Thread: Anyone used the Aldi cordless drills ?

I've had a Milwaukee 12/18 volt charger fail. They do. Ryobi will be no different, cos 'Waukee are way better than them and they fail. You can fix them. Usually a diode or a cap. Or you can adapt another brand charger. It just depends on whether the BMS stuff is on the battery or in the charger. I have a Makita 12V one here that a mate wants fixed. Something to do after surgery.

There are dozens of second hand Ryobi chargers on Facebook marketplace where I guess people have bought packages including chargers and then have no need for extra chargers.

I have a fake charger which I have had for several years now with no problems.
There are also many fake chargers on ebay. Mine from ebay has worked well for several years.
Regards PhilipA

Originally Posted by Tins

I've had a Milwaukee 12/18 volt charger fail. They do. Ryobi will be no different, cos 'Waukee are way better than them and they fail. You can fix them. Usually a diode or a cap. Or you can adapt another brand charger. It just depends on whether the BMS stuff is on the battery or in the charger. I have a Makita 12V one here that a mate wants fixed. Something to do after surgery.

Milwaukee ,Ryobi and AEG come out of the same factory in China although some are now made in Vietnam.

Originally Posted by BradC

I have various drills and garden tools. For each I've gutted the chargers and hooked the terminals directly to a pair of 4mm banana plugs. Those plug into one of these : iMAX B6 V2 Charger - SkyRC



NiCD, NiMH, LiPO, Li-ion. Doesn't matter. It charges them all. Better still, a Ciggy to 2.1mm barrel connector lead ensure it charges them all from wherever I may be in the car.

A bit of judicious poking with an additional 1K resistor and it'll charge Ryobi One+ batteries as well.

I gave up on having a box full of chargers years ago and moved onto a bench power supply. For charging this is just another level up, and because I'm not balance charging fragile LiPOs a cheap clone from Aliexpress does the job just fine.

Like it.

Without pestering dealers, what sort of coin are we talking here?

Originally Posted by gavinwibrow

Like it.

Without pestering dealers, what sort of coin are we talking here?

$90 from the jungle company, from Deutschland. Free shipping if you're prime. Caveat emptor, plenty of lookalikes on there.

$90 from the jungle company, from Deutschland. Free shipping if you're prime. Caveat emptor, plenty of lookalikes on there.

Yeah, I bought a cheap clone for about $40. The difference between the cheap and expensive ones is in the voltage dividers for measuring voltage (particularly the individual cell inputs) and the calibration associated with that. Neither are things that are important to me for charging these packs, so I went with the cheap one.

*All* of the lithium packs and tools with in-built batteries I charge (Ryobi, Makita, Ozito... and so on) have the protection in the tool/pack itself, so the charger just supplies a current limited voltage and lets the battery do the termination cut off. For NiCD, NiMH and Lead Acid, the charger is "accurate enough" to do the job. Cheap and cheerful wins the day.

Originally Posted by BradC

Yeah, I bought a cheap clone for about $40. The difference between the cheap and expensive ones is in the voltage dividers for measuring voltage (particularly the individual cell inputs) and the calibration associated with that. Neither are things that are important to me for charging these packs, so I went with the cheap one.

*All* of the lithium packs and tools with in-built batteries I charge (Ryobi, Makita, Ozito... and so on) have the protection in the tool/pack itself, so the charger just supplies a current limited voltage and lets the battery do the termination cut off. For NiCD, NiMH and Lead Acid, the charger is "accurate enough" to do the job. Cheap and cheerful wins the day.

The Mak batts I have here that are my mate's are 12V, with the circuitry in the batt. They're old though, pretty early lithium. My own 'Waukee have no circuitry on the 12V batts, but they do on the 18V. The 'Waukee multi volt charger has protection in the charger, possibly for both. However, I'm sure that blue box will charge all of 'em. I'm keen to give it a go. Have you tried it with a "dead" pack? I have a dead 18V here I was going to pull down to replace whichever cell has gone bad. it's from 2015 so maybe asking a charger to revive it might be a stretch.

I always manually charge and balance a “Dead pack”. Open it up and check each cell individually, then charge it to ~3.2v with a current limited bench psu. I do each cell separately so I know when it put it on the charger they start out balanced, then see how they finish up. Unmatched cells were ok with nickel based chemistry, but with lithium if one needs replacing I replace them all. I used to strip cells, check and match them to rebuild packs, but now I just do the lot with new.

Having turned a Samsung 18650 into a blowtorch, I don’t tend to take chances anymore.