Arfa Daily wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
om...
Just got a flyer from www.itslondon.co.uk who have special offers on
Makita batteries amongst other things.

14.4v x 2.6Ah NiMH battery for £30 + VAT. Seems good to me.

I currently have 1.3Ah NiCD's, so I guess the extra Ah would be useful,
but is there an advantage or indeed disadvantage to NiMH batteries? I
guess the same charger would work?


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk


Although the theoretical charging regime is not quite the same as for NiCds,
for all practical purposes, the same charger can be used without noticable
detriment to the performance or life.

Not so. the delta peak is far less that NiCD. and if your charger doesnt
detect it it will overheat them and bugger them.
You can use s Nimh charger for NiCd, but the reverse may not be true.


The biggest advantage of NiMH types,
apart from the obvious size / capacity one, is that they don't suffer memory
effect, which is something that has always plagued NiCds.

Urban myth. The biggest DISADVANTGE of NiMh is that they self discharge,
and have limited life as a result. They go flat and lose capacity.

Bear in mind that
with a current-limited charger, which the Makita should be, twice the
capacity will take twice the time to fully charge. This is of course
mitigated by the fact that the battery to be charged doesn't need to be
almost flat any more, because of the lack of memory effect.

Arfa