thing that Ive always loved about Ryobi though: any battery from the last 20 years will work with any tool, no matter if its a blue Ryobi or a lime green one.
Batteries are expensive and it stinks when a company decides to phase out an old battery system and youre forced to invest in a whole new system.
True, I’m optimistic that today’s systems are here to stay for the foreseeable future, though. Most major manufacturers haven’t switched battery styles over the past ten or so years, despite vast advancements in both battery design and the tools themselves. I have exactly one DeWalt 12v Max Xtreme tool (the 3/8″ impact wrench), and my batteries made in 2010 work fine in it As for Ryobi, I have one of my father-in-law’s drills he bought in kit form about fifteen years ago that’s fully functional with my most modern One+ battery.
I also have a set of Firestorm tools which I inherited but of course the batteries were no good. I made an adapter so I could use my Hart batteries with them but then I found two high-capacity Skil batteries on eBay for $30 and fortunately the Skil charger still works. This was more than a year ago and so far the batteries are doing just fine. The listing said they are NiCads however the listing describes them as NiMh. Meanwhile I found a brand-new Skil Firestrom panel saw for $20! I also found some Power Wheels battery adapters on AliExpress for $4.50 and attached them to some old drills etc which no longer had batteries available and they work fine for the most part. The 12 volt Harbor Freight drills are tricky to control at the low, variable-speed settings but I’ve used them extensively without an problems. I have an old 14.4 volt Black & Decker reciprocating saw that I attached a Hart adapter to but it seems to overheat the batteries and they must cool down for several hours before I can charge them so that particular tools is somewhat of a risk to use with my Hart batteries. The old DeWalt drill works fine too. The adapters just need the wires soldered to the terminals and three screws to hold them in place (make sure it’ll still stand up so placement of the adapter matters). Considering the tremendous amount of landfill wasted created my millions of perfectly-good tools that simply need batteries I would be in favor of all tools requiring a standard, one battery-fits-all-tools to help prevent so much waste. I also have a Black & Decker Li-Ion weed whacker and when the battery failed I replaced the cells (five 18630 cells) however it turned out the be the Li-Ion circuit board failed so the project failed (this was before I found the Hart adapters). Is it just my imagination or are 18 volt Li-Ion batteries the same as 20 volt Li-Ion batteries and they are rating the voltage at 10 with a load and 20 without a load (freshly charged)? BTW, the Firestorm batteries on eBay are now selling for around $85! Oh well…. Also, the adapters on AliExpress are now around $9 however the prices do fluctuate.