Li-Ion Power Tool cells work great for RC!

[coolhandcountry]

Fish master do you have a pic of them out of the case. I like to see what they look like.

So, are they as easily soldered like a NiMh cell, or is there an even greater risk of blowing them up or something?

[MetalMan]

I think you need to be a little more careful when soldering these than NiMh cells, so that they aren't overloaded with heat. After soldering, it probably wouldn't hurt to stick the cells in front of a fan just to decrease any damage from heat.

Do they have nickel strips like lipo or are they kinda like your Li-Fe whatever cells?

They are exactly like NIMH cells only they are different sizes.

That's kinda what I figured, might be easier to make a pack out of that way.

[Mister_Anderson]

I own a Rustler about to have RCM-RC chassis. I own a Scorpion 3200 Li-po system and in a bad crash I put a hole in the plastic housing on one of the cells. I examined the cell and the area with the damage smells like denatured alcohol. Is that the electrolyte? If so how do I dispose of the pack? It has almost a full charge. I was thinking about getting the Peak Racing 4800 Li-po. I can purchase an adapter from fmadirect.com to charge the battery, but I don't want to spend the $170 if I don't have to.

I am very interested in these Li-Ion batteries because they look a lot tougher, with M1 can charge in 5 mins (that's 4 times faster than the best time with the scorpion), and are safer. Now what I need to know is will the charger I have work? If not which charger and battery combo would you recommend? (Preferably with M1 tech.) Do the cells need a balancer like Li-Po's?

Also, if i were to purchase the Makita 18v I would have enough cells to do 1 3s2p pack and 1 2s2p right? If wrong please correct me. How would i configure these cells? I know how to do series, but how would I incorporate the other cells for parallel? I am completely lost on that wiring.
Thanks for the help guys. You may have just saved me some cash.
Chris

[coolhandcountry]

Could some one get a pic of one to show off? I would like to see one. Please!

[MetalMan]

Here is what they look like with the outer plastic case removed:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attac...hmentid=679364

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attac...hmentid=742874

[coolhandcountry]

Thanks metal man. That helped on getting an idea of how they look and big they are. Look like would have to go stick pack form for a gmaxx.

So, to reiterate specs from the first page, they have 3000mah per cell, which would be kinda nice. Still though, how many cells does each Makita pack have?

[MetalMan]

Here:
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/show...4&postcount=27

[MetalMan]

Take a look at this:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=508443
Someone made a nice writeup on how to re-make these packs! This person used a Milwaukee V28 battery, but it uses the same cells as the Makita pack linked in the first post.
According to this, each cell is 3000mah (I've read it's more like 2900mah).

My 4s 6600mah 8C battery seems to have developed a bad cell... Maybe it's from when I dropped the pack (slight bulge at the end), but I'm not sure. It doesn't hold its voltage well after a few days. Last week, I found the cell (actually 3 cells in parallel) at 0.08v! I was able to charge it back up at a SLOW rate using the NiMh charge mode, and got it past 3v, at which point I set it to the Lipo charge mode. After that, any slight ballooning there may have been all but disappeared. A few days ago I discharge the cell to about ~3.8v, and today it is at 3.75v, which is very good. I'll use that pack carefully and hope that the bad cell works out all right, but I think I'll be purchasing a couple of the Makita battery packs :). I'll take them apart, and make 4 groups of 2 cells in series. I've attached a picture to show how they'll be set up. You can see 8 cells. The gray curves represent sub-c battery bars, black curved line is a jumper wire, blue lines are wires that will go to a balancer connector, and the red/black lines are obvious. This is probably the easiest way to do it for most RC cars that use dual battery packs.

[MetalMan]

Found a cheaper source:
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-MAKITA-18V-LXT...QQcmdZViewItem
Only $135 shipped compared to ~$141 shipped from the website linked to on the first post.

So, looks like there's 10 cells each then, and from two of the Makita packs you can make a 5s4p.........amazing what you can find out when you read. :007: