Paslode 18650 battery upgrade by TheFrugalBerry

Last crawled date: 3 years, 4 months ago

Caution This battery upgrade does not have a BMS (Battery Management System) as part of the build (which could cause battery danger including fire). A BMS could easily be added with modification but was not necessary in my application. Also, this battery design is capable of 8.5v DC which is above the rating of the manufacturers Ni-MH battery of 6v nominal with a full charge voltage of 7v. It works fine in my Paslode nailer but that doesn't mean it could not cause harm to your nailer. Lastly, this battery cannot be charged in the existing charger. Without the BMS each of the 18650 cells need to be removed and charged in a separate 18650 charger. I created this project as a solution to my problem, and made it available to anyone else to use as they see fit.
I have an old Paslode nailer with batteries that would not hold a charge (even brand new off the shelf of the big box stores). I was charging the battery a few hours before I needed it, and it would be dead a few hours after I was done even with the batter unplugged from the nailer. Paslode has not created a direct Li-ion replacement for these batteries, but rather went with a brand new design witch required purchase of a new nailer. My solution is this project. I designed the shell in tinkercad (don't laugh) and after many revisions came up with a shell that looks and acts just like the original battery only using Li-ion 18650 cells. The new battery works great in the nailer!!
This is a simple series circuit. Screw heads on the sides of the battery shell are used as the battery contacts. Nuts on the back of the screws tie into ring terminals that connect the wires to the battery cell terminals. AA Battery terminals were purchased from Amazon for under $7 for 30 pairs. Wires were soldered to these terminals. Once the 18650 batteries are placed and the shell is closed the upgraded battery is ready to go! I printed in PLA with full support. Hole sizes are small and will need to be drilled out for the screws you have on hand.