One of the tools I will need is a cordless drill.
I keep seeing them at thrift stores but hadn’t picked one up yet. Yesterday I was at a little thrift shop that sometimes has good deals; that day there was a Skil 2567 in the case for $9.99. I figured I could use the case as a pistol case if the unit was DOA. There was no way to tell its condition because the battery was dead. And there was no charger.
Got it home and connected it to my hobby charger, a Tenergy TB6B. It is one of many “four button” clones and handles Pb, Li*, NiMH, and NiCad. Hugely configurable: charge and discharge rates, max time, final voltage, deltas, etc. It does needs a 12v power supply to run. I currently run it off a brick but it will be perfect in the boondocks on 12v.
Anyhow, hooked it up and the charger put about 780mA into the pack and it seems to be working well:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_kej7AQwU0&w=420&h=315]
Pardon the video weirdness; I was playing with youtube’s video stabilization. I have a tripod but didn’t use it for this. But you can hear it’s variable speed and reversable. The drill doesn’t get great reviews on Amazon but I think it will do for my meager needs.
