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Katsu Drill Batteries
While the drill and batteries seemed to perform fine and I was happy with my purchase, after a few years the batteries became problematic; they would just cut out (no gradual slow down) and would have to be put on charge. Then towards the end of 2024 they gave up completely when I'd charged them up one day only for them to each fail to screw in a single screw the next. After four years of occasional use you might think this is to be expected of battery packs, and I did too, until I took a look inside them.
Each battery pack contained 4 x 18650 cells and you can see from the pictures above that there is space for 5. This is because 18650 cells are rated at 3.7V each, and 5 x 3.7 = ~18V, as per the pack rating. Therefore only containing 4 cells means each pack is actually only rated at ~15V. This is problematic because the charger puts out 18V and supposedly the drill will demand 18V. In this case the cells are being over charged and this will surely shorten their life, or in worst case cause a serious failure. I consulted ChatGPT on this and it confirmed. I therefore reached out to the company that supplied this set to me (www.aimstools.co.uk). I didn't have high hopes for a satisfactory response since I'd purchased the drill so many years ago, but they responded and offered to send me replacement battery packs if I could cover the £7 postage cost, since they were out of warranty. While I was grateful of the offer of replacement batteries I objected to the £7 fee, knowing that they could be sent for half of that, and because it wasn't necessarily a warranty issue, but that the kit had been miss-sold to me (I'd been conned out of 2 x 18650 cells and seemingly so had they). The response to this was that I could arrange postage myself, so I did this. However there was then some issue when Royal Mail tried to collect the parcel, claiming it wasn't available/ready, and Aims Tool saying something about them failing to bring a label and reusing to wait while they printed one... yadda-yadda. In the end I did receive two replacement battery packs (I think Aims ended up paying postage themselves). However... I immediately weighed the replacement packs to see if they were heavier than the originals, because having 5 cells in each, they should. They didn't. I let Aims Tool know my findings, but also that I didn't expect any more of them since their stock was clearly problematic. To make things worse, when I came to charge and use the replacement packs anyway, only one pack accepted a charge, and then didn't work anyway, and now wont change again. I now effectively have four duff battery packs. I have found a supply of "pre-configured" 5 x 18650 batteries that I am hopeful I can swap into the faulty packs, but at the time of writing I have yet to receive these. This blog post serves as a warning for those with or considering the purchase of a Katsu-branded (or indeed other) cordless tools: the battery packs may be falsely packaged so proceed with caution: avoid leaving batteries and devices unattended when charging.
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