On 5/25/14, 11:24 AM, Leon wrote:
On 5/25/2014 11:14 AM, Greg Guarino wrote:
I have two of the Ryobi 4AH batteries. I charged them in December, but
not again since - until yesterday.
I had 256 3/8" holes to drill in oak. I would normally use a corded
drill for something like that, but I was curious about the batteries, so
I used a cordless.
After perhaps a hundred holes the drill stopped working, all at once. In
other words, I noticed no obvious slowing down of the drill; it worked
at (or near) full power, then stopped. I looked at the "meter" on the
battery (you press a button to see it) and it showed 1 LED (out of 4 or
5). I switched to the other battery, which did most of the rest of the
job before stopping in the same fashion. I switched back to the first
battery, which was now charged and it worked fine.
While it's possible that the batteries stopped because of a thermal
cutoff (I hear the LI batteries have that feature), I think this was
simply a low-charge cutoff. Interesting.
I'm pretty pleased that these batteries, charged six months ago and used
a number of times in the interim, drilled 100+ holes apiece before
running out.
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For the most part Li-Ion batteries require a special charger and the
built in circuitry in the battery pack typically will not let you run
the battery down to dead. This is not good for these type batteries. So
these type batteries do tend to go strong and will quit when they reach
a predetermined point of discharge.
It can takes getting used to the fact that you get no warning of a
depleting battery.
However, once you go back to a NiCad and have to deal with the decreased
power for half the battery cycle, you realize it's a welcome change.
I've had my Ridgid Li-Ion batteries for a couple years and they still
operate like new.
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