> snipped-for-privacy@aol.com dropped this bit of >> wisdom:=20 >>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>> What you are experiencing is exactly why all my tools are still
>> corded. It is a PITA dragging around a 100 foot cord.=20
>>=20
>> P D Q
>=20
> One of Holmes on Homes sponsors is DeWalt. It was funny to see Mike
> Holmes building a suspended deck and the director of the segment doing
> a fast edit of Mike and the boys, in rapid succession, calling out for
> batteries. "BATTERY!"......BATTERY!"...and so on...
> And I'm thinking: "this can't be pleasing the DeWalt people..."
>=20
> I did buy a Bosch Li 10.x Volt angle driver and I found the same as
> Leon. It dies suddenly. All torque and suddenly pfffffft. I really
> like that tool though, but it will never be building decks or anything > like that.
Forgot to mention ther is 1 place where the Li seems to excell
My shaver has a Li battery and it is smaller than my old NiCad, a charge = lasts 1 month (which is longer than my old one) and it does go pffffffft = immediately before it dies. Other than that, I love my new shaver. ;-)
They are screwing the tool users by selling an ++NEEDLESSLY++ inferior tools at a high price. There sold these same drills last year wtih 3 Ah batteries, but replaced them with crap. On purpose. They replaced a 3 Ah battery with a1.5 Ah battery.
There is no reason to anymore unless you have a high consumption tool. 100' of cord isn't that big of a deal, but what if it is twice or three times that, or your cords would wind up in the path of your client's customers when they want to access his business?
Do you go home? Do you turn down the work?
There is a huge void that quality cordless products fill perfectly.
Maybe, but considering that his bread and butter is most often the larger home reno jobs, it's expected that batteries will deplete fairly often. Considering that wall electricity is usually available, but not usually used, DeWalt is surely getting their advertising quota covered.
All the big names still produce and sell the bigger batteries...it's probably just that HD doesn't want to carry them because they can sell far more of the "compact" tools with lower capacity batteries to the homeowner crowd.
Probably the smaller batteries result from user compalints about the = size of the bigger ones. Given the cost of the 1.5 Ah, a 3.0 might be = cost prohibitive.
Tried some of those cordless years ago,=20 found them wanting and never went back.
The 100 is only because I use a small, quiet generator onsite. Works = for me. :-)
Peter Huebner wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:
NiCds don't like being over charged. Some of the cheap chargers are nothing more than a regulated power supply (not a good regulated supply, either) and can cook your battery if left on and forgotten about. Seriously, now, what cordless drill owner hasn't forgotten about their charging battery?
Avoiding the charge/discharge/self discharge cycle would probably also be a good thing. A decent charger could actually prevent such a thing (There are conditioning chargers out there that discharge a battery fully then charge it back up.)
I guess the whole point of this post is not to say the battery technologies are bad, it's the charging systems. If we had more universal batteries, I'd be willing to pay $200+ for a smart charger that stopped charging when the battery was full, conditioned NiCds every so often (might have to be a manual option), and generally took better care of the batteries.
Some battery technologies ARE bad for tools. A battery that powers a shaver that runs for 3 minutes, or a battery that takes pictures, sits, takes more pictures, then sits some more isn't necessarily the right battery for a constant, high drain device like a hard working drill.
I don't mind nailing, but when you need a screw, or several of them you need a screw. So running in a few pounds of screws into framing, screwing off sheet goods, hanging underlay boards, and all the things I use a drill for (sometimes I even drill holes!) isn't the same as the intermittent drain of a once a day shaver, or a tourist style camera that takes a 150 pictures a day.
To even draw the comparison more clearly, take out your cordless saw. The same batteries that served you well in intermittent use like an occasional small hole or running up a handful of screws in your drill will fail miserably after just a few feet of T111 siding, or a few
2X4s.
I am not sure that we have the answer yet, but for toughness and durability, I would think that NiCad would be my pick. My drill, charger and batteries rode in the toolbox of my truck when was 100+ degrees for 7 summers before it died. Seven!
My NmHi only had a useful life of about a year, and they were miserable. They discharged in the truck while riding around, they were damn quick about it in hot weather, and they worked at peak for about 90 days.
The jury for me is still out on the usefulness of the Li. I considered a new bigger driver in Li as I had great luck with my little 12V Li driver. Holds a charge very well, charges in a few minutes (15 - 20?) and the little driver has a lot of power and useful life.
But there is something going on with Li in the larger tools, and not just the no smaller batteries. I have read some treatises on the useful life of these batteries in machines over 12 volts, and it isn't good. Why 12 volts as a limiter? I don't know and don't have the expertise to understand it all anyway. But according to one of the battery design web sites I went to, the Li tool batteries were intended to be the battery for low drain tools such as small drivers and the newer lines of impact drivers. Although in the end the larger batteries may work out fine, the Li batteries weren't designed for high drain devices of that order.
Now you have something. I couldn't agree more. And the proof is in the putting.
The drill I have that has had the longest useful life, and the longest battery life was a Sears "Professional" line drill. One of the things they touted about the drill was the charger/battery system. If the battery was discharged to a certain point, the charger would drain the battery completely before charging. I usually use the batteries until dead, but not always, so a neat feature. So the battery was drawn down before charging no matter when you put it in the charger.
The other item they were proud of was that the battery wouldn't be over charged. So one the battery was fully charged, the charger clicked the power off. Now... if you raised up the battery out of the charger and changed your mind and put it back in, then it would draw it down and recharge. Not good. But with a little careful management, I could use the batteries and leave them in the charger on the job until I needed them.
NiMh and Li batteries don't need such devices as they are like filling a bucket with water. You simply fill or top off the battery as needed with no fear of memory or shortening battery life.
But how stupid is it that both NiMh and Li batteries can be damaged by leaving them in the charger. What if you (or a helper) forget and leave them on a job in the charger over a weekend. How about a holiday weekend? At $100 a pop for the batteries you would think (OK... maybe not) that they would be considerate enough to put an off switch in the charger that would not continue to feed power to the batteries after they are charged.
Seriously, after reading more and going to several open forums that are discussing/cussing the Li batteried tools, I will probably go back to NiCad. They work in the summer, stand the heat very well, they work fine in the cold, they have a long life (if they are quality to begin with) and they just work.
I seem Amazon has my old DeWalt 18v NiCad compact driver for $200 delivered to the door. I think it might be worth it to me to put this issue to bed!
Some battery technologies ARE bad for tools. A battery that powers a shaver that runs for 3 minutes, or a battery that takes pictures, sits, takes more pictures, then sits some more isn't necessarily the right battery for a constant, high drain device like a hard working drill.
--------------------------------------------
Just to add a little more for your consideration, all those hybrid automobiles are running around with Li cells, lots of Li cells.
Considering that I've used the top-of-the-line universal charger from Panasonic that handles both nicd and nimh and several different voltages automatically; and I've always removed my nicd batteries within a quarter hour of their showing up as fully charged, I'd be surprised if the charger was to blame. Still using it with my batteries that have been rebuilt with NiMH technology since, and it works a treat. I top up the NiMH every few months when I'm not using them, and they've lasted much longer so far (I'm on the 2nd NiMH rebuild by now, b.t.w.).
The only other brand I've had experience of was my 7.2 Makita, a long long time ago, and that battery (with a slow non-intelligent charger) didn't last for too many cycles for me either before a disasterous capacity collapse occurred.
My NiCD powered toothbrushes and D-cells on the other hand just keep going and going and going for years because they get that regular workout.
Well, that's the way I figure it, and it more or less coincides with what I've read experts in the field saying. I'm certainly no expert in accumulator chemistry myself.
There have been emergency workers injured trying to pull people out of wrecks. Fire departments are being given courses on how to disable the batteries in each model. It is a worry.
The chemistry of NiCd and NiMH is very similar so the chargers are very similar. The main difference is that NiCd shows a pronounced drop in voltage as it completes charging (NiMH far less so). If this phenomenon is used as a signal to terminate charging the charger will over-charge and ruin NiMH batteries.
The other main charge termination method is temperature. Once a battery reaches full charge, all of the electrical energy that was used for charging turns into heat. If the charger uses this temperature rise to detect charge termination it'll work well for both battery technologies.
With either NiCd or NiMH you're better off not "topping up". These batteries have a pretty substantial self-discharge and really want to be stored flat (self-discharge is a safe way to get there). That's not good for a tool that's only used occasionally and immediately, obviously. NiCD or NiMH isn't the right technology for this application either. It's a very poor choice for flashlights and emergency lights and not used in UPSs for this reason.
Likely cooked the batteries. SOme of these "slow" chargers were
*really* bad.
That's what NiCDs like. If you're going to charge them, let them (self) discharge fully.
I studied NiCd/NiMH and SLACs some time back because I needed them for a product (and they guy before me blew it).
All too true. And likening it to putting less coffee in the can was the perfect simile, too.
Over the years I have become used to the cheapening of the whole tool package. When one of us gets a new tool, we often say things like "remember when these used to come with a really nice case?" or "that tool used to come with a great blade on it (or a bit set) when you bought it" or "yup, I remember when the rip guide came with one of these".
I am used to the marketers leaving out the niceties, and in some cases useful parts and pieces to make sure they get what they want on their end.
But to chop down the actual usefulness of the tool so badly was a huge surprise.
And as noted somewhere else here recently, I truly believe that it is all about selling the batteries now. Once again, the reference to inkjet printers if completely spot on.
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