Has the price of lithium-ion batteries for power tools come down? Maybe.
A friend of mine gave me an older Ryobi 18V jigsaw. It didn't come with a charger, so I had to buy one on eBay. I plugged it in, and the charger said, "bad battery" which makes sense because the battery had been dead for several years. I went online and lo and behold, you can buy batteries for this for as little as $15 apiece - which is far less than the $60 that they are asking at the local "big box" lumberteria. I noted this before - you can buy a drill with two batteries for under $80, but if you want a third battery, it will cost you nearly as much. It makes no freaking sense at all.
I guess the Patents (Design Patents?) on the plug configuration have expired - the world has moved on from 18V. It is interesting, but the batteries are rated in Amp-hours or Milliamp-hours. I guess 3500 mA-h sounds better than 3.5 A-h. But they go up to 6000 mA-h or more, and are priced accordingly. I am guessing the only difference is the larger battery is two of the smaller, in parallel.
I checked also for Black and Decker 20V batteries and the Chinese are making these, too. They are not labeled "Black and Decker" but just "Lithium" instead. Although I have a plethora of B&D batteries, I ordered two ($30) for fun. We'll see if they work very well or set the house on fire. I hope they are not some sort of scam, where the battery housing is filled with a piece of scrap metal for weight, and some tiny watch battery to make it seem it is making voltage. We'll see.
I was also looking for a new two-speed B&D drill. I use these on the jack stands of the camper (instead of a noisy impact wrench) and it worked great for a year, and then the clutch stripped out. Even in "drill" (locked clutch) mode, it will reach a torque limit and go clakity-clack. I need to lubricate the acme nuts on the jack stands, I guess. So I went on the B&D website to read up on the drill (model number, etc.) and noticed a disclaimer that, although listed as a 20V battery, it only produces 20V right after a full charge. Standard voltage is 18V.
Oh, Black and Decker - how could you have lied to me? All these years I was looking down at those lowly 18V people who couldn't afford the spectacular world of 20V. And now I realize, I was one of them. But of course, the 80V people are looking down at all us peons, if they even notice us at all.
Anyway, I ordered these generic batteries and will report back as to how well they work. Why I did this, I do not know. I bought a really nice jigsaw (corded kind) at a garage sale for $5. And you know what? I've never used it. Jigsaws are one of the worst tools available - next to the reciprocating saw, of course. The blade just goes every whichaway and never makes a nice cut. Actually, most handheld saws are this way - circular saws never cut in a straight line, it seems. Even a tablesaw will wander on you, if you are not careful.
But my days of cutting non-linear pieces of plywood are far behind me. Even if I get this Ryobi to work, I likely will never use it.
What was I thinking? Oh, right - it was free. $30 later......
