Which are best. Looking to buy a replacement drill as the damn thing doesn't hold charge long and is always flat. My local too shops has drills with Ni Cads and lithium batteries. The thing that I know aboy NiCads is they are expensive and sooner rather than later totally give up. Recommendations.
Kevin
lithium hold charge very well, last about 3-5 years only tho and must never be run flat.
Same applies to NiCds particulary when cells are made up into batteries and are series charged/discharged.
Can't say I was over enamoured with the only Li ion power tool I've ever owned. An Aldi/Lidl screwdriver, put any half decent load onto it (like a semi tight screw) and the battery protection cut in. May have been a faulty unit, only used it a half a dozen times. Put it way came to use it again and it was flat and refused to take a charge, got a refund.
Just recelled the ancient B&D screwdriver that is excellent and much better than anything "modern". Put NiMH's in it and am very careful about charging it as it is a "cook your cells" type charger...
Its not just the type of battery, its the quality of the battery and the type of charger. Quality brand chargers don't cook the batteries.
NiCd are the cheapest, then NiMh then Li Ion.
For DIY use, there are some great offers on Makita with NiCd batteries & very smart chargers.
What happens when you are using a drill, it slows down and it wont turn any more on a new battery? Is that flat? If so, then I'd be running batteries flat once every couple of weeks.
Alan.
That's generally ok. Charge as soon as the performance drops off. But plenty read and believe memory effect and run batteries totally flat.
Nicads not bad for self discharge NiMh is rubbish..
cheap and underspecced.
The Makitas with NiCd are very good - far more use than 1.3Ah suggests and hold a reasonable charge for several months. An Aldidl 2Ah version goes flattish in a couple of months.
More than...
You want to take it until the performance starts to drop off - but stop before there is a chance that any individual cell is completely flat. If you have been working it hard, and the batt is warm, then also leave it to cool a bit before recharging (assuming its a fast charger).
Li-ion will have circuitry that will disable the device once the cell falls below a certain threshold.
Had a Bosch NiCd and the batteries died in no time, after light use. Now have a Site NiCd but not had it long enough to judge the lifetime of the batteries.
I'm sure NiCds will not be available at all for much longer.
I invested, six years ago, in a Metabo Li-ion 14Volt drill. I have misused it almost every day since then, and it has never let me down.
OK, the cells need recharging a bit more often now, but they still hold the charge well. The included 15-minute fan-cooled fast-charger is fantastic!
I think the issue is not which kind of cell, but what quality of cell, and what quality of charger.
R.
Very much so - far more important than any other factor really.
IIRC reading recently that the general ban on NiCd cells does not apply to applications like power tools anyway.
Not yet. I'm sure it will be extended to power tools in the future.
Probably beyond the life expectancy of any cells you buy now anyway, so not really worth considering.
Also not worth worrying about as long as the tool and its charger has the option to use NiMh (as most decent ones do). When it comes time to replace the batts, you just buy whatever is available at the time.
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