Remember that great advance in technology, and home DIY?
That’s right, the cordless drill. No more extension leads. No more scratching your head because you wanted to do something to a power outlet, but couldn’t use a power drill because you had to cut the power. Now all you had to do was remember to put the new cordless one on charge the night before you wanted to use it.
Not perhaps a giant leap for mankind, but a major step forward for the dedicated do it yourselfer. For at least nine months,, before the battery went flat. Now there were two types. The built in battery, or the removable battery. It didn’t really matter. Because even if you could get a replacement battery it was likely to cost at least 90% of a whole new drill!
Solution, buy a new drill. This one promises to be better anyway. Or that’s what it said on the box. OK, you might get a whole twelve months out of this one! It was on my third, I decided to fight back. I was going to build my own battery pack. Roger’s revolution.
With the advent of the internet it wasn’t difficult to track down the rechargeable battery cells required. Size, voltage, amperage. Then the stainless steel tags to solder them all together in series. A slight hiccup, I had to buy a proper soldering station, rather than the toy one I already had. Cost however was not part of the equation. This was war.
All soldered together. With a bit of fettling with a rotary file I even manage to get them to fit into the original pack. A winner. Not quite, the original charger almost burnt itself out, with little effect on charging the new monstrous battery pack. Nothing for it, but to make up some adapter cables so I could use the car battery charger. That’ll do it.
And it did. I had finally achieved the objective. A new battery pack for the old drill!
The only draw back was having the strength to hold onto it. I’d turned a domestic drill into a lethal weapon. You had to spread your feet and brace yourself for fear of it snapping your wrists.
Soon a job came up. I had trouble with the turbo on the Esprit. Turbos run hot, very hot. And you kinda know before starting, every stud fastening it, is going to break. I was lucky, only seven of the eight broke. Leaving seven studs to drill out. All from lying underneath the car. Of course the drill jammed. I was unable to hang onto it. So it spun round and hit me in the head. Sending me off to the optometrist to get my glasses repaired.
I did however complete the job. Thankful for having a drill powerful enough to Complete it. The war against the feeble flat drill battery was finally won. The victory was however, fleeting. It was so powerful it distorted the whole drill casing, to the point the gears failed to mesh and it destroyed itself. Sending me off to buy another new drill.
