Drill/Battery myths
A lot of what was said here was true-but there are many 'factors' to consider. First of all, the old, orange NI-CAD Makita battery had a less amp hr rating than the subsequent newer NI-MH battery. Yes it does require a compatible charger, as the old one will not charge NI-MH and for that matter, the old chargers probably won't charge the newer orange NI-CAD batteries if they have a higher amp hr rating that the originals. Yeah it all sucks, much like computers, as they keep changing the rules and the hardware. But....every generation of battery works much better than its previous generation. You don't see people in the trades using NI-MH or Lithium-Iron batteries lamenting the old days of NI-CAD batteries. A lot of what kills rechargeable batteries is how and when you charge them. For NI-CAD batteries, it was always beneficial to run them down before charging and so later NI-CAD chargers would then 'discharge' the batteries for you before they charged them-worked pretty well. Now with NI-MH and Lithium-Iron that's not as critical, except that you can even damage Lithium-Iron if you slam them into a charger all the time at near full charge. Heat too will kill any of the generation batteries if you put them in the charger hot. Before you buy a new drill "kit", look for companies that offer lifetime or extended warranties to replace the Lithium-Iron batteries for free (or just shipping). Truly, if you have to buy Lithium-Iron batteries outright, you'd be much better off buying another "kit", which of course is not eco-friendly. I have to use about a dozen rechargeable drills in my profession and the batteries have always been the Achilles Heel of the "kits", sometimes to the point of 'voodoo'!
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