What Counts as 1000 Charges?

[rmoore]

Question from a reciprocating saw rescuer. Any feedback from those of you who also work with cordless stuff at crash scenes?
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Ron:
Milwaukee recommends that charging a battery before performance falls off counts as a charging cycle thus decreasing the life of the battery.

If this is the case, we should not recharge untill the performance falls off to maximize battery life! They claim that their batteries have a limit of 1000 or more charges, thus recharging a battery before it is discharged causes more recharges thus limiting the life of the battery.

Is this the correct conclusion for DeWALT batteries ?
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Reply:
DeWalt also reports the 1,000 charging cycle life for rechargeable batteries. But at the same time, they strongly recommend placing the battery back on the charger after every use. They also recommend leaving the battery on the charger any time it is not in use.

There is a digital video on the DeWalt Fire & Rescue website that I was involved in. The section of the program regarding batteries has me stating the following; "Because of this inherently different way of drawing power, 24 volt reciprocating saw batteries WILL NOT develop a Nicad memory. In fact, the best place for a reciprocating saw battery is on a charger that is plugged into a power source."

So, we're left with contrasting points of view; Milwaukee and DeWalt recommending different things. As for me, my fire department has DeWalt and we're following the "on charger" recommendation.

[ADSNWFLD]

So far I haven't seen the advances in battery technology for tools that I have seen in other things like radios. I've seen a department that kept the spare battery in the charger so everytime the rig was plugged in it would charge. They rotated the battteries every day and after about a year both batteries were fried. So I would keep a few batteries and charge them only when needed. I would also get a 120 adapter just in case.

[firefighter1962]

Recently I attended a formal vehicle extrication course, after extensively training in house and performing numerous extrications since 1996. During the course I attempted to remove a windshield with a Dewalt battery operated recip saw. The bottom line was that the battery in it didn’t have enough juice to perform the task. The “extra” battery turned out to be stone dead.

IMHO, unless you belong to a very busy department and are able to cycle these batteries properly, they are a complete waste of time and money. All I know is that our 110 volt recip saw does the job every time.

[gregblewett]

A great way to cycle your dewalt batteries is with a dewalt radio. I have found that by rotating my batteries into my (Jobsite) radio I have been able to rehabilitate some of them. Due to the low rate of discharge, after a week or so of use in the radio they seem to last longer. This is totaly subjective but it at least gets tunes on the jobsite. The Dewalt radio will also charge from 9.6-18 volt batteries.

Also you may want to consider having your batteries rebuilt. About one half the cost of new with a higher mah rating. Batteries plus is who our company uses.