Sunday 22 December 2019

Worx to Dewalt battery converter

Worx tools come with good reviews. However, most users say the batteries last no time at all - just long enough to be out of warranty.
I got a simple Worx battery strimmer to do very light work. Amazon were kind enough to dent the boxes on a few, so they sold them off at a very attractive price. And better still, it didn't come with battery or charger.

I already have Dewalt batteries. Dewalt converters to Makita and Milwaukee exist, but not Worx. You can get Dewalt sockets from Aliexpress for around 10€ which have been 3D printed. You can get the plans on line too. Given the application I felt that the 3D printing may de-laminate as the battery hangs fully off it. That and I didn't want to wait 2 weeks and risk paying 16€ in custom fees. 

I've done plastic mods and welding before. I had a plastic corner piece that came with some product or other which was nearly the right shape. I bent the sides over and put some copper terminals on. Then a few bits of ply to make a plug to suit the tool, and 2 fast-on terminals and voila ! Or 3 hours of playing.  The plastic was plenty malleable at 300C (use a SMD re-work tool)




It's no oil painting, but it's solid.
Hopefully the tool won't let me down now.
For info, there is a PCB inside the tool, which has a MOSFET to turn the motor on and off, a protection diode and another chip, which might be LVD.