Refurbished Batteries

[Pappy]

My batteries are starting to die off. I am down to one lithium and one nicad that hold a good charge but have been balking at the $90 cost at HD.

I am watching several new battiries on FleaBay but also saw these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/6-X-Ryobi-18V-Li...item4aa89c1a83

Anyone tried these or any from other sellers? What are your opinions or experiences with them?

Also, for those that have used the P103 lightweight batteries, what do you think of them? How is the run time compared to the full size P104 battery?

[dewi1219]

I don't have any experience with those batteries, just wanted to make sure you had seen the shipping cost on that auction(!)

[lebomike]

Check these guys out, http://www.mtobattery.com,they are located in York ,PA and have a very good reputation for batteries.

[sparkeyjames]

Maybe you could get them rebuilt?
http://www.batteriesplus.com/models/...ies/Ryobi.aspx

[RAFlorida]

DON, check the shipping

for that battery. Dewi1299 may have saved your bank account!!!

[frumper64]

I have a couple of the smaller LiOn batteries and one of the full size one. The smaller ones are nice in that they are lighter, but I am not very enthusiastic about their life. They are both a bit over 2 years old and will only charge to 20.1 volts now versus 20.6 volts when they were new. The full size one, though (P104 I think) is the same age and is still just fine.

[Taylormade]

While I haven't done it, there are a lot of folks that recharge their own batteries with either a welder or battery charger. You can search youtube for recharge or repair cordless battery and you'll find a ton of videos explaining it.

I think it goes without saying that you need to know what you're doing and take extreme caution doing it, but you can save a ton of money doing it yourself if you dare.

If not, then yeah, check out your battery stores locally, they typically stock them for roughly half what you'd pay for a new one.

[Alex Franke]

I don't have any experience with those batteries, just wanted to make sure you had seen the shipping cost on that auction(!)

Actually even with the high shipping costs, that's probably not such a bad deal for six if you can score them for ~$40 each. It seems to me they're always a lot more than that in the store.

[dewi1219]

Actually even with the high shipping costs, that's probably not such a bad deal for six if you can score them for ~$40 each. It seems to me they're always a lot more than that in the store.

You're right, IF you can win the auction for the starting bid. The link is to an actual auction, not a "Buy It Now". As long as you take the shipping charges into account when bidding, you may still get a decent deal. I just didn't want the OP to overlook shipping and get a big, unpleasant surprise if he won.

[Pappy]

There was a lot of variation to the shipping, ranging from free to $165+. I happened to link one of the highest ones. Really have to pay attention.

Also found people offering buy it now 'deals' on the P104 batteries ranging up to $155. With the free shipping (sometimes) that SURE beats paying $89.85 plus tax at HD...Assuming your local sales tax is abouve 98%.... Worst part is somebody out there is fool enough to pay that price.

I haven't looked to see if anyone local rebuilds LiIon batteries.

[mnmphd]

While I haven't done it, there are a lot of folks that recharge their own batteries with either a welder or battery charger. You can search youtube for recharge or repair cordless battery and you'll find a ton of videos explaining it.

While I have heard of such methods for NiCad and NiMH, I would NOT try this
with LiION. LiION is a very different technology. LiION cells get over heat and
ignite if overcharged. As a result LiION batteries have an internal circuit to protect the cells from overcharging and catching on fire. Connecting them to
a power source that is not the intended charger could result in damage to the
protection circuit, the cells, or the user!

I would see what the cost for rebuilding is. I checked with with Batteries Plus (http://www.batteriesplus.com/) a while back and the prices were reasonable. If I recall it may have been cheaper online, but then I had to ship the batteries, and I think the difference wasn't that large to warrant the effort to box them up.

just my 2 cents.

[pelligrini]

I found batteries plus to have higher costs on a lot of the stuff that they carry over what I could find on ebay and a couple other retailers. I wasn't researching cordless tool batteries but some phone batteries and UPS batteries. They weren't totally unreasonable either.

If you have a location near you there might be some savings on shipping, plus the added convenience of not having to wait for a delivery, etc.

[LCHIEN]

While I haven't done it, there are a lot of folks that recharge their own batteries with either a welder or battery charger. You can search youtube for recharge or repair cordless battery and you'll find a ton of videos explaining it.

I think it goes without saying that you need to know what you're doing and take extreme caution doing it, but you can save a ton of money doing it yourself if you dare.

If not, then yeah, check out your battery stores locally, they typically stock them for roughly half what you'd pay for a new one.

I agree with NMNPHD, that this is not for Li-ion batteries and can be very dangerous with Li-ion batteries. Don't do it.