Climbing Drill Turbo
Battery
The solution had to be found... and that solution continues to be used to this day. However, many climbers don't even know that it exists. Most cordless hammers that are being used today for drilling holes for bolting rock climbs use either 24 or 36 V power systems. Anything less, like the 18 V NiCad systems just don't have the power. In most types of rock, a strong Roto Hammer with a fresh drillbit will drill anywhere from 10 to 25 holes. That's just fine for single pitch climbs up to about 120 feet in length. Longer than that, and the multiple belay stations that become involved make extra battery power a necessity. Prior to the discovery of building a climbing drill turbo battery, anyone who wanted to add juice had to drop anywhere from $150 to $200 for an extra battery depending on the system that was being used. Now with a little bit of wiring and about $100 you can add the equivalent of two more batteries to your arsenal.
If you do it
wrong you could torch your drill or even yourself. Back in
the mid 1990s I set up a Turbo battery for my drill and
loaned it to my partner who was going to set the anchors on
a difficult looking new project. I wasn't climbing with him
that day, so when I got the screaming phone call from him,
it On the negative side, a Turbo battery pack is considerably heavier than the stock NiCad battery. It cannot be mounted directly to the drill. On the positive side, the gel cells are about the size of a small motorcycle battery and can be stuffed into a fanny pack. Although the Turbo pack is heavier than a NiCad battery, the drill is much lighter and easier to handle since it's not weighted down with 20 or 30 C. sized NiCad's. The Turbo pack is usually worn on your back, clipped to ascenders on a rappel line or clipped to the last bolt if you're on the lead. Gel cells cost about $30 each. It takes two to make a Turbo pack for a 24V or three with a 36V system. Virtually unlimited firepower can be yours at the cost of adding 10 pounds to your backpack and subtracting 100 or so dollars from your wallet. If you only place a few bolts now and then, you will probably be completely satisfied with the capabilities of your current drill. But if you ever run out of juice on a project and have to go back and carry that drill up again and re-set up to finish you just might want to consider adding Turbo power. Lets get started First you need to go shopping and assemble the required parts. Everything needed for this little project can be found at RadioShack and a good hobby shop or at www.TowerHobies.com . At the hobby shop, ask your salesman for two sealed 12V field box batteries. These are sometimes called lead acid batteries, or lead calcium batteries. The important thing is that they are the sealed type. Sometimes hobby shops sell small motorcycle batteries for the same application. They would work OK but they leak acid. You will need to have two batteries for a 24V system and they should be identical. Also check the amperage rating they should have a 6.5 amp hour or seven amp hour designation written on them. Don't be intimidated by the techno-lingo. If you don't understand it just show this article to the sales person. While you’re there, pick up six pairs of Tamiyia connectors. They are the standard connections used to plug the batteries into those little electric, radio controlled cars that the neighborhood kids like to chase the dog around with. Get the connectors that are pre-wired if you can because it will save you some work. The only thing you'll need from a hobby shop is a charger - nothing fancy, just a plug in a wall type power supply. It should be rated at 12V and 500 milliamps. This could also be written as .5 amps. RadioShack will have them if your hobby shop is out. Since that's where you're headed next it won't be a problem. Let's say you live 1000 miles from hobby shop that can fill your prescription or you just don't feel like driving around try Towerhobbies.com At RadioShack you will need to pick up some small clips to connect the Turbo pack to the drill I have had good luck with 1 3/8 inch insulated claw clips. To make a harness for charging your batteries off the cigarette lighter in a car you will need a lighter plug. You also need a small two pin connector made of white plastic. There are a couple of other items you will need that you may already have at home. First, a soldering iron and solder. Next, some 18gauge zip cord similar to what most household lamps are wired with 30 feet of 18gauge speaker wire will be more than enough. If the hobby shop doesn't have a 12V charger in stock, RadioShack will come through again. Finally, to test your work properly & charge your battery pack, you will need a DC voltmeter that will read up to 15 bolts accurately. Grab some electrical tape if you are running low and that's all you need. After you complete the wiring you'll need to carry those batteries in some kind of pack. To protect the cells from being banged around I cut up an old closed cell foam sleeping pad and surrounded the batteries with foam wrapped in tape. One last thing before you get started. Although cheap vinyl zip cord will work for connecting your drill to your Turbo pack, I prefer to make a trip to the hardware store to get 6 feet or so of high quality black rubber cable… it handles much better than the stiff vinyl kind, especially in cold weather. Ask for a 16gauge 2 conductor. You can also use an 18/2 if needed. Start building Before you do anything, remember that red is positive and black is negative and never the twain shall meet. Always observe proper polarity and never let the two touch each other! It will make sparks and could damage your batteries, charger or even blow a fuse in your your car if you are charging from the lighter plug. That said, let's get started. If you are
not able to get Tamiya connectors already wired you'll need
to make up two female plugs with little teeter totter clips,
and six male plugs. Use about 16 inches of 18 gauge zip cord
on each Now, plug your charger into a wall socket and meter it. It will probably read about 20 V. That may seem like strange behavior for a 12 V charger but it's perfectly normal. When you meter the output of the charger under load it will be much less. You just need to be absolutely certain which wire out of the charger is positive and which is negative. Even though they come from the factory with red and black clips on them, occasionally they are marked wrong and you need to be certain which is which. If not, reverse charging the battery is the fastest way to kill it for good. Now that you know which wire is which on your charger, take two male Tamiya connectors and solder the positive ends to the positive charger wire. Unplug the charger first. Do the same on the negative side. Double check your work for proper polarity and tape up all exposed wire. Plug the batteries into the charger. The meter should read the voltage of the batteries. Then plug the charger into the wall and the voltage should go up a bit. If the voltage reaches 14.8 to 15 bolts, the batteries are fully charged… more about this later. Right now we just want to make sure that everything is hooked up correctly. If the needle goes backwards or something gets warm, unplug it, return to the beginning of this article and check each step again. If you catch it in time, you'll run little risk of serious damage. Car
adapter The
drill end hook up The
battery end hook up Now we move on to attach the cord to the drill near the electrical contacts. On the stock battery you'll find a+ and - symbol. As you hold the drill ready to fire, the contacts on your left should be positive. Line it up with the battery to make sure. Once you ascertain which contact is which you should mark a plus and minus symbol on the tool with an indelible marker. Clip the claw clips to the contacts on the drill. Make sure they cannot touch each other metal to metal. You'll need to have a system that allows the Turbo battery clips to attach to the contacts on the drill without bending or damaging the contacts. I like to wrap a wire tie near the bottom of the handle right where it widens out and can't slip off. That's where I clip the wire to. What I suggest is that you heavily tape a clip-able loop of thin webbing to about 8 inches from the clips that attach to the battery terminals. You can clip that loop of webbing to the wire tie with a mini carabiner. That way you can use the Turbo battery when you want to and there is no bulky harness attached to the drill that will prevent you from using the stock battery when you need. Remember the nylon connector that you bought at RadioShack? Well, now you need it. Cut the cord coming away from the drill about 8 to 10 inches below the sling and tape. Then splice the two ends back together using the white nylon connector. Follow the directions on the back of the package. Take care to maintain the proper polarity. The little winglike structures can be cut off since they are of no use to us. Friction alone will hold the male and female plugs together but a bit of tape is a good idea. The purpose of the extra connection is twofold. In the event of a fall or dropping the batteries, that connection will break apart harmlessly. Otherwise, the contacts in the drill could be pulled out. This setup also enables you to make up an extension cord if you need to be further than 6 feet away from the power source. Take a pair of nylon connectors and attach them to the ends of an old cord. I chose not to use the Tamiya connectors because they're used for the 12V connections everywhere else. By wiring the gel cells together this way, the voltage supplied to the drill is the sum of voltages of the cells used. In other words 24V for a 24V system. Having an oddball connector at this point avoids the possibility of connecting a 12V and 24V plug together. If you can only get one type of connector that's okay, just take care not to get them mixed up. If you use a Tamiya connector as the breakaway connection, snip off the catch. Now is the moment of truth. With the power cable properly attached to the drill, plug the Tamiya connectors into the batteries. Pull the trigger. If nothing happens, disconnect the rig and look for reversed polarity or touching wires. If the drill runs backwards, you have the claw clips on the wrong contacts. If the test is successful, congratulations! Wrap the cells in foam and duct tape. Care and feeding of your new turbo pack Your Turbo
battery pack will serve you well if you take proper care of
it. Proper charging is the most important factor for good
results. Sealed lead acid batteries have no memory so they
can and should be completely charged after each use. To
charge the cells, plug the batteries into the charger and
the charger into the wall. Monitor the voltage of the
charging batteries. If you are using a separate volt meter,
touch the test probes to the terminals of one of the
batteries. As the cells become charged, the voltage will
rise. Charge until the voltage reaches 14.8V with the
charger on. At this point the cells are at peak capacity and
should be disconnected. Continued over or undercharging is
the greatest in enemy of sealed lead acid batteries. Storing
batteries in the discharge state or in a hot place will also
shorten their life if you are on a road trip, just plug the
cells into the cigarette lighter when you're driving and
disconnect them when parked. If your car's voltage regulator
is doing its job, it will keep your battery pack in super
shape. The extra drain on the car is almost
nothing.
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pace of development
skyrocketed. Rather than taking the better part of the day
just to hand drill a route, bolting was a task that was
left for the end of a long climbing day. Even still, with
the high speed and power of Roto Hammer drills, several
routes could be bolted in a very short time. In many cases
with the newly developing sport climbing areas, the
greatest challenge was not in bolting and making the first
ascent of routes, but in having enough battery power to
get all of the work done. There was a gold rush mentality
in some areas. Small groups of friends were all
attempting to put in routes in order to grab up the golden
lines before a competing party could snatch them up.
took a while to decipher
what was going on. After a while, Dan explained that while
he was drilling the first holes to set the anchor, all of
a sudden smoke started coming up from the pack. He was
ready to jettison it to the ground as he envisioned flames
leaping out at his chest 100 ft. off the deck. He started
digging furiously in the pack to find that two wires were
touching and burning the nylon threads at the edge of the
pack. He yanked the wires apart and rappelled to the
ground without prepping the route that day. In my
laziness, I hadn't done all of the taping the way that it
should be, and almost lost my Turbo battery pack as a
result. It's worthwhile to note that unless you are an
electrician, it's probably worthwhile to have someone in
the know check out your job and give you the thumbs up
that it's actually done right. Ultimately, even though
many successful turbo conversions have been done with the
instructions that I'm going to give you (including mine
after I taped it up later that week), the responsibility
for correctly setting up a Turbo battery to your Roto
Hammer drill is yours.
one. Zip cord has
two conductors. One side has ridges and the other is
smooth. For the purposes of keeping positive and negative
separate we'll say that the ridge side is negative and the
smooth side is positive. Be careful not to switch the two.
Using as little heat as possible, quickly solder a female
Tamiya connector to each battery. Now get your DC voltage
meter out. Touch the positive meter lead to the
positive battery terminal and likewise with the negative.
The needle will probably read something a bit over 12
V. Note! If the needle tries to jump backwards
violently you have reversed the polarity somehow.
Disconnect the meter immediately.