Li tool warning - a really long rant Part 1

OK - my favorite old drill cordless just died. I will give the old
girl a Viking's funeral one day. It was supposed to be a POS that
did just the dirty work, but wound up being so reliable it became my
"go to" drill. I bought it for a song, and it wound up lasting 7
years under constant use.

So, off to buy a new cordless. A little research here, more on the
net, etc. Li is the rage. And according the the Milwaukee regioinal
rep, it will be the mandate within the year. He told me they will
cease manufacturing other types of batteries for DIY and "pro" grade
tools within 12 months. I have since verified this with the tool
dept. manager at my favorite HD.

No reason to buy a dead technology, right? So no more NiCads. And
with HD having their sale on all drills at 15% off with the return of
a dead drill, that seemed a logical place to start.

What an eyeful. I wanted 2 - 3 Ah rated batteries for uninterrupted
use. Since I do a lot of repairs, I may have to drill a bunch of
screw holes immediately followed by driving the holes full of screws.
I don't think I should have to replace the battery on a drill except
once a day, so the closer to 3 Ah I got the better off I felt I would
be.

Enter the DIY/semi pro niche. With only one exception, all the drills
I looked at had >> 1.5 Ah rated << batteries. I was floored. Why? I
asked if I could get a model with a 3 Ah battery, and was told some
models don't offer one. DeWalt does, at an extra cost of $99.
Makita had a 3 Ah battery, and it was $99 as well, but sold out. It
will NOT be replaced as Makita will be selling a double pack of 1.5 Ah
batteries for $129.

The counter to my incredulous remarks was "they may be half the power,
but they only take 15 minutes to charge! SO WHAT!! If I am replacing
siding on a 2nd story roof, or on my back drilling a hole in some hard
to reach place, in a hot attack working, etc., what do I care about
how little time it takes to recharge?

So a little research on the 'net was in order. Seems like many "pros"
have had a lot of problem with this new slimline version of the LI
drills and tools. I think just about any comparison between tools and
their corresponding performance using these tools would be accurate as
Ridgid, DeWalt and Milwaukee all use A123 brand Li batteries, and I
think Makita does as well.

Before I am corrected, I know that DeWalt has taken steps to get away
from these batteries >in their compact series batteries< and has or
will be moving to Sony to cut costs. As is usual though, it cuts
performance as well:

http://dewaltownersgroup.com/index.php/topic,224.0.html

So to put this into perspective for those that like visual aids
compared to the written word, here is a vid that graphically shows the
difference between a 1.5 and 3 Ah battery performance. Remember, same
cell mfg, same technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnF2Uh4oFfg

Note that the 3 Ah battery drilled 37 1/2 holes, compared to FIVE
holes (are you kidding me... FIVE holes... they should rebrand that
tool as Fischer Price !!) from the 1.5 Ah batteried drill. There is
plenty more empirical evidence available to show this is NOT unusual,
or even out of the norm. I would care if it drilled ten holes, I
would still be saying, "that's it ?!?!".

I found out years ago that it isn't as simple as "since one battery is
half the size of the other it will last only half as long". There is
complicated engineering going in inside the battery that spreads the
drain and generated heat out over the amount of cells in the battery.
More cells = more usable life by a factor of X. (No engineering
patter needed here, those that are interested can easily find
countless posts by the EE wonks on this simple protocol).

So why would I intentionally buy a tool that performs poorly? I
won't. At least not now. In the future, I may not have a choice. I
am thinking that the manufacturer's saw a marketing opportunity based
on the 15 minute recharge time and beating that horse for all they
can.

Good for them! We get screwed with poorly performing tools at high
prices again!

Robert


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Relevant Pages

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