bob said:
Having owned many of these, i often wondered on how to get
the most lifetime out of the battery's.
I have had little used 14.4 volt drills that after 2 or 3
years the battery packs become very degraded. I this case,
the drill sits unused for a long period of time, then recharged
before next use.
Laptops, same story. occasional use, sits for awhile then used again.
Batteries are usually rated for so many cycles of recharging.
So, should it be better to constantly recharge the units,
or only charge as needed?
The charge as needed method for units that sit for awhile does not
seem to work out very well. I have a number of drill power packs
that i need to find some of those tab ni-cads for. I think there
c size or such. Anybody with tips on that let me know..
Keeping them constantly plugged in seems to me would use up
there number of charge cycles and shorten life to.
so, whats the best way to get the most out of rechargeable battery
packs?
And how can hybrid cars get 10 years out of a battery pack
when i am lucky to get 2 or 3 out of most of the packs i have?
I do see online how some of the early gen Prius packs are failing
much to the owners displeasure.
bob
after frying a couple of 14 and 18 volt batt packs for my drills i
discovered the supplied 2amp wall warts were over kill for unregulated
recharging of the batterie packs
instead i found a smaller 750ma wall wart to do the job.
now even after 2months of sitting on the shelf my new battery packs
still hold their charge.
for port dvd players etc that use a transformer wall wart for home
use replace it with a switch mode device (at the correct voltage) and
there will no longer be problems of overheating.
reason is the supplied cheap wall wart puts out way more than is
needed causing the players built in regulator to lower it to say
12volts.
heat is the byproduct.
hybrid cars have a sophisticated charger that prevents destruction
due to improper recharging.
barry