Rednroll

So a little over a year ago I started replacing my NiCad cordless tools with Lithium ion equivalent tools. I realized along the way that when you're deciding on which particular brand of tool to go with that looking at the costs of additional chargers and batteries often tends to be more important in many aspects than the actual tool since you're really investing into a battery/charger eco system. All my previous DeWalt and Craftsman NiCad tools still worked great but the costs of replacement batteries and chargers just seemed ridiculous.

My 1st Lithium battery cordless tool I ever purchased was a 12V Black and Decker small drill/screw driver. At the time it was 7 years ago and the regular price was like $48 and Sam's club was clearing them out for $12, so I purchased 3 of them. I have done nothing special with these B&D screw drivers. I keep the batteries mounted in their chargers and just leave them there and pull them out of the battery charger when I need to use the tool. They're still working great after owning them for 7 years. So I'm like "Great, these Lithium battery tools are the shiznit, sit it and forget it, just what I want."

So I started investing in the HF Bauer brand based upon the costs of the replacement batteries. $20 for 1.5Ah and $35 for 3.0Ah batteries, $20 for additional chargers. I did my homework ahead of time where the 2 top lithium battery cells seem to be made by either Samsung or LG and the Bauer's use Samsung cells. Checked that box off.

Basically, I want tools which are set it and forgot it and it's ready to go when I need it which is what the B&D screw drivers I purchased ended up being. It's not like B&D is a top name brand tool so I figured the Bauer's should work fine for me as well. Both made in China value brand tools. I've now killed 4 of the Bauer batteries with my set it and forget them on the chargers approach. I know there's definitely the "You get what you pay for" aspect to consider. So I started doing some research and came across this write-up.
https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/b...wont-recharge/
That is EXACTLY what I have been experiencing. I leave the battery in the charger for extended periods of time and the next time I go into my shop, I am greeted with a blinking red and green light indicating the battery is defective. The battery is drained and the charger refuses to charge it and I've owned them for less than a year. I measured the voltage on one of the defective batteries and it was at 12Volts and a good one that would charge was was at 20Volts. It hasn't been too much of a problem so far because I've just been taking them back to HF and getting replacements, but it got me considering that maybe there's a better way i should be handling these batteries/chargers. As of yesterday, I stopped leaving the batteries in the chargers and just plug them into the tools instead and hope they don't drain over time and are still ready to go the next time I need them. I am now charging the batteries and pulling them off the chargers as soon as they are fully charged.

Are there some DOs and DON'Ts I should be following with these Lithium batteries and charging them or is this just a "You get what you pay for" scenario I've invested in with the Bauer brand batteries and chargers?

icrashbikes

I'm in the Dewalt camp. For no particular reason other than the first cordless drill my dad bought me a million years ago was a Dewalt and I drove down the 20V path when it came around. Now, even though I do like some other manufacturer's tools, I'm with Dewalt because I have enough batteries and chargers to make investing in another system a ridiculous prospect. That said, I've never had 20, 40 or 60V Li Ion battery go bad. I don't leave them on the charger after they finish, but that's still what I consider a pretty stellar track record. I've built whole houses with my cordless tools too, they are definitely well used and the batteries go through periods of pretty intense charge/discharge. I have no basis for comparison to any other brand and I found it odd reading your post that this is a common thing. I also have a lot of LiPo and LiFe hobby batteries which do require maintenance and care, but I've always considered the tool batteries pretty bulletproof. I rigged my son's power wheels corvette to run off the 20V batteries with no ill effects. I do monitor the voltages with a "gas gauge" in that particular scenario, otherwise I just run them till they slow down or quit. I will sometimes leave the batteries attached to tools and I haven't had a problem. Most just sit around till I need them. I think keeping yours off the chargers should probably fix your issue, but definitely keep us posted.

Rednroll

Thanks for sharing your uses of handling the batteries. Hopefully, leaving them off the chargers for the extended periods of time will fix my problem.

I've always been a DeWalt fan as well. I built an entire recording studio using DeWalt cordless tools in the past. In fact I had originally planned on investing in DeWalt Lithium's this time around. I purchased a Dewalt cordless shop vacuum, (2) 20V 3.0Ah batteries and (2) chargers. My follow up investment to that eco system, I was going to purchase a nice DeWalt starter kit since I like to start with a kit of the basics and then further build off of that by purchasing individual tools as needed. I'm typically not an impulse buyer where I started doing my homework and shopping around for a good DeWalt starter kit. That's where things kind of turned me away from DeWalt. I noticed the tools in the kit I was looking at didn't have the same model numbers as the equivalent individual tools that I could purchase separately. So I further started to dig in to understand the differences and determine if I should be concerned by the different model numbers. I come to learn that DeWalt seems to be doing some funny business with their kits that's easy to overlook if you don't read the fine print. They're providing lower speced, lower quality, with less feature tools in their kits. Add that to the fact that their batteries and chargers are pretty expensive and the vacuum and the batteries I had previously purchased didn't run very long before needing a recharge, I then decided to go in another direction.

This fella actually made a Youtube vid out describing exactly what I learned when I was looking to start investing into the DeWalt kits and eco system. This pretty much turned me off to DeWalt since it felt like the money I was saving by purchasing a starter kit, I wasn't saving any $ at all but was kind of getting ripped off instead and I may have to turn around and repurchase the original tool that I thought I was buying in the kit.

DEJK2012

So Lithium battery's are anal. The Samsungs in my opinion are the best. Now you need to make shur there is some kind of charging protection on the batterys, if they start to overcharge the samsungs have a built in "protection" where they shut off and wont budge. That is because if they over charge or get to hot they go boom. I have seen it in person and you defiantly know when one catches fire lol. I would definatly recommend buying a charger that has an automatic cut off if you just leave them there, dewalt, milwakee and a few of the other "higher end" tools have them, one reason why they are so expensive. If i was you i would use them normally and when on the charger just come and check them every hour or so, when it is done just pull it off. They will hold a charge for a good period with no issues. But the best practice is to leave about 25% charge for "long" storage times. RC guys know alot about these batterys as they deal with them alot, so i would search around on those sites also.

Rednroll

Thanks, makes sense. I had originally assumed that the Bauer chargers had an auto cut-off but based on my current experience, maybe that is not the case and that explains the different experience I've had between the B&D Lithium and these Bauers. Just a difference in the chargers. I did notice yesterday when I went to return another defective battery that HF now has a new black case Bauer battery pack where the originals came in a red case. Maybe there's something fishy going on with the circuit boards inside of the original red case battery packs and they fixed it with the recently released black pack versions?....Maybe they got tired of me returning defective batteries. I'll have to get one of the Black pack ones in the future and open it up to see if there's any differences besides the change of color in cases.

What I've read so far in regards to DON'Ts is that I shouldn't leave the battery on the charger and that you shouldn't recharge it immediately after use when the battery is still warm. Both of those things I'm currently guilty of.

resharp001

My experience with LIPO batteries is mainly in the RC field, and those batteries are pretty dang powerful, much more so than these tool batteries. I'd think the same would apply though. LIPO batteries don't like to be stored depleted or fully charged. Usually 80-85% charge is what I've always understood as ideal level for longer term inactivity/storage. The real benefit is they hold the charge much better than those dumb NiMH batteries do. As already pointed out, likely the charger has a safety feature in it so the battery doesn't sit fully charge for an extended period of time in that charger and go boom....so it triggers a protective drain feature. I suspect if you're just a little more diligent about removing it from the charger, you're going to see much better life and performance.

Rednroll

Yep, I think I'm just going to leave the batteries on the tools for now on and then every couple months or so, throw them in the charger or just recharge after I've drained them from use, then see how things go from there.

Currently vested in these Bauer tools and its battery eco system where I currently have 11 tools, 7 batteries, and 5 chargers. Too late to turn back now. Overall, the tools have been fine for my uses, just this battery problem has been concerning.

icrashbikes

Just a quick aside, what kind of RC?

Karenos

This is useful information for me, I have a set of electric tools, among which there is an cordless screwdriver drill and a cordless drill https://drilling-it.com/cordless-drill-vs-cordless-screwdriver-when-is-a-cordless-driver-the-best-option.Your experience will come in handy to me. I didn’t quite understand how to handle batteries properly. Now I think that it is possible to have any one of these two tools, the drill can be completely replaced by an acupuncture tool.