I have this old Ozito 18V Cordless Line Trimmer. It had worked well in the past, but it had been retired due to the failure of the 18V NiCad battery pack. Nickel Cadmium batteries have a memory effect and will often fail prematurely – usually due to not being used as often or not being kept charged. For whatever reason, one or two of the NiCad cells would fail, then the line trimmer would run slowly.
I had previously added a DC power socket to the handle and could use a laptop power pack to run in conjunction with the failing battery, but it then made it a corded line trimmer. In the end, it was simpler to dispose of the battery pack and get an Ozito electric corded line trimmer, that has been working well for the past few years.
My house sits on a corner block, and going from the garage to the furthest point requires me to use three long outdoor extension leads. I usually have two leads coiled in a bucket – which I drag out as I go, but to do the final edge trimming – I need to take another extension lead and join it on the end. It was such a hassle that I did this only half to a third of the time, with the result being that this particular section looks scruffier than the rest.
Now you know the background. Two years ago, I noticed that there is an adapter socket that takes the AEG 18V Lithium batteries that I use from my cordless drill. It was about $15 and I thought it would be good to try out and rejuvenate my Ozito cordless line trimmer.
During the Covid pandemic, we had a routine that any parcels arriving from overseas, or delivered – would be placed in quarantine. Essentially, this was an area of the house that arriving parcels would be opened to check the contents – then left for a while, so that any potential viruses attached to the parcel would have time to die. Of course, after touching the parcels, we had to sanitise. We did this even for grocery items – placing them in a separate pantry – yes, I know – it was overkill.
Anyway, while fixing the AEG battery – I remembered that I hadn’t finished that battery adapter project, so I went to Jaycar yesterday to get some male automotive spade terminals. I remembered that I needed male spade terminal which were 6.4mm or 1/4″. I bought those in red, but when I got home and disassembled the line trimmer handle, I found that the size I needed was actually 4.8mm. It just goes to show that the carpenter’s rule – measure twice, cut once – also applies to other things. Measure or validate twice, buy once. I will be able to use those terminals elsewhere. Not only that – the battery adapter had very thick wiring – the red terminals can only handle 0.75mm wiring, so I needed at least blue terminals to handle the wiring. Two things wrong.
A check for 4.8mm male spade terminals in blue, couldn’t find solid ones, only those that were expected to be screwed down such as onto a terminal block. I had some older spade terminals, so decided to connect them onto the battery side. I wanted originally to remove that black piece that connected to the old battery pack, but now I will use it this way for now.
Then it was a matter of putting the handle cover back on, then attaching another bolt to hold the battery adapter in place – like this.
I had drilled 3.5mm holes through to the plastic of the handle casing. Then using a M4 stainless steel countersunk bolt of 30mm in length, screwed into the plastic. I did this slowly so that the M4 bolt forces a thread into the hole. If I have any problems with this in the future, I would add an wooden insert to make it a bit more solid.
Now the completed product. The other 5.5mm DC socket, was from an earlier attempt to add external power. The AEG battery pack is 2.5Ah and allowed me to cut some of the grass that was growing up around the fence on the granny flat, and trim the grass next to the brick walls.
Another successful Rejuvenate.IT – getting my old Ozito cordless line trimmer back into operation. I must admit that having used this for a day or two, it does seem to be a bit underpowered. Of course it won’t be as powerful as the corded one, but this one wasn’t breaking the line at all – even when it hits some really tough grass. It might actually be the battery pack that is limiting the current. The battery pack of course is for a drill, so the electronics may perform current limiting.
The other Ozito corded line trimmer would often suddenly spin faster, so I knew that one of the lines had broken off. Then it was a matter of removing the spool, and rethreading the line out again. During a trimming session, I might have to do that several times – and it is a bit frustrating when that happens. With this cordless one, I may never use the corded one again.
Maybe I should try getting one of those Ridgid equivalent battery packs, that are 4Ah or 6Ah. It would help by lasting longer, and maybe
R.IT 