Batteries

I looked over my toolbench the other night and noticed several dead battery-powered tools and accessories. Off the top of my head, they include a Dremel rotary tool, Skil drill, Skil powered screwdriver, Dustbuster, flashlights and a calculator. Some, actually most, have been disassembled to one point or another. I fixed one; a Craftsman powered screwdriver - replaced the batteries to see if it would work - and it did.

The thing is that probably everyone of those items would work just fine if I replaced the batteries. There's a couple of problems with that. One is that most of them aren't made for ease of replacement. You have to almost completely disassemble it, usually breaking tabs and having to cut glued joints while doing so. The Craftsman screwdriver is now held together with some strapping tape, since I managed to break one of the tabs that held it together. They really aren't made for ease in disassembly and replacement. I did buy a rechargeable flashlight last night that actually had a compartment lid that allowed the nicads to be replaced. That's probably why it was on clearance.

The other and biggest problem is that the batteries are expensive when bought alone. The local battery store has sub-c nicads for about $5 each. The screwdriver, that I can replace for less than $20, takes $10 worth of batteries and I still have an old screwdriver. I have a Craftsman drill that takes 10 cells in its battery and costs $50, but I can buy (I just looked) a similar quality Craftsman drill set with two batteries for $50. A friend was just telling me his drill batteries were dead with a new battery costing $65, but for $140 he could buy a brand new drill set with two batteries.

That's one thing nice about my old Yankee manual ratchet screwdriver; to recharge it, all I have to do it take a coffee break with a muffin.