Tesla Tools

[TheTalkingMule]

I'm getting pretty sick of my old cordless drills and multi-tools, but I'm not buying replacements until these next gen lithium cells come online. How long until we have product lines of tools using combinations of single Tesla battery cells? Will Dewalt come out with a line of tools using to take Tesla tube cells, or will we just recharge their proprietary batteries off our solar arrays/Powerwalls?

I'd like to see a scenario where I own maybe 60-80 individual Tesla cells, a 24 cell charging station in my garage and a whole series of tools that are battery operated by any number of cells. The drill takes 4 cells at a time, the flashlight two, the vacuum 12, the lawnmower and snowblower 20, etc....

Just like cars, more(if not all) household tools will be electric soon so it'll be even more logical to have a universal and interchangeable power source. Why not the normal Tesla cell? Is that likely to happen? Are they powerful enough to mow a lawn on a say 18+ cells?

 

[Ampster]

I had an old Dewalt 18v battery and bought 6 of those cells. They were about the same size as the old Nicads and I soldered them in series. I did solder a pigtail to each cell so I could charge them with a hobby charger. It really made my tools spin, but one day I let a worker use it and a few minutes after the battery ran down the battery pack began smoking and melted the plastic. Later I upgraded to a higher voltage set of tools which had the new Lion packs. I have run those hard with no problems. The moral is you need a Low Voltage Cutoff and other battery management devices to make that work.

The answer to your question about mowing your lawn with 18 of those cells is definitely yes. Put some in parellel and 18 sets of those in series and you could power a ride on mower. I follow an electric bike forum and some of those users are disassembling some of the Lithium power tool packs and reassembling them to power their bikes at 72v and above. The cost of some of those packs are cheaper than buying the same quantity of individual cells.

 

[1208]

Makita have started to do a similar thing and I think Bosch do it on their lawnmower. What i'd like is a corded attachment to the cordless tools for when you run out of batteries, like phone charger does to a phone.

 

[YBT]

Every brand has these (cordless tools powered by lithium ion cells in various voltage configurations)... try your local hardware store!