In article d9e8a140-7133-4a0b-8b61-
,
says...

They had a few old DeWalt NiCads left on the shelf. With the XT
batteries, they were pretty hard to beat. There is some talk that
with the unpopularity of the Li (there are some temp problems with
some) that DeWalt will continue on with the NiCad lines. They seem
abundant on Amazon, and even new NiCad models are available.

I guess the reason this ****es me off so much is that I got stung with
the whole NiCad to NiMh battery switch. I still have a Makita that
works well when charged, but I was disappointed that I spent $300 to
upgrade from my favorite old DeWalt, only to find that I didn't get
the performance of my $239 DeWalt compact drill driver. I felt like
Makita burned me good, and since there wasn't anything technically
wrong with the drill, after more than 90 days of wrestling with it, my
vendor wouldn't take it back. So I have a $300 "shop only" drill.
Verrrry practical. And it ****es me off any time I see it.

It is a horse when charged, but will easily discharge (almost
completely) itself in the truck when not used in about 2 weeks. It
forced me to carry a corded drill for backup, which I never did when I
had the DeWalt. DW seemed like it was always ready to go, and it
would hold a good charge in the truck for a month. I don't want to
get to a house to install new hardware and hinges and have to wait on
the drill to charge every time. And I don't want to start carrying a
backup drill for my front line drill again.

It's always interesting to me how people's experience varies.
I have found that nicd batteries in cordless drills die on me in
relatively short order - counting the hours of use I get out of them.
Why? Because I don't discharge and recharge them often enough. I'm not
using them professionally all the time, they may get an intense burst
for 2 weeks or 2 months, and then sit around unused for a few months.
Nicd don't seem to like that, they die. You come back to the tool some
day and they just won't take more than 2 minutes worth of charge.

Hence I changed to NiMH, and my experience of that technology is
different from yours. Not the fast discharge you're experiencing. Plenty
of power, and not half bad (talking about my 12V panasonic here) if I
come back to the stored-fully-charged drill 2 or 3 months later. 4 Ah.
And these batteries are much more forgiving in terms of not getting used
for a long time. Nor do I have to discharge them all the way before I
top them up for storage ...

My Li experience so far is only limited to a wee Bosch driver. No
discharge noticable over very long time. Alas, I find that it's got less
grunt than the 9.6V Panasonic NiMH, much less. But then, it only weighs
about 1/2 as much and the batteries are tiny in comparison.

I'm not going to go 'all out' on Lithium, but I won't condemn it out of
hand. On the other hand, I know that NiCd doesn't work well for me but I
realize that it works very very well indeed for people who fire theirs
up ever day or so.

f.w.i.w. -P.