Ridgid Gen5 Brushless Drill - A Look Inside

In this video we take a good look inside the Gen 5 Ridgid Brush-less drill and issues with the integrated speed controller. We try to repair the board, but damage to micro-controller makes it near impossible for me. We then at least show the nice brush-less motor salvaged and ran easily with a cheap BLDC controller. Sure it will be handy....
Hope you find it interesting and thanks for watching!
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[@greenman7yyy]

Very informative video. Nice professional troubleshooting.

[@dennisw4828]

again another great video. and the electric boards on these items are very complicated. thanks

[@merkabah2]

wow that was insane. subbed right away

[@johnhill3507]

Nice video thanks and pleas make more

[@ThriftyToolShed]

Thanks so much for your comment!

[@jjustinengineer]

Informative video. You should get yourself a Hakko FR301. You'll never regret it! Or, maybe they will send you one. The micro appears to be a TI DRV91680 which is a brushless motor driver which appears to have the microcode programmed in it already according to their extensive data sheet. Might be worth a fix? But removing it and soldering it in would be a bear.

[@danwickson4634]

That control chip crack means the whole board is deuced. Busted itself during an overload due to misuse from previous owner. Circuit board looks familiar like the the Ryobi brushless hammer drill circuit board I've seen from when I've disassembled one.

[@ThriftyToolShed]

Yes both made by TTI, I did figure the new Ryobi Brushless is very similar. Well the chip is failed for sure, but I do not think overload should cause a microprocessor chip to fail. I could see the water damage from the water line formed be a issue. My best guess is trigger failure and 20V got accross the 5v buss or input to controller. A little more testing and I did realize the trigger gives full voltage signal as well as the lower input voltage levels back to controller and that can be a bad ending for sure. It seems the trigger gives the 20V feedback to the controller as a wake up or enable for the 5V rail for the micro. Thanks for your comment!

[@justtime6736]

Reason I'm no fan of brushless. Added complexity with the inclusion of PCBs. More failure prone. Get some dust and moisture the tool 'dies'. Most people would not go through the effort to repair, just toss and replace. I've fixed so many just opening up and air dusting the PCB. I dunno, I'm not a fan of tech for tech sake.

[@abdalqadr1]

❤❤❤❤amazing

[@marshallelunico]

That awesome I have a Ridgid drill the mosfet exploit And burns the circuit the motor look fine but I have not way to check it but watching these video I wondering where I can buy the controller that you use for check it...

[@ThriftyToolShed]

I should have it in the video description. It is similar to this one also. amzn.to/3GII5rO

[@jonhill4612]

Thanks for the video - well done! It gave me the courage to try and fix my drill. However, when I went to put it back to together there was a small thin copper piece with a u bend in the middle of it and I don't know where it goes - ugh! I cannot find a parts diagram either. Would you by chance be able to help? Thanks

[@ThriftyToolShed]

It's been a little while, trying to remember. Is this from the trigger module or just the drill housing? (Did you disassemble the trigger switch?)

[@jonhill4612]

@@ThriftyToolShed I did not disassemble the trigger mechanism, I think the drill housing , but it is copper and it looks like it would be incorporated in some kind of switch...I did half reassemble it and pulled the trigger slightly and it worked...here is a pic from google drivedrive.google.com/file/d/1-tG3vZpVQluKaAchAi68i9Rx753P6wnv/view?usp=sharing

[@jonhill4612]

And thanks for taking the time to reply!

[@mc251]

@@jonhill4612 that piece was in the trigger. this was what went on mine

[@justtime6736]

@@jonhill4612 Was your issue resolved? I repair tools, could help.

[@mo..6956]

Interesting 🤔 I have a Ryobi R18PD7 hammer drill and it's got pretty much the same internals the Milwaukee and RIDGID are the same the only difference is the price you pay when new and they aren't designed to be repaired😢

[@bluetorch13]

I want to do an electric skateboard with 2! nice video!

[@ThriftyToolShed]

Sounds fun, best of luck to ya! Thanks for your comment!

[@cali5636]

And I've put electric skateboard motor in the drill, using skateboard esc and lipo battery. Almost finished

[@spiridondimaris465]

Well done good job I have a question I want a Chuck for my rigid dril and I don't know where to get it or order it any idea?

[@ThriftyToolShed]

Thanks for your kind comment! I don't know the best place other than searching for a used or broken drill that the chuck may still be good on? The other option may be something like this cheaper one from Amazon? It's hard to find one cheap enough to justify, some chucks are over $60. Crazy! I have not tried it to say though... amzn.to/3iTKXul

[@ThriftyToolShed]

Maybe even keep an eye out for something like this that might fot your model? www.ebay.com/itm/384912262158?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=xeIDhnxZSTW&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=D_qZMHXJQNK&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

[@huihup]

How to remove the two wires near the plus and negative terminals at the tool in order to modify and put another battery from another brand ????

[@ThriftyToolShed]

It has been a while since I worked on this. I believe you can desolder the wires from the lower connector? There are also some adapters available and here is just an example of one that lets the Ridgid use M18 packs. This is for example only, I have not tried these myself to say.. amzn.to/3w6uR7g

[@justtime6736]

12:42 ha like spooling up a jet engine! Love it. Ok, getting a sub from me.

[@robertcasey3528]

Yeah, lats have a look see

[@ruinunes8251]

Did you manage to give some use to that motor?

[@ThriftyToolShed]

I did, the jigsaw is still working great and I am going to make something else out of the drill motor, maybe a small fixture on the bench that I can make into a sander or cut off wheel if needed and use any 20V platform I have. The 20V BLDC is to nice not to repurpose.

[@ruinunes8251]

@@ThriftyToolShed That is good. So when you manage to build something with that brushless motor, please make a video. It is always nice to give a new lease of life to these tools. Would be there a way for you to still use that motor in the drill but just having a constant speed instead of having variable speed? Would it work?

[@ThriftyToolShed]

@@ruinunes8251 Well it would work in drill with variable speed as the jigsaw. The 2 issues with making the drill though is that it did not have the room inside for even the tiny controller since the original was built into brushless motor and even if mounted outside which is possible (even if not pretty), we still do not have a reverse on this controller. So outside mount and no reverse. It is reversible controllers out there we could use of course, just none as small as these that I can find. Though reversing these BLDC's is very easy to do, just not in the space confines of the compact drill. I will share when I get time to build the fixture.

[@JA-rc4uy]

I wonder if that is something that the ridgid lifetime service agreement would cover 🤔

[@ThriftyToolShed]

I believe it would. Come to find out, this one actually was Home Depot returned item. So it had in fact been warranty or at least a store return either way.

[@chadk321]

Really wish you would of taken apart the gearbox..... I dropped mine and I can't figure out the order for the life of me.

[@ThriftyToolShed]

Well if you have a specific question I will try my best to help. If you can't figure it out let me know and I can try to do a short video about it maybe? Just be patient though, I am backed up on video editing really bad right now. I sometimes wish I would have gone further with a video as you mentioned here. I love sharing alot and sometimes I catch myself going too far and no one wants to watch a whole hour of a teardown or repair usually 🤣

[@chadk321]

I appreciate the reply. Turns out I had everything in the correct order it just wouldn't snap together because the bearings where the gearbox met the chuck were all over the place making space. I got it all back together and it locked up and caught fire on the control board plastic. Took it back apart and saw there was a bend in the motor housing. Straightened it out. You see I dropped this drill off a roof last winter. All working now lol.

[@justtime6736]

@@ThriftyToolShed Honestly you'd be surprised how many people *want* long ass videos. Check out AvE for example (if you haven't already)

[@davidsullivan160]

@@ThriftyToolShed a video would be awesome. My P252 Ryobi acts like the clutch is shot. In process of disassembling it, had some roller bearings fall out before I could track where they went. Would really like to confirm if I got it back together right or not. Thanks!