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Best life out of a new cordless drill battery?

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Truck

04-03-2003 07:40:27




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Hi guys, was wondering if anyone out there has a lot of cordless drill experience and can help out.
I have a new job that involves screwing things to walls all day long, and some drilling of holes for anchors also. I already had a Dewalt 14V drill but needed another fast so picked up the Craftsman 19V kit with two batteries, drill, flashlight and charger for $99. The work is not real hard on the drill but I want to make the batteries give me the most they can.
Should I charge them often or wait until they are pulled down to nothing? Is it worth tossing the flashlight head on a partly used pack and draining it all the way before a charge? The charger claims to be a one hour charger...will leaving the battery on longer be helpful or harmful or no effect?
I have a pair of Ryobi 6V drills that I picked up from the Depot for $20 each that are nice and light compared to the other drills. IF I could find a drill with the power of the Dewalt and the weight of the Ryobi it'd be the ticket for this job. Right now I save them for backup or end of the day when my arms feel like they're gonna fall off. They are good for maybe 2-4 hours apiece of screwdriving. I have noticed the older one has a longer run time then the new one. It gets drained right down to nothing then charged. The new one I haven't had the chance to drain down but once. Any thoughts?

Thanks!!!
Truck

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Don LC

04-05-2003 06:21:29




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 Re: Best life out of a new cordless drill battery? in reply to Truck, 04-03-2003 07:40:27  
Keep then charged up when you put your tool away ,put the battwry on the charger.....



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Farmer/Paul

04-04-2003 03:14:57




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 Re: Best life out of a new cordless drill battery? in reply to Truck, 04-03-2003 07:40:27  
There was one thing I seemed to have noticed over the years. If I charge a battery fresh out of the drill it does not seem to get a full charge. If I let them sit/cool for a few minutes the charge seems to last longer.



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Ludwig

04-04-2003 09:52:24




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 Re: Re: Best life out of a new cordless drill battery? in reply to Farmer/Paul, 04-04-2003 03:14:57  
Yup, a battery's ability to move power is lowered as it heats up, that applys to charging as well as discharging. So since most of the chargers for these tools are dumb timed chargers they don't know enough to put on a slow charge when the battery is hot and load it on when it cools off. So since its always pileing on the power the battery never actually cools off and can't accept as much.



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jls

04-03-2003 19:51:41




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 Re: Best life out of a new cordless drill battery? in reply to Truck, 04-03-2003 07:40:27  
new batteries don't need to be pulled down all the way like the old ones did. I use a 12v because of the weight, last pretty good, lighter than 14v and after I wrecked 3 rd drill you end up with extra battery packs so you always have a hot 1 or 2



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Ludwig

04-03-2003 10:15:26




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 Re: Best life out of a new cordless drill battery? in reply to Truck, 04-03-2003 07:40:27  
Depends on what the battery pack is.
On a NiCad which is probably whats in your ryobis you should discharge to 1v per cell. In a 6v tool thats probably about 5v. Then recharge. I have an old B&D 2speed that recently had no oomph left at all. I did the discharge to 5v and recharge cycle twice and now its back up to full power and holds charge for weeks not hours like before.

On NiMH (Nickle Metal Hydryde) you don't have to worry about memory like you do no NiCads so you can just charge whenever. NiMH will tend to have a faster self discharge, say about 10% a day so charging after work would probably be fine. The thing to be careful about wiht NiMH is to not get below 1v per cell as its very easy to flip the polarity of a cell which is very hard to get back. This is a problem with NiCad too, but not as bad. Also the 1hr chargers tend to heat up batterys something awful since they're really slamming the power in. A 3 hour would be a better compromise of time and heat. Heat will ruin the battery fastest of anything.

You'll not get the power of a 14v in the weight of a 6v for quite some time yet, the batter technology just isn't there. Maybe soon, but not yet.

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Robert in W. Mi.

04-03-2003 08:09:33




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 Re: Best life out of a new cordless drill battery? in reply to Truck, 04-03-2003 07:40:27  
I was at a tool show not long ago, and was talking about this very thing with a DeWalt factory reb.. He said to recharge the batt often, "not" to run them all the way down. Over the years i've tried it both ways, and to me "it seems" he's right, as the batts i've used as he suggested "seems" to have lasted longer. Robert



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