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?
USBC (at least in its current form) likely can’t provide enough power to run most tools well also. According to what I can find for Ryobi tools (as an example) they’re rated to pull 10x the Ah rating in A continuously. That means a typical 4 Ah battery can deliver up to 40 A at 18V or 720 W continuously. I’d guess tools pull 400-600 W continuously, and may be up to 25x on start up or stall for a few seconds before the BMS cuts the tool off. USBC maxes at 240W right now. For reference - that’s about half of what a typical NA wall socket can deliver at 120V/15A.
Using USBC to charge batteries is fine but we don’t appreciate just how much energy can be delivered by batteries and how quickly.
You’d have to have something that can deliver that peak amperage without catching fire, and the wiring to handle it too.
That’s the kind of info I’m looking for, I figure I’ll just be wiring it directly into the tool so the wires in there should handle it. so now I just need to find a readily available male to female port that came handle that.