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  1. #1
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    Default re purposing old 240V electric drills - ideas

    Gday All.
    I started looking for something ( a length of flexible coolant nozzle which I saw about 6 months ago but has since vanished) in my shed today. Still haven't found what I was looking for (that would make a good line in a song ).

    So anyway, whilst looking for the elusive coolant nozzle I got sidetracked sorting through other stuff and chucking some more junk out. I came across my old 240V electric drills.
    One is a nice Metabo 13mm impact drill that I bought new way back in the mid 1980's for the princely sum of $230, plus a a nice 10mm Makita that I inherited from my Dad.

    Since I got a decent battery drill and driver 4 years ago the 240V machines haven't been used. They are not worth enough used to bother trying to sell them so I'm trying to think of what they could be re-purposed as?
    Any thoughts?

    Peter



  2. #2
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    Murray Bridge S Aust.
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    Thanks for that Peter, a dam good question??? I've a few myself, including some 18V cordless ones, and some 4" angle grinders, that are taking up space.
    I know of one person who used one with a reverse as a curtain closer/opener, for his home theatre set up, which was just like a movie theatre including ticket box and typical movie seats.
    Kryn
    To grow old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

  3. #3
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    One issue for corded drills (especially cheap ones) are not really designed to run for lengthy periods. I used a green Bosch to run a small water pump for a while but it would get very hot. So much so that it eventually partially melted the fwd/rev linkage - I managed to fix it but never used it for that purpose again. The other thing is they generate a lot of noise which I dislike. I'd much rather use something like a washing machine (synchronous) motor, they are made to run for many, many hours continuously without overheating and far less noise.

    As far as old battery powered drills go, I went through this recently when I requested a couple of unwanted old drills on the woodies forum to use as a potential source of short term vibration Vibration for my Coffee tamper Vibration project. One of the woodies gave me a really nice pair of Dewalt 18V cordless with stuffed batteries that I thought I would power with a mains power supply.
    The problem is these drills draw anywhere between 15 and 25A and the price of a mains power supply that provides those sorts of currents is cost prohibitive.
    12V power tools can be run from a 12V motor vehicle battery but 18V batteries are problematic as 24V would be too high for them.

    I got around the vibe source for my project but buying 2 x 12V motors from ebay for $5each. These draw much less current so can be powered from a small power supply or a 12V wall wart.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
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    Default

    Hi Guys,

    An awful lot of those variable speed 24 volts and lower drills all use similar motors. Usually in the 12-14 volt range. Because they are fed from electronic variable speed controllers and only used for a very short time period they over load them greatly.

    I have a couple of 24 volt hammer drills and even on a 24 volt PSU there is nearly 3 volts dropped across the speed control trigger squeezed fully in. Measured with a multimeter. A scope would be more accurate.

    I have seriously considered using one to drive the grinding wheel on the Brooks TCG and using a screw type clamp on the trigger unit to set the wheel speed. The one motor that I tested on 12 volts directly ran at about 10,500 rpm no load.
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

  5. #5
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    Dec 2018
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    NSW
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by bollie7 View Post
    Gday All.

    One is a nice Metabo 13mm impact drill that I bought new way back in the mid 1980's for the princely sum of $230, plus a a nice 10mm Makita that I inherited from my Dad.
    I'm in the process of renewing an old metabo screw driver (the clutch style ones the gyprock / roofing guys use). It too is a mid 80's vintage. I'm finding parts quite hard to locate (filter capacitor, possibly the rectifier in mine is stuffed). It's a shame because they are very well made units otherwise.

    If you have the option to run at low speeds I've seen them used to run a welding rotary positioner. But older units might not have that luxury.

  6. #6
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    Leave it alone one day your battery operated stuff will cease to run then you'll find as i have 240v IS king, has more torque, isn't a throw away item or you would have already done so. They are if of an eara repairable if you can do it as not many who can tgese days at reasinable cost.
    Battery stuff after even 6 months depending on brand you'll be lucky to get replacement batteries or spare ones.

  7. #7
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    Gippsland Victoria
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    Default what to do with old drill.

    Perhaps something like this ? Don't know what surface speed is required, but can be controlled to some extent by disc diameter. Drill wouldnt be running for long.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfYj-sq78DU

  8. #8
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    Perth, Western Australia
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    I have to agree with keeping the electric stuff. As good as the battery powered drills and other tools have became 240 still has its place.
    If I am doing more than half a dozen holes I still get electric Metabo out. With its 2600 rpm against the 1350 of the battery it does the job a bit quicker specially if its aluminium or wood.
    I would like to see my battery drill do 130 x 14mm holes in the same time it took me with the 240 volt drill.

    Tony

  9. #9
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    Mar 2014
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    South of Adelaide
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    Quote Originally Posted by wheelinround View Post
    Leave it alone one day your battery operated stuff will cease to run then you'll find as i have 240v IS king, has more torque, isn't a throw away item or you would have already done so. They are if of an eara repairable if you can do it as not many who can tgese days at reasinable cost.
    Battery stuff after even 6 months depending on brand you'll be lucky to get replacement batteries or spare ones.
    Milwaukee and Makita haven't changed battery design in the 5+ years i have owned their tools.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by steamingbill View Post
    Perhaps something like this ? Don't know what surface speed is required, but can be controlled to some extent by disc diameter. Drill wouldnt be running for long.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfYj-sq78DU
    Thats a great idea for cutting tube. Be good if you were doing a lot of boiler gauge glasses.
    peter

  11. #11
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    Default

    I think I might just put them away in another cupboard. Yes the battery drill is not as fast as the Metabo.
    Thanks for the suggestions

    peter

  12. #12
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by steamingbill View Post
    Perhaps something like this ? Don't know what surface speed is required, but can be controlled to some extent by disc diameter. Drill wouldnt be running for long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfYj-sq78DU
    To cut glass / ceramics I can really recommend a cheap tile cutter with a 100 or 115mm diamond blade on it. SWMBO has one that has a water bath which minimises dust and helps with the cutting. I have probably used it more than she has.

    The only cordless drill I had trouble getting a replacement battery for was about 20 years ago for an old 7.2V B&D drill otherwise I've had no trouble getting replacement batteries for all my other cordless gear. About 7 years ago I retired my NiCd gear because replacement batteries were getting beyond what I was willing to pay for them and thought I had better start investing in Li-ion gear. Now I have a bunch of Li-ion batteries and all Makita gear. The fastest of the drills is 2000 rpm and that is pretty good for most things that I can't do on the DP.

    It depends what you are prepared to pay for. Working on nature playgrounds (ie whole logs and 300+ mm long x 20 mm coach bolts) I used the Bosses high end Makita cordless drill/drivers with boring bits. Those drill drivers could snap the heads of those coach bolts if one was not careful and with 4 batteries on hand I never ran out of juice. They also was pretty rough on my wrists in the process and several time I went home with very sore wrists.

    Most of my drilling is done on my DP, but my cordless drills get a lot of use even when I use the DP as I often will have a countersink bit in one, and maybe an alternate drill bit size in another, a tap in a third and a driver bit in a fourth. Saves swapping out bits - and more importantly losing them in the process.

    I still have half a dozen corded drills that I use occasionally. If I'm near a power point the cordless blue Bosch gets dragged out about once a year for some repeated HD woodie use but the most often used is an 17 year old $69 Ozito demolition hammer drill with the SDS chuck and up to 600 mm masonry bits. It also has a regular chuck and a slow speed so I have used this on metal with large bits when I couldn't get something under the DP - again this this is a serious wrist and arm wrecker if one is not careful.

  13. #13
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    Default

    Cordless tools have come a long way. If you asked me 12 months ago what I thought of them I would have said not to bother. I'd been using my old Makita 18v nicad set at home but mainly for light jobs, wood work and sheet metal.

    Work bought a 18v brushless drill and it did a better job than the $400 metabo and various pneumatic drills it replaced. Sure the batterys go flat, but if you have a charger setup and a spare battery it is never an issue.

    I've since started to upgrade to the Makita Brussless range and couldn't be happier, bought a BL top handle chainsaw the other day to use for pruning duties just for the convenience.

    Batterys for a well known brand will be around forever, you can even get adaptors now to run the nicads on lithiums. I bought one so I can still use some of my old Makita nicad skins, the tools become lighter when using them with the lithium battery's.

    The days of Cordless tools being toys is over.

  14. #14
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    Yep!... I’ve gone full De Walt on the farm and find them great. Mainly the 54volts. All them batt tools seem to operate in multiples of 6volt so I’m guessing it wouldn’t be to hard to rebuild battery packs if needed. I’d say there’s some how-to YouTube vid’s out there already..




    .

  15. #15
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    Apr 2010
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    Bundoora, Victoria
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    Keep your 240v. I recently had to mount some outside blinds on my daughter's house. The 18v cordless didn't cut it into brick. Swapped to the 240v and it was easy..

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