Cordless drill heads up

[NoTrespassing]

I love my 1/2" Milwaukee 14.4 with steel chuck. I'm not thrilled about the battery life however. At 65 bucks a pop I was hoping to get more that 1.5 yrs of moderate home use out of them. The second one did last about 2.5 yrs.

Kevin

 

[hockeyhead]

dewalt 18 volt, 1/2 chuck, light hammer drill is the best I've owned, 1 battery 5 years old, as is the drill, 1 battery 4 years old, both still hold a good long charge, had craftman and Makita before that. The dewalt would out work them both.
But paid $$$ for that dewalt when 18 volt was the latest thing.
Rarely touch my 3/8 or 1/2 chuck corded craftman drills or my air drill anymore.

 

[MDNick]

PineRidge,

I always thought that to, then someone posted this link on this site. I was told by a golf cart dealer that lead acid deep cells used for power golf carts will develop a memory. But apparently not Ni-Cds. Not that I am making any claims as to the authors knowledge on the topic, but he seems too.

As to the original topic, you have to wonder if the reason Rigid is giving free batteries for life is because the batteries are cheap junk in the first place. Maybe they are having problems, and the only way (without getting a better battery) to solve the customer problems is to give them new batteries. Just a thought.

Nick

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( you will build up a memory that will ruin the battery )</font>

My first experience with NiCad batteries was with two way radios (handitalkies) and that's what we were told back then (many years ago), but in more recent times, everything I've heard and read (including a thread on this forum) claims just the opposite; that batteries last longer if kept charged and not completely discharged. I now believe it's best to not completely discharge them, but haven't the technical knowledge to say that's a fact.

 

[fivestring]

Ni-cads do develop a memory. Our ni-cad batteries for our walkies don't last a full 8 hour shift. They now issue 2 batteries. Talk about safety!!!!

The nickel-metal hydride batteries last longer and DO NOT develop a memory but they are more costly.
For rechargeable batteries at home (AA, AAA, etc.), I only use the nickel-metal hydride.

 

[CTyler]

Being an RC car racer we have to know whats what with batts.
We are VERY HARD on batteries and routinely pull an average of 20-25 amps for stock and 30-50amps in modified racing. Peak amps are much higher. We are also looking for every tenth of a volt and extra Ma we can get.

Nicads should be discharged all the way for best results. However this would need to be done on each individual cell. This can be done with side by side packs only, you can't do that with a drill batt pack. If you take the drill pack all the way down some of the cells will become reversed under load.
That is bad. Once the drill slows down a fair amount the best thing to do is leave it that way. Then charge it next time you want to use it. Of course thats not going to happen cause you want to use it right away.

The memory on Nicads isn't that bad and it doesn't kill the cells. However it will increase the IR, Internal Resistance, which means its harder to pull the amps out of the cell under load. Consequently the voltage drops under load and you have lower performance. Age and light amps loads can do the same thing though. You can recover the performance by a couple charge and heavy dicharge cycles.

As far as memory goes heres what happens. Lets say you run the batt down to 80% and recharge it. You will have a slightly higher voltage at first then you hit the 80% mark and the voltage curve drops lower at that point than if it were ran down and recharged. The higher voltage at first as also partialy due to the heat in the cell. A warm to hotish cell will produce more voltage. I have testing/matching equip and have graphed all this stuff out at one time or another.

Ni-Mh cells contrary to popular myth also have a memory however is is much less of an issue. Generaly you don't have to worry about it unless your racing with them. Then cycle them down but not all the way. Running a Ni-mh cell untill dead will kill the cells perfomance in a hurry. Ni-Mh cells tend to bleed down so you want to keep those cells charged. Also there is a very big performace increase when these cells warm up. However is is not good to get these cells hot either.

I would love to see Mfg's put the Panasonic or Sanyo 3300 RC cells that we use into the tools. However these cells are more money. The 2200 Ni-mh is a pretty hardy cell though.

Ok that's my 2 cents on batts.

 

[PineRidge]

Sorry I'm not buying it. I had 1st hand experience with lots of nicads when my son got involved with radio controlled car racing some years ago. We had small computers that would cycle the batteries to a null voltage before we rested and recharged them. We always got more time and more power from cells that were properly conditioned. That is once fully charged then fully discharged. After each race the computer would then drain any remaining power left in each pack and keep track of the times vs voltage. Conditioning a pack was accomplished by a series of several peak charges each followed by a rapid and full discharge. The fully discharged packs always came out way ahead of those that were ignored.

 

[RobertN]

Dissappointed, I emailed Rigid to see if this was true. They said production has already moved. All you said has happened. There go more US jobs...

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Robert, Please explain your comments........

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I think he was commenting on the post Centex made about Rigid moveing jobs from the US to somewhere overseas.