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SILICON
CHIP
www.siliconchip.com.au
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
Production Manager
Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.)
Technical Editor
Peter Smith
Technical Staff
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
Ross Tester
Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc, VK2ZLO
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glyn<at>siliconchip.com.au
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Rodney Champness, VK3UG
Kevin Poulter
Mike Sheriff, B.Sc, VK2YFK
Stan Swan
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2 Silicon Chip
Publisher’s Letter
Cheap battery drills are
very wasteful
For quite a few years now, we have been concerned about the waste of resources concerned
with electrical and electronic equipment. It is
bad enough that most electronic equipment is
now so cheap that it is not worth repairing when
it finally does fail. At least if it gives a reasonably
long service life, you don’t mind so much if it then
has to be replaced with a new one rather than being repaired. But I still regard the huge amount of
electronics going to the tip each year, all for the
want of a simple (albeit uneconomical) repair, as a huge waste. Cars and large
appliances such as fridges and washing machines get discarded too but at
least most of their metal content does get recycled. But cheap electrical and
electronic appliances don’t last very long and then they end up on the tip.
Even worse is the situation with cheap battery-powered electric drills.
Because their battery life is so short, there must be tens of thousands of these
drills being discarded every year. They work for a short time, then the battery
ceases holding a charge and out into the bin they go, to be replaced by another
drill. In fact, the drill itself is fine but the battery is ruined and you can not get
a replacement. This is an unconscionable waste of resources. So in conjunction
with Jaycar Electronics, we have done something about it. First, there is the
article beginning on 24 about repacking the cells in your drill’s battery pack.
This is not a cheap exercise and will typically cost a lot more than the price
of a new drill – but at least you are starting afresh with good cells.
But given that the chargers for these drills are so rudimentary, that is only
half the task. To ensure that your new battery pack has a reasonable life, you
need to incorporate a specified thermistor in the battery pack and then build
the Drill Charger Controller described in the article beginning on page 32. With
over-temperature and time-out functions, this will prevent the cells from being
over-charged and they should last many times longer than in normal drills.
In fact, even if the battery pack in your present drill is still OK, I would
strongly recommend that you modify it along the lines described and build
the Charger Controller. Or if you go out and buy a new battery drill, don’t wait
for the battery to deteriorate – modify it straight away to ensure a reasonable
life. After all, there is no point in spending $30 or so on a new drill if you
know that it is going to have a very short life.
The really irresponsible parties in this whole affair are the manufacturers
who are churning out this short-lived rubbish and the importers and retailers
who ultimately sell it to the public. It is in their interests to keep this wasteful
cycle going, isn’t it? For the want of a better charger which would only add
a few dollars to the price, the retailers are probably selling many more drills
than they otherwise would.
Unfortunately, there is a great deal of electronics gear for which there are
no simple refinements but there is still a curb that you and I can apply. Every
time you are confronted by some cheap (or not so cheap) electronic gadget, ask
yourself, “Do I really need this?” The chances are that you don’t or you can
wait until you have saved enough for a better-made unit. If enough Australians
took this approach, we could substantially cut our import bill and ultimately,
substantially reduce the torrent of discarded gear going to the tip.
Leo Simpson
siliconchip.com.au
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