DeWalt 974, a non gloat

[Mr__Bill]

I went to the World's Largest Rummage Market last weekend and picked up a DeWalt DW 974 with battery for 5 bucks. I was thinking it was an impact driver but it seems to be a drill/hammer drill/driver. Interesting and perhaps useful. Of course the battery doesn't hold a charge for long and I have no other 12v DeWalt tools. At least the battery works well enough for me to test it and play with it a bit. While used it appears not to have been too abused and everything seems to work.

So the questions:
Is it what I think it is?
Is it worth getting a new battery for it?
If so who has a good price?

Bill

[LCHIEN]

rebuilding battery packs seems to be the best way rather than buying a replacement from the manufacturer who has kind of a monopoly on the fit. A 12V pack won;t be too painful.

Try ebay search for battery pack rebuild
or google battery pack rebuild
usually you send the old pack in and they charge you by the cell for the latest cells which may have more capacity than the originals.
I think i recently priced 13.2 volts rebuild around $25, you have to include your shipping cost of around $8 the price includes return shipping.

[Mr__Bill]

Thanks for the reply. It seems that for the cost of rebuilding I could also buy an aftermarket battery. I'm not sure one way is better than the other but compared to a genuine DeWalt battery either is much less expensive. I may just add this to my Christmas list and make do with the old battery for now.

Bill
too cheap for his own good

[LCHIEN]

aftermarket batteries are usually limited limited in availability due to the proprietary cases and the expense of molding new cases for a limited run (high one time mold cost $10's of thousands, individual costs of around a couple of bucks, but you have to amortise the mold costs over the amount of production).

Save those bad battery packs so a rebuilder can use the cases one day...