I've just decided the cheap and nasty cordless drill isn't ever going to suddenly hold better charge. The trouble is that it can go months between use, and a NiCd battery is not ideal if you never really run it down fully.
Is anyone aware of a decent brand where I can look to spend up to £40 on a cordless chuckless drill that I can expect to get several years occasional use out of without having to concentate on battery maintenance (presumably I'd be looking at NiMh for that).
As far as I'm aware, you'll be looking at more than =A340 for battery longevity. Bascially cell quality and price go hand in hand. Li-ion cells are becoming available in the professional market, with no memory effect, but still way out of your budget for the time being.
Alas you have conflicting requirements... NiMh do not suffer memory effects and hence be better for ad hock recharging from an unknown state. However they often have worse auto discharge performance - hence will tend to run flat sitting on a shelf even sooner than NiCd. The best batteries for shelf life will be the newer Lith-Ion ones, but tools that use those are not in the £40 bracket.
Your best bet might be a decent drill with good fast charger and two or three batts, and just accept that if you pull it out of the cupboard after six months of non use you will need to spend 20 mins charging it first. Again getting the above for £40 is going to be a non starter (the battery pack alone will cost that).
If youy could run to £60 then there are some that might fit your spec. See the first one on the page here:
I don't mind having a flat battery when I pick it up, because I'm quite good at postponing a job for 24 hours (at least!) - so a slow charger and a single battery would be OK, but I'm fed up with tools that need to be replaced after just a couple of years occasional use.
I'd have thought that Li-Ion would be worse than NiMh for a long life as Li-Ion have a built-in decay mechanism that limits them to 3 or 4 years only (as iPod users know to their cost).
On Sun, 28 May 2006 16:47:48 +0100, OG wrote (in article ):
I don't think that you are going to get all of these requirements out of one battery technology, let alone the price tag.
NiMh don't have the memory effect of NiCd batteries and will tolerate being fast recharged from an arbitrary level of charge. However, they will self-discharge.
Much of the price difference between entry level and reasonable quality cordless tools is with the battery quality. The better ones, apart from giving better results will tolerate more varied usage patterns
However, you need to be willing to spend £60-80 or so to get to that - products such as the smaller Makita models with 12 or 14.4v batteries are often on offer, or there are their entry level Maktec products.
The batteries on these will take a lot of abuse and can be replaced in years to come if you need to do that - most of the major manufacturers keep the same mechanical form factor for batteries for some years.
The other approach is to go for one of the Hu Flung Dung products, finding one with a 2 or 3 year warranty, abuse the batteries as you like and expect to return it to the store several times during the warranty period. If you don't associate cost with the time taken in doing this, plus the actual travel cost, then it could be reasonable. If you do, then you are going to spend several times the difference between an HFD and a better product.
Decent Ni-Cads hold a usable charge for a few months. If they're don't they're faulty or poor quality. Unfortunately, NiMH don't hold a charge as long. Weeks, more like. If you really must have a cordless drill that is ready to go at any time in peak condition you'll need to arrange some sort of timed charge.
What is this 'memory effect' of which you speak? Is it the effect only ecperienced when you are powering say a satelite from a battey > solar panel where the energy use & charge periods are highly repetitive?
And should you actually get into this state *one* change of charge / discharge will break the 'effect' ..?
I have had Nicads in many forms and uses over many years and never experienced this 'memory effect' ?
Of all the rerchargables I have had so far the Nicads have shown to be the most durable ..
Completely ignoring your question, in the finest traditions of usenet.
20-30 quid of extension flex, and 10-20 quid of mains drill will generally work much better for occasional use. It depends where you do your DIY of course. Personally, I've never found dragging an extension cord out for the occasional job to be a problem. Something to consider.
On Sun, 28 May 2006 18:58:52 +0100, T i m wrote (in article ):
Voltage depletion is probably a more accurate term, but most people haven't heard of that, so "memory effect" has become used to refer to a number of phenomena that cause problems where poor quality NiCds are charged inappropriately with poor quality chargers.
Provided that they are good quality ones, properly charged with a decent charger then that may well be true.
In which case a good tool with decent quality NiCds would probably do what you want. I would stear clear of slow chargers though since most of these are crude. A decent delta peak detecting charger will still be able to fast charge a partially discharged cell without cooking it.
The advantage of more than one is continous working. You can also get the thing out of store, stick one on charge and set about working with whatever charge remains in the other one.
Long life is different again from auto discharge. Left for six weeks the LiIon will hold more charge than a NiMh. As to which has the longer total life all other things being equal I am not sure.
As Andy said, 12V or 14V entry level pro tool, and look about for special offers.
Ok .. (we could give the viewer the benefit of the doubt not propogate a myth / poor terms though eh ...) ;-)
Isn't it? I suggest (within reason) any production battery / charger / portable drill used *properly* will do what the OP requires but none will do what he hoped ;-)
Basically the pro stuff probably starts around =A375-80, and as far as I'm aware they're all pretty good. You should get a fast charger and a couple of batteries (which means the flat one will recharge before you exhaust the in-use one).
There's quite a few discounts about - bosch (the pro blue stuff) and makita are the sector leaders - but don't overlook the others - hitachi, fein(very nice), panasonic etc.
A thought though .. is there a factory somewhere that actually bothers to turn out completely duff cells or are they all going to be useable these days (not prime steak but useable nonetheless)?
I have several sets of *cheap* 7.2V nicad packs that are quite old (~10 years) have been used both hard and intermittently (fast charge rates then left unmaintained for *years*) and they are still up to spec (according to my cycler).
Morse frustrating is some of the cheaper (unbranded) cells seem in better fettle than some Sanyo's of the same age / useage? ;-(
So, is it possible that yer 20 quid with 2 batteries and a reasonable auto charger / reversable / keyless market cordless would perform similarly well (for the op) as a 200 quid one might (re self discharge / battery life etc). I know the one I bought does ..?
I'm not suggesting there isn't a difference here of course .. you generally 'get's what ya pays for' but sometimes the 'white label' stuff has the same contents the fancy wrapper .. ?
All the best ..
T i m
p.s. My De-Walt cordless has been a pretty good workhorse but both batteries will be (nearly) flat if left for a long time (but will liven up within a couple of cycles) ;-)
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