What to Do With an Old Cordless Drill?

If you choose wisely, a cordless drill will give you years of faithful service without any problems. These are tough, versatile tools that come in handy for making a massive range of tasks a lot easier.

Yet, there may come a time when you decide to upgrade to a new or more advanced model. When this happens, you will probably wonder what to do with your old drill.

Can you find something else to do with it rather than just throw it away?

New Use Cases to Consider

If you have a lot of imagination, you have probably already started thinking about the other ways that you can use your drill to make life easier or a bit more exciting.

But, if you’re looking for some inspiration, we’ve compiled a few ideas that could help you designate your old cordless drill to a new less intense domestic position around the household.

Check out some of the following concepts that could make for a stirring little side project: 

Use It for Preparing Food

It might seem strange at first, but an old drill can be great for helping you to prepare food in new ways. For instance, if you fit a metal egg whisk to it, then you can quickly use it to beat eggs.

Another idea is to use it to make grinding pepper a lot easier and more enjoyable. As with all of the uses that we will be looking at here, it is vital that you fit any attachments firmly and safely, to avoid the risk of accidents when in use.

Some people have also discovered that it is possible to use their old drill to cool beers very quickly on a hot day. This involves creating an attachment with a suction cup to stick to the base of the can. You then make it spin around quickly in ice cubes for around half a minute to cool it down.

You could also re-purpose an old drill to crush ice or even to scrape coconut to get all of the goodness with less work. With a bit of thought, there are sure to be other food-related tasks that you could do with an old drill.

Make a Fast Cleaning Device

A cordless drill can be terrific for helping you to clean items more quickly. This is particularly useful when you need to clean something that has small or awkward surfaces on it that would normally be very time-consuming.

A good example of this is a bike. If you tend to get fed up trying to clean all of the different surfaces, then using your old drill could come in really handy for letting you do it more easily.

To get started, you need to attach a brush to the drill. It is then a simple task to very quickly get to work on cleaning it with very little effort.

Winding Kite String

Winding the string on a kite can be an awkward task that takes away some of the joy of flying a kite. Could you use a spare drill that you have to make this job easier and perhaps even a bit more fun?

To do this, the kite’s spool can be fitted tightly to the drill’s chuck. There are different ways of doing this, and if you want to get creative, then you are sure to find interesting solutions.

With this done, you can simply watch as the drill does all the work in spooling the kite string. Naturally, this same technique can be used whenever you need anything else spooled too.

Power a Bike or Other Vehicle

Earlier, we looked at cleaning a bike. However, there is also a more exciting way of using a drill that you no longer need for DIY jobs. In this example, the tool is used to provide the power that drives a vehicle.

This is a more difficult job than the others we have looked at, although you can easily find instructions online for doing it.  It is important to get it just right, as the bike can go pretty fast without you even having to pedal it.

Which Motor is Used in Cordless Drill?

There are two types of motors you’ll find in cordless drills. Brushed motors and or brushless motors. These two types of motors while in principle they are similar, they are distinctly different as they utilize dissimilar components to produce vastly different results in terms of both performance and control.

Cordless drills with a brushed motor are inexpensive and although they are subject to wear, they are very dependable, and the right cordless drill can deliver a high torque or inertia ratio. 

A brushed motor operates by which a carbon brush and a commutator rotates on a shaft that is physically connected to the motor rotor. Due to this friction, both the brushes and the commutator wear out over time.

One thing you’ll have noticed about brushless drills and power tools, in general, is that they are more expensive than their counterparts.

Brushless motors are up to 90% more efficient than brushed motors, with this increased efficiency translating into more of the total power used by the motor being converted into rotational force, rather than being expelled as heat.

A brushless motor produces this increased efficiency as the rotor of a DC brushless motor is a permanent magnet that houses the stator. Once each of the coils is energized, this creates an electromagnetic field due to the opposing poles being attracted to each other.

As there is no friction throughout this process, the motor operates by generating a high amount of torque and at a lower decibel than a brushed motor.

Service and Restore Your Old Cordless Drill

If you still have a little faith in your old drill and aren’t interested in purchasing a replacement model just yet, it’s always possible to bring back to life your old cordless drill.

As long as the battery is still intact or you’re willing to buy new replacement batteries for your cordless drill, you’ll be able to give your old faithful cordless drill a new lease on life. 

This also might be a worthwhile DIY pursuit if you’re into sustainability as it will ultimately be one less hunk of plastic added to the pile.

In Conclusion

Some of the other ideas you will find online include using it to mix things, as a light source, to remove weeds, and to dig holes.

You will be amazed when you witness the huge variety of innovative concepts that other people have already come up with by transforming their power tools into a totally new device. 

All in all, there are plenty of excellent ways to make sure that your old cordless drill carries on being interesting and useful. There is certainly no longer any need to think that throwing it away your matured tools has to be the only option once you buy a replacement.