You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
I bought a Milwaukee drill/driver set a few months ago which I've barely used. Annoyingly I seemed to always be struggling with my old crap drill so bought a proper one then realised I'd done everything.
So what's the best method of preserving the batteries? M18 if that makes a difference. Store them on the tool full as they are now? Or separately? Empty/Full? Buy a tool I will use to use them regularly? Maybe I'm worrying about nothing and they'll be fine. It'd just be bloody annoying if I do go to use them in a year and find the batteries are defective.
Depends on the technology, what are they made from?
More than you'd ever want to know:
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/
what are they made from?
What, batteries? I dunno, metal? 🙂 What are batteries made of..?
Don’t store them anywhere too cold over Winter.
Generally, lithium type batteries like to be stored at around 60% full over a long period
Dont drain a lithium battery, they prefer to be 1/2 used before recharging. Cannot say for 100%, but this is what I've heard.
What, batteries? I dunno, metal?
Nickel-metal hydride is an option, yes.
What are batteries made of..?
If only words existed on the sides of them to give us a clue.
I like that this thread started out with a technical question but instantly became an Insane Clown Posse song
Found this on Milwaukee's site.
I use my daily drivers at work, well, daily.
I have a set of Hitachi impact and combi drills at home slung in a cupboard that I only use very occasionally for say an emergency shelf putting up situation.
They're fine whenever I come to use them.
I think perhaps keep them from getting very low and keep them indoors.
Charge it up, leave it in the garage.
60% full is ideal, but then you've got a half full battery when you actually need it.
My Makita is about 8 years old, I've not noticed any noticeable change in performance over that time. It's either left however it finished or on the charger.
P.s. get a few decent sets of driver bits (screw, hex, nut runners, etc). My 'drill' just lives on the work bench doing duty as a driver. It won't undo rusty bolts but I probably use mine for something every day as it becomes easier than going looking for the right manual screwdriver, allen key, etc.
Using them is key in my opinion. Have a ton of battery gear, and stored flat/charged/in the middle doesn’t seem to have made much difference to em. The one that seems to kill em is lack of use, the odd tool that has a battery that only it uses and doesn’t see the light of day for months in end, is the battery that becomes useless and won’t take/hold a charge.
60% full is ideal,
How can you tell if a battery is 60% full? Weigh it when its flat, weight it again when its fully charged and do the maths?
What, batteries? I dunno, metal? 🙂 What are batteries made of..?
there have been a few different battery chemistries over the years - Ni-Cad, Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium Ion
Unless you bought something years ago its most likely Lithium (Li-ion). Each type of battery has its own foibles and its own methods (and folklore) about how to look after them. The earlier kinds were pretty finicky about charging and storage, Li-ion is generally more robust, particularly as theres usefully little bits of circuitry in the battery and charger talking to one another and keeping things optimised (as well as taking steps to prevent the battery from bursting into flames).
That feature however was a problem with early Li-ion batteries. Because they were top of the range when introduced, expensive in their own right and used with their professional ranges of tools , it was assumed by the manufacturers that the batteries that would be in regular and frequent use. Left unused for long periods by DIY users that little bit of electronics inside could run the battery down to a point where the charger would then refuse to recharge it. Thats the main difference between older types of batteries, that would just lack power and hold less charge as they aged/were abused and new ones which simply refuse to charge as they are protecting against li-ion's enthusiasm to catch fire. Manufacturers will now have addressed that issue though, and long term storage should be less of an issue.
Then realise you could have bought 200 batteries for the cost of the scales accurate enough to make a difference
Maybe I’m worrying about nothing and they’ll be fine.
Yes.
Maybe I’m worrying about nothing and they’ll be fine.
Yes.
Seconded. Nothing to worry about. Now all brands have long since switched to li-ion technology this is basically a non-issue.
It’s also why, whenever someone starts a new thread for a drill recommendation to replace their twenty year old set with dead batteries, the Answer is simply “yes, any of them”. And when someone replies with “my xxx brand that I bought twenty years ago killed it’s batteries within a year so xx brand is carp” its irrelevant.
Yea, ideal storage charge is 60-70%, but simply put dont store them empty. Charge them when more than half empty, then store them.
Don’t worry about trying to fully discharge (in fact, avoid if poss)
Milwaukee batteries from new if left for a long time won’t charge, not sure if it effects them if they have been discharged though. As you can use another battery to “jump start” them it’s not so much the battery but the circuitry that the charger interacts with.
Milwaukee batteries also have a fuel gauge so you can check the charge without scales.
Someone mentioned the chips that are integral to the battery...they decide when the battery is knackered and will refuse to charge. You need to be careful to avoid early failure...if you run the battery flat on a warm afternoon, and then leave it in a cold garage/van overnight, the voltage can drop further than when your tool stopped working. If you wack it on the charger whilst cold, and the voltage has fallen below the FUBAR'd limit, the chip will then forever mark the battery as broken. So if you have older batteries that are getting tired, keep them indoors before charging 🙂
Milwaukee Fuel are Lithium Ion, and are much the same system (or at least, a direct competitor) to the Dewalt XR18, and the Makita 18V systems.
I store mine (Dewalt) charged, or partially charged, but never empty.
but thats more an artefact of how i use them; if i use them a little bit from full i dont bother, but if they are down to one bar on the indicator i dont want to come to a dead or weak tool, so i charge it up.
Ive got 5x 2Ah batteries and 1x 5Ah. they dont get used every day, but they do get used every weekend probably.
My 1st and 2nd batteries are probably 6 years old? they dont run for as long as they used to, but not that you would notice. You would still get a full day of odds and ends DIYing out of one, but not a whole day of drilling battens into masonry.
Being the smaller batteries they've had more charge cycles through them than my big 5Ah battery would, but i like having the lighter battery on the end of the tool, and they charge quicker too.
(the 5Ah is off the strimmer)
I really like the one battery systems, but they do then have you by the short and curlies once youve bitten. I did consider buying into a cheaper system (erbauer), for my "occasional" tools, but having tried them found them too annoyingly rattily.
The last cable tool i bought, i got a Makita cause it was getting a bit tragic, the amount of yellow in the toolbox,
Don’t store them anywhere too cold over Winter.
IIRC, for lead-acid batteries anyway, their capacity would reduce when operating in the cold but their long term life would increase by being stored in the cold?