Lithium ion battery life - in years?

[Bedlam]

Thanks for the info.....

 

[alchemysa]

Li battery life: 400 charges or 4 years, which ever comes 1st. Pete

4 years life for a L-I battery? Is there general agreement with this figure gentlemen?

Its starting to look like L-I drills are hard to justify unless you are a contractor or a handyman with some big jobs on the go.

 

[eepete]

alchemysa- yeah, that's the problem with the short answer. Depends on your usage, that's why I rambled so much before that. If you just use the drill once a month, then the battery life is much longer than 4 years. If you use it once or twice a week, then that's the ball park. If I just used it once a month I would not spend the extra money for the lithium versions. In fact, I use mine for something about once a week, and I still stay with the NiCd or nickel metal hydride batteries. As such, you're observation is right on the money.

Pete

 

[Zick]

I don't know, I don't use my drill that much either but when I did I found that waiting an hour for a battery to charge sucked since usually the NiCad battery would only last me about 1/2hr or less. Granted I could have gone out and bought more NiCad batteries.
But at the time for me, I was looking also for a more powerful drill/driver. I did a lot of comparing of NiCad vs Lith drills and I couldn't find another NiCad drill/driver that compared to the kit I bought as far as price/power/charge time goes.
My last NiCad battery only lasted about 2-3 years with very minimal usage before the battery started dying. The problem I had was that they wouldn't hold a charge if left unused for more than a week.
So if my new Lith can last at least 4yrs minimum I will consider it a worthy investment.

 

[dmccarty]

My last working Dewalt 18volt battery started smoking which I found before it looked like it would burst into flames and burned down the house. I have not bought a new battery since then and I have a bunch of Dewalt 18v tools. They are handy but expensive. And the powered tools perform better. I guess I should just sell my Dewalts 18v tools. :laughing:

Later,
Dan