Comment on DIY Universal Power Tools?
livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
As you mentioned, we can already see USB-C charged batteries for power tools out on the market without all the proprietary charging crap from other platforms. As an example, see Greenworks Pro 24v, 4 or 8 Ah and/or Hyper Tough brand
I also haven’t looked at all the specific bells and whistles, but Torque Test Channel on YT has a couple of videos opening them up and testing them, and they do have a circuit board inside the bidirectional charging batteries (either 21700 or 18650 cells), which charges at 65w, and the port also has a little silicone(?) flap to cover it when unused. Perhaps it might be useful as a reference for your trials
See below video “Even More Problems for Big Brands from Walmart”, around 30s mark as an example:
non YT link
YT link
For the adapter, perhaps you could use this open source terminal_v2 as a reference on the battery side? This one is for Ridgid batteries specifically, so you will need to fiddle with part A to adapt it to your brand battery connector. They used a Molex 44262 series connector on the contacts with the battery for reference.
On the other end, it has anderson connectors, but you could adapt it to xt## depending on your preferences/availability
If you don’t want to open/cut the tool itself, perhaps a dummy + xt/anderson connector on the tool side to connect into terminal_v2 on the batteries side?
Ridgid dummy example from the same author.
Disadvantage of dummies is that you would need one dummy for every brand you have to use
Above dummy also has a dangling cable. I’m not a designer, otherwise I would look into having the dummy with an xt## built into it, than have part B from terminal_v2 have the other xt## built into it, which slides/locks/connect into the dummy. I’m not sure if that was clear, sorry
The author also made a video showcasing the terminal_v2, dummies, and other features that might be useful, see “Build a battery adapter to power the whole Lab”, as it might help:
non YT link
YT link
If you want to go the OpenBox route shown in the video, this bushing might also be useful, discussed around 22m10s on the video above
Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not sure if it’s region or my VPN, but all the grabcad links come back with errors. The terminal v2 is almost exactly what I’m looking for though. In that he’s 3d printing an adapter to connect the battery terminals to molex. I want to take it a step further, pop the top off the battery, desolder the proprietary terminals, solder in the molex and then print a male and female mounting track converter. Then pop open the tool and replace that side with molex too. Tgen I just put the parts together as a kit and any time I see a good deal on a tool I don’t have I can gran a bag of parts, hit print, and have it integrated into my battrr system in 30min.
livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Right now grabcad isn’t working for me too , but when I accessed it a few days ago, it worked fine on my VPN. Hopefully itś not down for too long. Let us know how your project goes