I want to turn all my power tools and batteries a universal connector like USB-C. I have a 3d printerand skills so getting the manual interface is easy enough, but I don’t a lot about ports and tech. I’m learning fast, but I’m not quite there yet.
From what I understand, I’d need to put a female port on the battery which isn’t difficult and has been done plenty for charging.
I’d need to put a male plug on the tools to interface with it, and my initial research says I can’t just solder the power pins to the cables in the tool, I’ll need a circuit board that requests the 20v from the usb source? Is that doable? It looks like I can pick them up on AliExpress. But I need a qualified adult to verify that’s what I need to do.
From there, would I be able to cord them with this method or would I need to build a better usb charger port?
Is there a better port to use? Usb-C is nice and small so I can fit it in wherever I like, but can it handle tool use? Would it be better to do usb or something else?
You mean something like this but put it inside the battery?
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-20V-MAX-Charger-and-USBC-Adaptor-Kit-DCB094K/318666174
Exactly like that for part 1, part 2 would be adapting the battery port to use a compatible plug instead of the current property nonsense.
So you want to change the tool and the battery to USB? So the battery plugs into the tool with USB and then the battery whrn unplugged is charged with usb?
I hate the proprietary too but I don’t think usb-c is robust enough for power tools. Vibration and dirt will kill it quickly.
There are numerous adapters on printables to convert one charger to another so you aren’t stuck with one brand of battery. Although I’ve taken the lazy way and buy 3rd party batteries which are super cheap.
However one brand puts the BMS inside the tool, not in the battery but I can’t rember which brand and quick Google didn’t help.
That’s my biggest worry, I’d hate to do all the work just to have to redo it regularly, so I’m not attached to USB-C, that’s just the current trend and I’d like to build this idea to last.
The battery to tool converter is actually how I got to this idea. I live by the idea than anything worth doing is worth overdoing, so why stop at an adapter when I can just make my own interface and modify all future tools with that? It will look cleaner, and all I’ll need to do going forward is solder in the port for any new tools I get.
You do realise that by using usb-c in this way, you’d be creating a proprietary connector, because there’s a lot more to usb than just the shape of the plug?
Not to mention that it would probably fail pretty quickly as the contact resistance is too high to handle the currents of a power tool. Compare a connector people usually use for batteries like an xt30/xt60 to a tiny usb-c one and you’ll see what I mean.
If the goal is to make it so you can buy any brand battery and use it with any brand tool, I’d look into making contact adapters instead.
Yeah I’m picking up that usb-C isn’t the option.
I’m basically looking to take a contact adapter to the next level and just replace the contacts on all current and future tools with something that’s easy to buy in bulk and reliable. The xt## may be what I’m looking for.