<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Larry Brigman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:larry.brigman@gmail.com">larry.brigman@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 9:47 PM, John Jason Jordan <<a href="mailto:johnxj@comcast.net">johnxj@comcast.net</a>> wrote:<br>
> I have various power tools that use 18v NiCad battery packs. I bought<br>
> most of the tools and four battery packs last summer. I remember using<br>
> the drill to put up a fence. I could go about four hours on one battery<br>
> pack. The battery packs recharge completely in one hour.<br>
><br>
> The tools remained vrtually unused over the winter, but now I am using<br>
> them again. I am lucky to get half an hour out of a battery before it<br>
> needs to be recharged. Sometimes a battery pack acts dead even though<br>
> it has been in the charger for over an hour and the charger says it is<br>
> fully charged.<br>
><br>
> At the time I bought the tools I could have gone with lithium ion<br>
> battery packs instead. But the price for a dual pack of NiCad was $50,<br>
> and a single lithium ion battery was $90. The li-ion literature says<br>
> "twice the power." Hmm, twice the power, but 3.6 times the price. I'm<br>
> not a math genius, but I think I can figure this out.<br>
><br>
> However, if the NiCad batteries go flooey after a few months, perhaps<br>
> the li-ion batteries are a better deal. Before I spend a couple hundred<br>
> dollars on li-ion batteries and a new charger I thought I'd ask for<br>
> comments and suggestions.<br>
<br>
</div>NiCad batteries can get a memory of the capacity that is being used and only<br>
charge/maintain at that level. Also, temperature effects all<br>
batteries. If the batteries<br>
got to freezing temps then I would not expect them to do well until<br>
they were re-conditioned.<br>
<br>
Re-conditioning NiCad's requires a full drain and then a full<br>
re-charge (multiple times).<br>
<br>
Try a total drain on one of the batteries and then do a full<br>
re-charge. After the re-charge<br>
determine if the normal usage life of the battery is longer or not.<br>
It might only be<br>
10-15 minutes more. If it is more, then repeat until it is back to<br>
close to normal.<br>
<br>
Lithium Ion batteries don't have the memory effect but require the charger to be<br>
accurate and monitor pack charge rate vs temperature.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>When I recondition batteries, I "seem" to get better results by draining the batteries very slowly. I use a small light bulb to drain them until I can't see any light coming out in a dark room. I usually do about 5 cycles of this. If it's still not doing anything for me after that, I toss it.</div>
<div><br></div><div>-wes </div></div>