about 3 years ago I had given up on craftsman after all 3 drill batteries went bad within a few days of each other, these were 19.2v and were pretty decent/affordable drills, the first of the 3 was about 2 years old at the time when I purchased 2 more of the exact same drill kits, 4 new batteries and 2 new charger, I thought was set for a while with drills, But the new ones only last little more than 1 year, ( maybe 14 month ) this is when I decided to retire craftsman to the shelf and purchased a Hitachi 18v kit, I been using it for the past 3 years, not the Hitachi is in need of new Batteries,
So the local Flee Market gets in a slew of Craftsman stuff , Batteries, charger, etc,etc, I decide to buy 2 batteries for my Craftsman's for only 10.00 each I couldn't go wrong,
I bring them home put them in each of my charger's and they don't register, I take them back and get 2 more, try to charge them and same thing,
The vendor at the flee market suggest perhaps it could be the chargers gone bad,
Couldn't be! ( not all 3 chargers at the same time) He takes one of the batteries and sticks it in one of his chargers and dang if it did in fact start charging, So Now I buy a charger ( 25.00 ) good deal + the two Batteries I had just purchased for a total of 45.00....
I get home with the chargers and decide to try out the old batteries, 4 out of six of them batteries took a charge and hold just as they always had, In all this time it was the charger's.... all 3 chargers went bad, NOT the Batteries as I had thought.... but get this ... Meanwhile My wife had seen how frustrated I was getting over having to return the batteries to the flee market and she takes it upon herself to slip off to HD and buys me a New Ryobi (one+) 18 v.
Now I have 4 working drills, But still my favorite of all is Hitachi is dead, it is perfect weight and size for what I do with it, ( Lockouts & Hardware install ) The Ryobi 18v lithiumion batteries/drills sure have come a long way from the one they started out with, Not a bad price either for only 99.00 :thumbsup: compaired to the other name brands that is double the cost,
