Harbor Freight drill recall

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Jimmy9190

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Please guys let's not turn this thread into a HF bashing thread or a "Chinese tools are junk" thread..I am only posting this to let you all know about a recall I ran across today. It is for the HF 19.2 volt cordless drill, part # 96526, the one with a black trigger. According to HF, the 19.2 volt drill with a gray trigger is not involved in the recall.

There is a problem with these drills where the drill can either melt or catch on fire, due to a bad trigger mechanism. HF has procedures in place to replace the drills, you can get more info here:

http://www.harborfreight.com/recall-safety-information

Just wanted to pass this along in case any of us use these drills...
 
I melted a drill handle in my hand once.

Moral of the story: Don't hook an old 6V cordless drill up to a car battery and run it for 20 minutes straight trying to start a weedwacker.
 
Thanks for posting.

I have a HF cordless drill, but when I looked at the link that's not the model I have.

I bought a cheap $39 HF cordless drill when I needed one and I was out of town. It has held up amazingly well and I've been using it now for about three years. It's not very fancy. It's single speed and the battery is huge and heavy. But, it's been working fine.

They no longer list the one I have on the website. It's bright orange.
 
Originally Posted By: stephen9666
Thanks for posting.

I have a HF cordless drill, but when I looked at the link that's not the model I have.

I bought a cheap $39 HF cordless drill when I needed one and I was out of town. It has held up amazingly well and I've been using it now for about three years. It's not very fancy. It's single speed and the battery is huge and heavy. But, it's been working fine.

They no longer list the one I have on the website. It's bright orange.



I have a couple of the blue HF 18 volt drills, they do a pretty decent job for how I use them. I don't use them very often but they are OK for most projects around the house. I wish the battery lasted longer, that is why I have two drills. Another drill, battery and charger kit was only 2 or 3 bucks more than a secondary battery by itself.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I melted a drill handle in my hand once.

Moral of the story: Don't hook an old 6V cordless drill up to a car battery and run it for 20 minutes straight trying to start a weedwacker.


Make that any 6V electronics to a 12V power source.
 
Originally Posted By: jimmy9190
There is a problem with these drills where the drill can either melt or catch on fire

Oh well. You get what you pay for.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I melted a drill handle in my hand once.

Moral of the story: Don't hook an old 6V cordless drill up to a car battery and run it for 20 minutes straight trying to start a weedwacker.


Haha I blew the gearbox on a corded drill turning an old 5 hp briggs engine over and over and over. Used a chuck-to-3/8" square adapter with a 7/8" 12 pt socket on it, fit right over the flywheel where the starter rope usually interfaces.

The good news is whatever issues the briggs had, were cured by cranking over and over and over and it eventually settled into running great.
lol.gif
Free rototiller from the dump!
 
These stories just reinforce my decision of not using any cordless tools and also no gas operated weedwackers/lawn mowers. Everything is running on 120V. I'm pretty good with the long extension cords.
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Jimmy9190
There is a problem with these drills where the drill can either melt or catch on fire, due to a bad trigger mechanism.


Harbor Freight adds a whole new dimension to the words "fire drill".
 
There can be problems with any product, whether it is a $40.00 drill or a $40,000.00 car or truck. At least HF is doing something about this problem. They issued a recall and are giving free replacement drills to anyone who bought the potentially defective drills. Many other large companies and manufacturers would not do the same unless they were ordered to do so by a court or judge or an outside agency or regulatory entity such as OSHA or NHTSA mandated a recall in the interest of consumer safety.

Personally I think it is good that HF has issued a recall and admitted there is a problem and they are standing behind their products and replacing the defective drills. In today's environment of corporate greed, cover-ups, bailouts and bankruptcies it is getting harder and harder to find people or companies that are willing to admit fault, take full responsibility for their actions and do the right thing anymore.

This thread is beginning to go exactly in the direction I had hoped we could avoid. Maybe none of us here use that HF drill but I only wanted to give a heads-up in case any of us did own the defective drills.
 
Li-ion is dangerous stuff. Sony has gotten Li-ion cell safety to on the order of one event in 10^8 cells.

One-off cells may not be so lucky.

Ditto for Chinese cells. Foreign objects and deviations from the cleanest, dryest manufacturing (a tiny sliver of copper foil can be catastrophic) can cause massive energetic events.

Since elements of this ARE my day job, this isnt an HF rant, rather just the reality of the industry.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav


And where were these two gems made? One guess and its not USA


Well, the problem is finding first-world produced power tools. There are some European brands that are made in Europe, but I'm not aware of anyone making many power tools in the US. Snap-on used to have some that we're "assembled in the USA," but I think even those are now imported.

A lot of DeWalt power tools are made in Mexico, but I can't remember if the cordless tools are.
 
I had a tool rep for Milwaukee tell me that batteries are made overseas due to the eviro regs here. And most of the tools themselves seem to really move to China when the rubberized grips and things started up. That process probably isn't enviro friendly either.
 
Originally Posted By: Tempest
I had a tool rep for Milwaukee tell me that batteries are made overseas due to the eviro regs here. And most of the tools themselves seem to really move to China when the rubberized grips and things started up. That process probably isn't enviro friendly either.


For lead acid and NiCd, Id believe that.

Li-ion is a pretty clean process. One electrode is graphite which is benign, the other is cobalt oxide or nickel managenese aluminum or iron phosphate... All pretty benign.

The electrolytes are applied in a clean dryroom in measured quantity very carefully. It is volatile but sealed up.

The problem is that weve lost the capability to mass produce many of the basic components... The basic processes are all automated in the good plants where there is minimal variability and low safety issues... So no reason why automation cant be done in the USA.

NV is actually a state for Li-ion manufacturing, there are a few companies...
 
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