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Cordless tool battery storage

Joined
Feb 2, 2008
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What is best for batteries for cordless stuff? Plugged into charger full time, part time or only when drawn down?
I have my chargers on a timer about 2-3 hours a day but I'm notbsure they are getting a good charge bcause I've noticed the devices seem to go dead fairly quickly when I use them.
 
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onewheat

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I let mine sit and charge them when needed. The Lithium-Ion batteries hold a charge for a LONG time and the charge indicator lights on them are great.
 

Kaizen

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If you are not getting the same life out of your battery most likely one of the battery packs in it......or a few....are dead.
never never just leave a lithium ion battery on a charger. that's the number one reason they catch fire. should be charged and then taken off and sit on shelf till use.
all these batteries in phones catching fire? yea lithium ion. know a guy that left his on in his garage. fire destroyed the whole garage and his muscle car. just not worth it.
 

6PTsocket

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Mar 12, 2014
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What is best for batteries for cordless stuff? Plugged into charger full time, part time or only when drawn down?
I have my chargers on a timer about 2-3 hours a day but I'm notbsure they are getting a good charge bcause I've noticed the devices seem to go dead fairly quickly when I use them.
What,type of batteries are you charging? NiCds should not be stored in discharged state. Once a month is reasonable. There is no lithium battery sold that does not have protective circuitry either built into the battery or into the charger. They are monitored for over charging and over discharging. Under certain conditions lithiums have caught fire but manufacturers would be crazy to sell a device that broke into flames because somemebody forgot about it and left it on the charger. Unless you are dealing with little wall wort chargers for NiCd or NiMh battery, a timer makes no sense and in that case a couple of hours isn't even close to enough time.


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Voi

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I have my chargers on a timer about 2-3 hours a day but I'm notbsure they are getting a good charge bcause I've noticed the devices seem to go dead fairly quickly when I use them.

I have an older light timer with the on/off tabs. I remove the "on" tab and have a multi-strip plugged into it. I leave my chargers plugged into it and when I need to use my tools I manually turn the timer to on and rotate the dial to about four hours. So the timer turns the chargers off but not back on.

When my boys were small enough for their Power Racer I'd unplug my tool chargers and set the timer to 12 hours or more.

I did try to remove my batteries from the charger for safety reasons even when the timer was off but admit I didn't always do so. A lithium ion battery fire is a worry of mine.
 

Kaizen

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What,type of batteries are you charging? NiCds should not be stored in discharged state. Once a month is reasonable. There is no lithium battery sold that does not have protective circuitry either built into the battery or into the charger. They are monitored for over charging and over discharging. Under certain conditions lithiums have caught fire but manufacturers would be crazy to sell a device that broke into flames because somemebody forgot about it and left it on the charger. Unless you are dealing with little wall wort chargers for NiCd or NiMh battery, a timer makes no sense and in that case a couple of hours isn't even close to enough time.


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Never dropped a cordless drill? The product as we buy it is fine. But through use and abuse battery cells short out. If it shorts to the one next to it and continues you have a fire or melting. Doesn't matter what kind of battery. Just sayin not worth the risk in my house


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6PTsocket

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Never dropped a cordless drill? The product as we buy it is fine. But through use and abuse battery cells short out. If it shorts to the one next to it and continues you have a fire or melting. Doesn't matter what kind of battery. Just sayin not worth the risk in my house


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The original statement was that fires were caused by leaving a battery on a charger too long, not a tool being dropped. Yes I gave dropped a drill. Can you produce one documented case of a drop resulting in a fire. Hearing it from your friend's cousin's co worker does not count.

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Kaizen

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The original statement was that fires were caused by leaving a battery on a charger too long, not a tool being dropped. Yes I gave dropped a drill. Can you produce one documented case of a drop resulting in a fire. Hearing it from your friend's cousin's co worker does not count.

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Sorry I should have been clearer. The drop does not cause the fire. it breaks or shorts out a cell......one of many. then putting it on a charger unattended can lead to a fire as the charger keeps trying to get up to x volts and just keeps dumping in more juice until the normal cells are at risk.
This was the one that I read and have never left on a charger since. note the fire marshall said how it happened.
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/11-bench-racing/547794-lost-my-66-garage-fire.html
This is a good educational show about batteries. pay attention at 16min or so to see how batteries that have been fine for years can become an issue
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365946487/

I personally would never recommend anyone leave a NiCad on a charger all the time. You want to go for it.
 
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6PTsocket

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Sorry I should have been clearer. The drop does not cause the fire. it breaks or shorts out a cell......one of many. then putting it on a charger unattended can lead to a fire as the charger keeps trying to get up to x volts and just keeps dumping in more juice until the normal cells are at risk.
This was the one that I read and have never left on a charger since. note the fire marshall said how it happened.
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/11-bench-racing/547794-lost-my-66-garage-fire.html
This is a good educational show about batteries. pay attention at 16min or so to see how batteries that have been fine for years can become an issue
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365946487/

I personally would never recommend anyone leave a NiCad on a charger all the time. You want to go for it.
Interesting PBS video. After retching my way past the man made climate change propaganda, there were some interesting developments. However, no battery made has the energy density of a gallon of gasoline. No car battery made can recharge in anything vaguely approaching the time it takes me to tank up. The cost of replacing the expended battery pack after a few years is many thousands of dollars. Those car batteries are several hundred volts. I am waiting to read about the first person to get electrocuted. After billions spent over the last few decades, only a few percent of our energy comes from alternate sources. While they are playing with new technology , they are ignoring the far less glamorous infrastructure like the Orroville dam, that is falling apart. The electical grid that is supposed to carry these wonderous sources of stored energy is also falling apart and totally insecure from cyber attack. They better get their priorities straight. Man made global warming was just solved...at the ballot box. Global temperature unchanged for last 15 years. Sea level rise, so far: ZERO. Correlation between CO2 level and temperature: unclear. Actic icecap shrinking, Antarctic ice cap expanding. Scientsts that disagree too loudly risk losing their jobs ar ulta Liberal universities. Global temperature rising? Probably, it has gone up and down for millions of years. 10,000 years ago the ice cap covered most of the northern hemisphere. In the age of the dynasaurs it was hot as hell, all without a single fossil fuel burning car or power plant.

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Kaizen

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Interesting PBS video. After retching my way past the man made climate change propaganda, there were some interesting developments. However, no battery made has the energy density of a gallon of gasoline. No car battery made can recharge in anything vaguely approaching the time it takes me to tank up. The cost of replacing the expended battery pack after a few years is many thousands of dollars. Those car batteries are several hundred volts. I am waiting to read about the first person to get electrocuted. After billions spent over the last few decades, only a few percent of our energy comes from alternate sources. While they are playing with new technology , they are ignoring the far less glamorous infrastructure like the Orroville dam, that is falling apart. The electical grid that is supposed to carry these wonderous sources of stored energy is also falling apart and totally insecure from cyber attack. They better get their priorities straight. Man made global warming was just solved...at the ballot box. Global temperature unchanged for last 15 years. Sea level rise, so far: ZERO. Correlation between CO2 level and temperature: unclear. Actic icecap shrinking, Antarctic ice cap expanding. Scientsts that disagree too loudly risk losing their jobs ar ulta Liberal universities. Global temperature rising? Probably, it has gone up and down for millions of years. 10,000 years ago the ice cap covered most of the northern hemisphere. In the age of the dynasaurs it was hot as hell, all without a single fossil fuel burning car or power plant.

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The post was more about battery safety not climate change. Just because a lot of people voted for someone does not mean this is not a real thing that should be scientifically looked at. Think of it like this. If I really like m&m's but there is only x number of them left then I can either eat them all and then have nothing or moderate my consumption and see if I can find an alternate. Maybe not as good but might be eventually. No matter who is in the big house I hope they keep exploring the possibilities. If we had kept going after the 70s crisis I bet we would have gotten to a usable alternative


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vettex2

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I have an older light timer with the on/off tabs. I remove the "on" tab and have a multi-strip plugged into it. I leave my chargers plugged into it and when I need to use my tools I manually turn the timer to on and rotate the dial to about four hours. So the timer turns the chargers off but not back on.
Great idea !:beer:
 

Ole Slewfoot

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Feb 22, 2016
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Freedom, CA
Li should be charged 50-80% and stored in a cool place. If you can never run them within 10% of 'full or 'empty', they last longer, but its hard with the chargers they come with.
 

dfiler2

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Dec 15, 2014
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NW Minnesota
I have an older light timer with the on/off tabs. I remove the "on" tab and have a multi-strip plugged into it. I leave my chargers plugged into it and when I need to use my tools I manually turn the timer to on and rotate the dial to about four hours. So the timer turns the chargers off but not back on.

When you have to use your tools you charge the batteries for 4 hours first?
 

kbs2244

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Nov 11, 2006
Messages
14,065
I have an older light timer with the on/off tabs. I remove the "on" tab and have a multi-strip plugged into it. I leave my chargers plugged into it and when I need to use my tools I manually turn the timer to on and rotate the dial to about four hours. So the timer turns the chargers off but not back on.

When you have to use your tools you charge the batteries for 4 hours first?

I had the same question.
 

Voi

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Joined
Oct 10, 2010
Messages
5,147
Location
Western South Dakota
I have an older light timer with the on/off tabs. I remove the "on" tab and have a multi-strip plugged into it. I leave my chargers plugged into it and when I need to use my tools I manually turn the timer to on and rotate the dial to about four hours. So the timer turns the chargers off but not back on.

When you have to use your tools you charge the batteries for 4 hours first?

I had the same question.

Back in the day of low amp-hour NiCad batteries I'd turn the charging system on like on a Friday night if knew I'd be working on something the next day.

When I started to switch to lithium ion batteries I quickly learned that if I started charging batteries at the start of a project I'd have plenty of juice. The timer was just my way of not leaving batteries and chargers plugged in, so to speak.

Now that I have so many Makita 4.0 & 5.0 batteries and rapid chargers it's really not a big deal. The only tool that will run through batteries quicker than I can charge them is my X2 blower if I'm using it non-stop to clear snow.

But I still use the timer system for some peace of mind. I've just always done it.
 
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