Strav's blog

I have roughly 10 DeWalt 18v battery packs which are on their way out.  Run time is significantly reduced from original.  At market prices, it's going to cost over $500 to replace these - yikes!  I ran across some DIY rebuild instructions and originally was going to go for rebuilding them with soldered on tabs.  The more I looked into it, however, it turns out that the heat from soldering the tabs can have a significant negative impact on the batteries - even potentially causing them to explode.  So, I found some DIY information on making a low cost battery tab spot welder from the transfrormer out of a microwave oven.  This looks like a solid way to fix up my DeWalt battery packs for significantly less than the originals.  At half or less of that price, I would be able to rebuild them more frequently and still come out ahead.  I also believe this could be used to rebuild laptop batteries (of which I have many) for additional savings.  

Below are links to the various pages with details on the processes.  I have yet to do this but have acquired the transformer and am in process of building the spot welder.

DIY Guides
Rebuilding NiCd Rechargable Battery Packs
How to rebuild a Dewalt 14.4v battery pack
How to rebuild an 18 volt DeWalt Battery

YouTube
How to replace Dewalt Cordless Drill battery cells
How to Make The Metal Melter
DIY Ebike Battery Spot Welded MOT
homemade battery tab spot welder

eBay
50 x SubC Sub C 2800mAh 1.2V NiCd Rechargeable Battery w/ Tab White USA Stock
ni-cd sub c 1.2v 2400mah
tenergy batteries
nickel battery tabs

Guides
DIY Bettery Tab resistance fine-spot welder
DIY Bettery Tab resistance fine-spot welder - Electrode and Battery Clamps
DIY Bettery Tab resistance fine-spot welder - Electrode Holder
How to Make the Metal Melter