Saturday, March 3, 2012

Bad Battery Mojo

I know I said I would post a photo yesterday or today of the finished table with the knob you all helped me decide upon, but I'm having a case of bad drill battery mojo.  Extremely bad drill battery mojo. 

I have two battery-charged electric drills, a Craftsman and a Black & Decker.  The Craftsman I've had more than 10 years, the B & D about 5.  So it didn't surprise me when I tried to charge the Craftsman battery and the charger told me the battery was defective.  No problem, I thought, I'll just use the Black & Decker, which I last used about a month ago.  It wasn't working, so I stuck the rechargeable batteries in to be charged Friday morning.  As of this morning, they still weren't charged.  Not a good sign.

Not a problem ... I'll just go buy some new batteries.  After a trip to Home Depot and to Lowes without any luck (they don't carry them), I gave up on the B & D batteries and headed to Sears for the Craftsman battery.  Turns out my battery is so old, I have to special order it.  The salesperson told me about how quickly the battery technology is changing--they can put increasingly more power into an increasingly smaller battery pack.  Which means the old batteries are being phased out.  So even if you love your old drill you won't be able to use it.  Basically, the manufacturers are forcing you to buy new equipment.  Which I did, because a brand new drill cost me less than the replacement battery would have cost (once I finally received it). Planned obsolescence and all that.

So I headed home with my new drill.  I plugged in the new charger and put the new battery in it to charge ... so I could drill the drawer ... so I could put on the hardware ... so I could take a photo and post the finished table as I promised.

The red light of the charger started flashing.  I reread the instructions and tried again.  Another flashing red light.  That confirmed it.  My brand new drill has a defective battery!

See what I mean about bad battery mojo? 

I'll be off to Sears to exchange it tomorrow, and depending on how everything goes I'm hoping to post the finished table tomorrow evening. But based on my luck so far--I'm not promising a thing!

5 comments:

  1. i have a corded drill- i didn't like the maintenance of the battery charged drill! i find my corded one has more power, too. yeah, i have to plug it in, but it never fails me! :)

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  2. First - Sears is off of our list for anything now - their customer service is the pits and their products from your drill to my freezer and everything in between is a problem of some kind waiting to happen!

    They are correct. We found the same problem with our Craftsman. Cheaper to buy a whole new drill than a new battery, and they would have to order it. So, we ended up with a De Walt (spelling may be wrong) that our son recommended to us with a second battery pack!! One for the charger and one for the drill, woo hoo! Drill heaven!

    We'll see it when it gets done, that all! So for now, do you get to relax some? Have a great Sunday, and a better battery day!!

    Blessings,
    Donna

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  3. Poor Deb! Take that new drill of yours back to Sears and get yourself a DeWalt 14.4 volt cordless drill, with two batteries. That way, you have one in the drill and one in the charger, and you never are without your drill. This DeWalt is light-weight, powerful, easy to handle, and I love mine. So much, in fact, that I have two of them. That way I have one for drilling holes and one for driving screws, and I don't have to stop and change the bit.

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  4. Oh, I really hope everything works out for you.

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  5. So frustrating! Looking forward to seeing your finished project, whenever things work out better!

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