Battery Storage

[86Rescuetech]

I took a cue from a few of you guys about battery storage for our portabe tools. We have two 18V Sawzalls, two Dewalt 14.4V drills, and an Argus 2 TIC on our Rescue Truck. Without spending mony on an inverter, how can we keep the chargers on the truck and not have them recharge everytime the shore line is plugged and unplugged? We have already cooked our TIC batteries on our Engine from doing this. I have not used the battery powered units because of the battery issue, but I would like to. Suggestions please. Be safe.

[This message has been edited by 86Rescuetech (edited 01-12-2001).]

[fireman_387]

What kind of TIC do you use? Most battery mfg's today have their batteries go into a trickle mode after fully charging. On the last TIC I sold, the dept wired the charger in the vehicle so they have a charged battery to use at all times.

On the Sawzall, I was at a local "chain" hardware store with my FD; we were asked to use a cordless saw and cut a car in half. One thing I noticed is that if you conitnually "load" the battery it overheated and the power went really fast, if you did your cutting in short bursts to keep the battery cool, it lasted much longer. This was on a brand new unit.

One thing to make sure, if you have an option in batteries choose Nickel Metal Hydride as they tend to give fewer problems than NiCad.


[This message has been edited by fireman_387 (edited 01-06-2001).]

[cp-ny]

I thought I would add a note here on a battery experience we recently had in our shop. We recently purchased a second battery for our 18v dewalt cordless drill. We never use to remove the battery from the charger until we needed it, in other words we let the charger do its thing - charge the battery and then go into whatever sustaining mode it should following a full charge. We do not do this anymore, however. After charging this new battery the 2nd time, one morning my employees discovered a melted charger and battery. This made me a little nervous. Dewalt was very good about taking care of replacing the charger and battery. We now charge batteries during the day and unplug at night. Has anyone else had or heard of similar situations? Any battery related fires?

[Lewiston2Capt]

We have 4 DeWalt 24 V batteries and chargers on our rescue truck. The batteries are on a power strip with a circuit breaker. We havent had any problems with the batteries overheating, melting, or refusing a charge. We have drained the batteries several times now and havent had a problem yet. This might be a problem to take to the cordless 'cip saw manufacturers to see what they say.

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Shawn M. Cecula
Captain
Lewiston Fire Co. No. 2

[Engine 224]

We leave our two 18 volt batteries in their chargers which are connected to shore power. One charger failed and Lowes replaced it without any questions. The other is still going strong. No other problems - the crew grabs a battery out of the charger as they exit the cab and then the jump kit with the saw, extra blades, Pry axe, seat belt cutter, Glassmaster, cable cutters, etc.

Sounds like you had a catastrophic batter charger failure.

[dave peck]

There is a current recall on some of the Dewalt battery chargers. Sounds like you guys may have one of these.

[This message has been edited by dave peck (edited 01-11-2001).]