Reviving Dead NiCad Batteries

[HarryD]

I have a 9.6 volt battery drill I use for all kinds of stuff around home and lately, the battery pack has not held it's charge and even when charged was pretty wimpy. After charging it, I checked the voltage and it showed ony 5 volts.

I decided to look for a replacement battery and found out it would cost $40 to get a new pack. Since that is almost the cost of a decent new one, I decided to see if I could revive the old one.

A Google search turned up this web page: http://ysuusy.com/easybatteryfix.html.

I followed the procedure and now my battery is like new.

One issue was that after several passes on the full pack, it only came up to 7.6 volts. I then noticed that in addition to the two terminals that my drill used, there were two more points. I checked them with my voltmeter and found out that one was a second negative but the other was the 4.8 volt contact. One side was ok and the other showed 1 volt! I zapped just that side and now both sides showed 4.8 volts.

If you have a dead NiCad, you might want to try this before giving up.

[Brother]

Cool. I would really like to know how consistently this works.

I'll be really interested in how your drill pack stands up over time. Keep us updated.

[slodave]

It works. It won't keep NiCd alive forever, they will start to degrade, but you can extend their life for a few more years.

[Zeke]

This was here before, There is a YouTube video of a guy "surging" his drill motor battery with welder leads!