Li-on batteries

[jnug]

Looking for a little help on best maintenance practices for  tool Li-ons. I have gone mainly to corded drills and my new impact driver is the first cordless I have bought in a while. Put a charge on them. Makita ships a fast charger that I am sure reverts to trickle once you charge the batteries. Any good maintenance practices I should follow that are specific to these big tool battery packs?

After charging I loaded one back on the driver and put the plastic protective cover on the other. Any maintenance tips?

 

[sae]

Li-ions are best stored at ~50% charge. Draining your pack halfway before storing each time is unpractical though, so keep it above zero. Most packs will shutdown around 3 volts, most Li-ions packs/chargers will reject a charge if voltage falls below 2 volts because it's an explosion hazard. You can revive packs that fall into low voltage with very controlled charging, but probably best not attempted consumers.

Deep cycling is usually the most common detriment Li-ion lifespan. If you drain to zero with every use, you'll see less lifespan than if you drained to 50% before recharging (or even 25%). Heat is also your enemy, quick charging and discharging introduces a lot of heat into the pack. Makita and Metabo built in air channels into the packs to counteract this heat buildup on charging, but any other brands, you're not really left with a choice. If you have the option to use a "slow" charger, it might save you a handful of life. As for quick discharge, that's really the nature of the tool you're using and the work you're doing.

That's all I can think of. These are best practices, but really they're a lot less sensitive to "habit induced wear" like Nicads are. You can abuse the packs and probably still get 3 years out of 'em with everyday use.

 

[jnug]

Not sure if you have seen how the Makita charger is set up but it basically asks you what job you have lined up for it and helps you determine how much and what kind of charge you should put on the battery. Interesting set up. Thanks for the info. I am really going to try to stretch these out if I can as I do not nave every day use for an impact driver. But I hate like heck to have batteries just waste away unused.

Thanks again for the info.