Give your 12V battery drill some real GRUNT!!!!!

YAY! Almost finished my scooter for Project: Underglow. (Will be published soon) I just need to drill a hole here...(grabs battery drill, clips in battery)...5mm bit......about there......and drill. Bugger. Battery flat. AGAIN. I was fed up. It was 2:30 in the morning. So I did this real quick hack to my drill. AND took photos :) just to show you'se mob.

It basically involves tapping into the 12V input to the speed controller, which would normally be fed by the crappy battery they give you. Sure, you can re-pack them with some big Ni-MH's, but I'm poor at the moment (around A$95 to repack a pack here in oz). So I decided to just hook it to a big SLA, which will give me some juicy current.

Pros:
*Drill for longer (higher capacity battery)
*more torque (SLA has higher surge current capacity)
*Lighter (only lifting an 800 gram drill, not an 800 gram drill AND a 2.2Kg battery)

Cons:
*Cord hanging out back (I can live with that)

So lets get started!!!!!

Step 1: Stuff You Will Need

You will need:

*A drill
*An SLA
*Some fat cable
*Terminal block (optional)

Step 2: Lets Get Started!!!!!

First, you need to remove the battery. You won't be needing that for a long time.

Then, take a screwdriver to the beast. There were 6 screws, none were hidden on my drill.

pop the cover off. You should be rewarded with a mess of wires.

Get your cable. Make a note of the polarity. Find where the battery connector is. I decided to just crimp the cable to the back of the connector. worked well enough.

Route the cable out the bottom, clip it back together and put the screws in.

Step 3: Set Up the SLA

Now you are going to want to grab your ( charged!!!!!) SLA, and set it up for use with the drill.

This basically involves gluing a terminal block to the top of the battery, so the drill can be disconnected if required.

First, get your terminal block. Glue it in the center-top of the battery.

Now, get some cable. hook one end to the terminals of the SLA, and the other to one side of the terminal block. Paint the ends of the terminal block if you want, so you don't get your polarity wrong.