Ni h or li ion battery

Joined
Jul 14, 2020
Messages
596
my bud was giving away his old Dewalt tools. sawzall drill jigsaw light and circular saw. according to the dates in them the are 2004 made they all take the same battery.

they did not come with batteries bit they did come with chargers. i can get replacement aftermarket batteries on amazon for it . they are offered in nickel hydride or lithium ion .

i don't really want to spend a lot of money on these tools. these are all duplicates of stuff i have already.

So should i get the nih ones or the lithium ones ?

 
Joined
Mar 10, 2013
Messages
2,132
Location
NY
Well generally with nimh batteries as the battery dies the tool gets less powerful. With the lithium the tool keeps the same power until it just stops from a dead battery. It would be like driving a car that made less power the closer to empty you got. It’s sort of frustrating because even if the nimh battery has 25% remaining it might not have enough power to cut or screw what you need.
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2020
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Missouri
I know the generic batteries for Milwaukee don't work with the milwaukee charger. It only works with a slow charge from a usb cable.
Probably the same for Dewalt.
 
Joined
May 4, 2017
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Location
VA
I replaced the nicad batteries in my Dewalt with Dewalt Lion battery. The charger had to be replaced as the nicad charger isn't compatible with Lion batteries.
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2005
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MD
Maybe you can get an adapter to take the modern flavor of Li batteries. You can choose to adapt Dewalt or Milwaukee batteries, and possibly other brands too.


This works well, but it makes the tool a little clumsy sometimes because the weight distribution is off. Almost all of my tools take "stem packs" but stem packs are junk now, so I us the "slide pack" adapter that you linked.
 
Joined
Jan 25, 2018
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1,567
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South Carolina
I had the old Dewalt 18V tools and really liked them until the batteries died. Two new ones cost well over $100, so I tried knockoffs from Amazon. These brand new batteries were total junk, less powerful than the dying branded batteries. If you want to resurrect the old tools, get the adapter and use Dewalt 20V batteries.
My $.02
 
Joined
Dec 31, 2017
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SE British Columbia, Canada
The knock-off industry is maturing. Waitley has been reliable and long lasting for my Dewalt equipment.

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