New Festool Videos from International Builders Show

[Dave Ronyak]

And Dave you are getting way to complicated,.

The ah rating is there for that reason for us to compare batteries. The performance is the ah rating and the ah rating is the the end result of the things you talk about. Better technology will get you better ah and is the point of the better technology.

ah rating is the way to simplify all that so the simple minded people like me can make good decisions, exactly why Festool puts on a 2.5 ah rating. The power of the battery is directly related to the ah no matter what fancy stuff is in the gun. We are talking batteries here.

The day I test a 2.5 ah battery against a 3.5 ah battery of EQUAL voltages and the 2.5ah hour unit performs better than the 3.5ah unit is the day I will agree with you.

Fair enough, Nick.  But we also know that some manufacturer's are more conservative in their ratings than others who stretch for every higher number they can support in any way for advertising purposes.    Festool has already proven that lower AH and V rated batteries in their C12 drills can out perform some competitors' products that also weigh more.  Panasonic much the same.

Dave R.

 

[tbellemare]

Nick:

I think the intent of the parallel guide is for sheet goods but I agree with Bob, there shouldn't be anything that keeps you from using it on hardwood. The way I understand it, the Parallel Guide references the back of the work piece and the Extensions reference the off cut. It is placed on the outside of the work piece so it shouldn't matter how thick it is.

It looks to me like it is a great tool for use when your MFT isn't useful because of size or configuration of the work piece. I was out at a jobsite yesterday and we were looking at a stack of plywood. It seemed like the ideal solution to not having to move it to cut it.

Bill:

The 12-volt and 15-volt ratings on the new drills are related to their NiMH batteries. In Europe, they come with either the Li-ion or NiMH batteries.

    Li-ion        NiMH
10.8 volts  12 volts
14.4 volts  15.6 volts

These drills also use all of the C12 and TDK batteries.

Tom

 

[nickao]

I may give it a go, if nothing else I can be the Guinea Pig.

It comes in March 1 so do I have a little time or is there a waiting list or something.

 

[tbellemare]

I don't know of a waiting list. You can be the first...

I just added another comment to the above entry.

Tom

 

[Bob Marino]

I am pretty sure this item, along with the 65 planer and new drills will be well stocked by Festool. As stated previously, the guides should   :-X   :-X be available March 1, and we dealers geting ours sometime in February.

Bob

 

[nickao]

Well the dealers are going to test them and put up some pictures, I hope. 

It seems to me the best deal not only on price, but to get the full  function is to get both at the same time for the 320.00. I think most people want them for repeatable small (narrow) cuts and the extensions seem to be needed for that.

I make my boxes for the big inlays with ply I could see me zipping through cutting up the 1.5 inch strips(for the frame) using this, that may be worth the cost right there. I hate making the boxes and it is always the worst part of the project for me.

I HATE making the boxes!

 

[sw1211]

I've been trying to envision if these would work to cut strips as you mentioned or if they would require some kind of additional PITA set up as with the MFT's to do repeatable rips.  Since you're willing to be the guinea pig, I guess I'll wait for your review.  If these work as hoped this could be the thing to justify getting rid of the TS, at least for me. 

Not sure you're interested or have the time, have you thought of contacting Festool and offering to do a review in exchange for these?  No reason someone new shouldn't get some "freebies" and provide a new style of a review.

 

[mwhafner]

Fair enough, Nick.  But we also know that some manufacturer's are more conservative in their ratings than others who stretch for every higher number they can support in any way for advertising purposes.    Festool has already proven that lower AH and V rated batteries in their C12 drills can out perform some competitors' products that also weigh more.   Panasonic much the same.

Dave R.

You hit the nail on the head.  Everyone tests and rates differently.

Ah is really only a fair comparison within a given manufacturers line (comparing C12 1.3, 2.4, and 3.0 batteries).  

The great benefit to larger Ah, is that the tool can generally run in the optimal voltage range for a greater period of time.  Thus seeming more powerful.  The same drill with a 1.3Ah battery should be just as powerful as with a 3Ah battery, but performance will degrade much more quickly.

 

[Notorious T.O.D.]

I was thinking for Ni Cad it was 1.2 v per cell, it may be the same for Li Ion but it might be slightly higher also...

Best,
Todd

 

[tbellemare]

Li-ion cells vary in voltage depending on the material used for the anode and cathode.

Apparently, the Festool cells are 3.6 volts.

Tom

 

[tbellemare]

I think Li-ion cells need to be recharged at right around 3 volts.

Tom

 

[tbellemare]

Li-ion batteries are a lot trickier to deal with from the tool and charger standpoint than NiCD or NiMH. They can't handle overcharging, they burn or explode, and they can't handle deep discharging, they get permanently degraded.

Their charging is tricky also. Apparently there are different methods but the charging isn't just, "apply a higher voltage than the cell's nominal voltage", like in the old days. One method uses constant voltage until the nominal cell votage is reached and then constant current.

It's nice to know these have top-notch engineering...

Tom

 

[bill-e]

Bill:

The 12-volt and 15-volt ratings on the new drills are related to their NiMH batteries. In Europe, they come with either the Li-ion or NiMH batteries.

    Li-ion         NiMH
10.8 volts   12 volts
14.4 volts   15.6 volts

These drills also use all of the C12 and TDK batteries.

Tom

Tom, thanks, that answers my original question

 

[bill-e]

Nick, no problem, I really thought of our exchange as a discussion and meant no disrespect....I just had to poke back with my response, wasn't really "hurt"

Not to prolong the discussion but I found a pretty good analogy and grabbed off the web for those of us torn over the issue.  I lost the original page I grabbed it from because my paying job got in the way over the last couple of hours, but I'll post the link when I find it again.

-----clip----------

Think of it this way:

    * You have a bucket of marbles. The marbles run out through a spigot at the bottom. The marbles then flow over a waterwheel that they spin.
    * The bigger the bucket, the more marbles you can hold.
    * Big marbles spin the wheel faster than small marbles, but any particular bucket is designed to hold only one size of marbles.
    * The bigger the spigot, the faster the marbles can pour out and the wheel spins faster. However, the bucket also runs out faster.
    * Each bucket is fairly fragile and can only be used once.

Makes sense doesn't it? Now let's apply the analogy.

The energy characteristics of a battery are usually described as Amp Hours, Voltage, and Internal Resistance. All three of these factors affect how the battery works.

The waterwheel? That's the work that the energy is doing.

The bucket? That's the battery. The "bigger" the battery (bucket), the more electricity it can hold. The size of the battery is measured in Amp Hours (Ah for Amp Hours or mAh for milli-Amp Hours).

The size of the marbles? That's the voltage. Bigger marbles = higher voltage. The higher the voltage, the more effort it can put into getting the work done.

The size of the spigot? That's the internal resistance. Lower internal resistance (big spigot) means that the battery can dump out more of its electricity over any given period of time. Higher internal resistance (small spigot) keeps the electrictiy from flowing out of the battery as quickly.

-------------------

 

[tbellemare]

The following is from the new drill literature that Festool puts out:

The battery packs are charged using controlled
impulses that continually interrupt the charging
process for milliseconds at a time. The charging time,
cell temperature and the current charge are continually
monitored so that the charging current is adjusted
properly. This insures a high capacity and a large
number of charging cycles.

Tom

 

[bill-e]

Nick, with the current NiCd TDK's the batteries have a thermistor.  The charger keeps track of the voltage at the thermistor and when it doesn't like what it sees, turns off the charging process.

As for the Lion, I may be wrong but I think that almost all Lion batteries have some sort of circuit, either built into the cell or into the pack or both.  We need a picture of the inside of one of these things

 

[tbellemare]

That's a good question, Nick.

It's my understanding that Li-ion batteries pretty much HAVE to be smart batteries. Based on the blurb I posted above, it seems that the Festool Li-ion batteries also have some sort of temperature sensor as well as the typical Li-ion intelligence.

I have read that some chargers have fans to cool the batteries while charging them. It seems that Festool's approach is more robust because it doesn't depend on the ambient temperature, it is reading the internal temp of the battery pack and adjusting the charge rate accordingly.

I also read somewhere that some Li-ion charging systems read the charge on each individual cell and perform a sort of "cell balancing" trick because apparently they don't always charge in unison. It seems there's value in having each cell in the same condition.

Tom

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Nick,

Here's a link you might find interesting to read.  It's about rebuilding a Li-Ion PC battery, but contains a comparison of different battery types.
Battery Rebuild and Comparison  Note the 3.6V of a Li-Ion cell versus 1.2 of a NiCad cell.

Bill E,

Here's another way to look at the different AH and V ratings.  As Nick and others stated, AH is the electrical energy storage capacity.  In Bill's marbles illustration, the total weight of all the marbles up in the elevated storage bin is the equivalent to the AH of the battery.  V can be viewed as analogous to electrical pressure.  The higher the voltage, the more energy is contained in each electron, so fewer electrons are needed to pass through the motor to produce the same amount of work.  Or if the same number of electrons are passed through that motor, more torque and more work are output.

The voltage capability of any battery cell is determined by its basic chemistry.  For a tool maker to get the desired battery output voltage, multiple cells must be joined in series, so their individual cell voltages are added together.  Higher voltage enables more torque and thus instanteous work output by the motor, but the total amount of work output by the motor is determined by the AH capacity of the battery, regardless of voltage output of the battery.  This is basic physics and chemistry, right?

I was wondering if there was an industry standard that all power tool makers use for the batteries.  I am skeptical, though, because of the hype that many tool manufacturers have used in advertising the power of their compressors, lawnmower engines and electrical tools.  Instead of steady state power output, they often advertise much higher numbers based on power output when a free wheeling motor is suddenly loaded to stall, thus capturing the inertial load effect for an instant.

 

[JeromeM]

Tom I almost purchased that FS-PA Parallel stop and FS-PA-VL

I have never held it or actually seen it. Will it work with hardwoods?

I know it is more than likely designed for ply, but I would love to use it on the  3" x 10"  wide boards I get.

Mine has just landed  ;D but it will be another 4 weeks before I can get to it However if you look at the detail you will see that it sits beside the work piece. So as long as you have rails longer than your workpiece and a saw that will cut deep enough the thickness is not a factor

 

[slb]

Sigh!!   Not meaning to pick a fight, but a lot of nonsense has been flowing here.  Amp Hours are the total energy capacity of a battery, like the size of a gas tank.   But energy capacity has no direct connection to how high a current a battery can deliver without overheating or to how well a particular motor and control circuit can convert the electricity to mechanical power.  1 amp delivered for 2.5 hours is 2.5AH, but so is 2.5 amps delivered for 1 hour.  At the same voltage, which amount of current is going to provide more oomph in the drill?  The input power of the drill is the voltage times the amps.  If you knew the amp draw, you could use the AH to tell you how long before recharge, but you can't use AH to predict power, even at the same voltage.

FWIW, I was an electrical engineer.  I am not slinging opinions.