I had been dragging my clumsy flight box to the line to use my starter and got this crazy idea the other day. Being cheap stirs me to use available resources.

I have four Ryobi 18 volt battery packs in my truck at any given time. I was trying to figure how I could use one to power my Kavan starter.

While in Homey Depot today a light went off. I grabbed a 1-1/2" in plastic nipple used to connect large plastic pipe and went home and whittled on it with my dremel and hear is what I came up with. I cut a slot in the nipple to allow the plug end of the battery to slide into it. I ground a grove in the top of the nipple match the curve of the starter. I put a small piece of self adhesive velcro on the starter and secured it with two tie wraps. Very solid and easy to do.

I used a couple of bananna plugs to make contact with the battery lead. I just drilled a hole slightly smaller then threaded end of the plug and self tapped it into the hole at the same location as the battery contact. By screwing the plug in and out I could get a firm enough contact to hold the battery in the nipple. The wire leads from the starter were inserted in the wire lead and secured withe the screw of the bannana plug recepticle. You could use a hose clamp to secure the battery in the nipple even better.

An 18 volt battery may be a little overkill but this would work for all those 14.4 packs that out there for these tools.
Another advantage is I can plug my charger into the bannana plugs for a quick charge if needed with out draggin my tool box all over the field.

Total cost of this conversion $2.50.

Wayne Galligan

I had a starter cone and shaft for a while, I was toying with the idea of just chucking it in my drill. Would turn kind of slow though.

Cool idea...you going out for the copyrights on it

Cost $2.50... you suppose I let the cat outta the bag?

Brian,

I use my Makita 12v drill with an old starter cone sometimes. Has cranked up to a 140RX, and works especially well with a heli start shaft for Raptor's and the like with onboard one-way start bearings. It is a little slow turning, but well tuned engines work fine. A balky one...can't say.

Roy Aultman

Wayne, that’s pretty clever.

I’ve got a name for it, the “Frankenstarter”.

Keith B

Thanks Keith.... now lets do the Monster Mash