18v Dewalt drills, and batteries.

[Jim Andrew]

I have several 18v Dewalt drills, was cheaper to buy another drill than a pair of batteries, and now I am down to about 6 batteries. Was wondering if anyone has bought any of the non-dewalt batteries I see on ebay, and amazon. Now a pair of new 18v is priced at 149, and none in store. The singles are 99 each. Was reading reviews of the new 20v drills, and most reviews said at least one battery had failed in the first 6 months, so thinking about staying with the 18v nicads for now. Not sure I am up to rebuilding my own batteries.

[John K Jordan]

I have several 18v Dewalt drills, was cheaper to buy another drill than a pair of batteries, and now I am down to about 6 batteries. Was wondering if anyone has bought any of the non-dewalt batteries I see on ebay, and amazon. Now a pair of new 18v is priced at 149, and none in store. The singles are 99 each. Was reading reviews of the new 20v drills, and most reviews said at least one battery had failed in the first 6 months, so thinking about staying with the 18v nicads for now. Not sure I am up to rebuilding my own batteries.

Jim, I also have a number of 18v Dewalt tools. In the last two years I've bought two sets of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073ZFCC5P
So far, I'm happy with them. Time will tell if they hold up better than the expensive Dewalt batteries. I can't imagine them being worse.
The price varies - I bought them once for $15 each. Check camelcamelcamel.com for Amazon price variations and to set up a price watch.

Like you, I found it cheaper to buy a new tool than a new set of batteries. I've also bought several of the Dewalt 20v Lithium Ion batteries and the adapters that let them work with 18v tools.

JKJ

[Ron Selzer]

I use only Li-On 18v DeWalt batteries at work. Have a newer DeWalt brushless hammer drill with 60/20 battery and DeWalt impact really like them
I use NiMh 18 v batteries at home and starting to switch to converter and 20v batteries at home
However the new brushless 20v is lighter more powerful, has lights etc. so starting to switch over to 20v and 12 v impacts
Have and used heavily 14.4 DeWalts and how too heavy, too bulky and too old
Ron

[Frank Pratt]

I would not waste my money on Ni-Cads. The Li batteries are so much better in just about every way.

[Zachary Hoyt]

After having no cordless tools for nearly 10 years I bought an old assortment of 18v DeWalts a couple of years ago, and since the batteries they came with were all toast I bought a set siilar to what JKJ linked to above, I think they were just under $30 for two. They've worked great and been used a lot in the drill, impact driver, sawzall and now a jigsaw, and they work pretty well in the angle grinder, though the life from fully charged to dead is less than 10 minutes. I am not very impressed with them in the circular saw, but it may just be that I expect too much from a 18v saw. It would be fine for cutting thin plywood slowly, or 1x pine lumber slowly, but it's too weak to do much beyond that without constantly bogging down. This may just be that the saw is old, and have nothing to do with the battery. I have never had a real DeWalt battery to try with it.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

dwadapt.jpg

You can just put 20 V on your 18 V tools. The adapters work well and are not too expensive. NiCad is less sensitive to cold, but is a lot heavier. The Li batteries are available with a lot more amp hours capacity. This adapter will allow 20v, not FlexVolt (a far superior battery). It is possible to modify it to allow flexvolt which will show you how much heavier duty the newer tools are. I have a destroyed sawzall due to that.

[James Baldwin]

Hi, I have both Milwaukee and DeWalt. One of my Milwaukee's uses V-18 (NiCd) and the other uses M-18 (Lion). I bought this adapter off Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 which also works in DeWalt 18v. I also bought this adapter to convert 1DeWalt 8v to 20v https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1. I also bought these batteries https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1. I'm using them in my DeWalt impact driver to do a 24 X 26 carport. They seem to be performing well. 6 amp hour run time. The driver seems to run better too. Jim

[Jim Andrew]

Thanks for the replies.