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I just got my new Lithium Ion battery yesterday so I can't comment on it in any meaningful way except to say that it has brought my tools back to life. I've had mine now for a few years and they lasted almost a year and a half before they died on me. This isn't really a review of the battery because, if you have a Skil tool that requires this type of battery then you didn't have much choice but to buy this batter. I particularly like my Skil hand drill and Skil reciprocating saw so having those back is a great thing plus I get all the benefit of Lithium Ion.These new Lithium Ion batteries require a new charger so you'll have to buy the battery and charger pack which runs about ninety bucks at Lowe's. One big tip I suggest is to keep your batteries in a place with consistent and cool temperature. I used to leave my batteries in the garage or shed and I'm pretty sure that contributed to their short life.The second point I wanted to make is that you can now buy a Lithium Ion replacement battery instead of this old Ni-Cad battery. Amazon carries this battery and charger pack for a whopping hundred and twenty. http://www.amazon.com/Skil-SC118B-LI-18-Volt-Charger-Battery/dp/B00213L52G/ref=pd_bxgy_hi_img_b
Picture shows charge range at bottom side,product itself doesn't have it.Original Skil Powerpack has it also.Otherwise working fine.
work great , i think better then the origanial ones that came with the tools, lots of power and a great price
It was exactly what I needed and the price was right. Works great with the other products that I use it with.
But if you leave the battery sitting there for a day, it'll be dead when you go to use it. That battery is on it's way out too. As many people are aware, inferior products and designed obsolescence seem to be part of the business plan of many consumer product manufacturers these days. I say, take that [.]. If you charge it fully and use it, you'll get an hour or 3 of continuous use.
They also have poor shelf life -- meaning they don't hold a charge for very long once they've been charged. For one, they're Nickel Cadmium, which is an older, cheaper battery technology that has memory issues. Lithium batteries are the way to go. for one of these batteries a bad idea. on a different drill that used lithium batteries. The batteries will serve you much better.So, why does this battery suck so bad.
If I knew then what I know now after having owned this drill for going on 3 years, I would have spent the [.]. Then next month, buy a completely new drill that uses better batteries like one of those lithium drivers that run around [.]. 20-80% is their sweet spot. They have excellent energy density and they can handle quite a bit of charging cycles.
Basically if you don't completely discharge the battery every time, you will shorten the life of the battery fairly quickly. I'm not a contractor for a living, so I don't use my drill every day, which makes leaving the batteries on the charger a bad idea. and put it away. You can't "refresh" the battery. batteries. So it looks like skil addressed that issue with their new batteries, but if you own an older drill, you're SOL.The charger that Skil provides for these batteries is a generic piece of junk charger. I have the Skil 2887 18v cordless drill that uses these batteries.
But the main feature to me is the long shelf life. If they gave you a good charger, you wouldn't have to spend $45 on a new battery every year. There is very little logic for preserving battery life. It's just a straight up charger, which is to be expected. Essentially it becomes a wrestling match to get the battery loose from the drill.
One of them doesn't hold a charge at all so I'm forced to leave the other on the charger so that it's ready when I need it. Also, if you leave it on the charger for extended periods of time, you'll find that it won't be able to hold a charge when you want to use it. More on that later.First off, if you buy the Skil 2887 drill for around [.]., you get 2 of these [.]. I notice that the new Skil 18v drills use 2 buttons like most other drill manufacturers. (It's only 3/8", but it gets the job done most of the time). It binds inside the battery shell. These batteries in particular have terrible shelf life.
I'm saving up for a high torque lithium driver.On top of being an under-performing battery, the clip these batteries use to lock into the drill is such a bad design. The only drawback with lithium is that they don't like to be discharged fully or charged fully. The drill is fine. That seems to be the case with these batteries.So why lithum then. Well despite being a more expensive (and more prone to explosion) technology, lithium batteries have excellent shelf life. This is not only awkward to use, but it loosens over time and the single switch becomes inadequate for moving the 2 locks. Buy a new tool if you have one that uses this battery. It uses a single release switch to unclip 2 locks.
So, essentially you get a free drill and battery charger, which makes paying [.]. I want to be able to leave my drill sitting there for a while and when I need it, I want it to be ready to go. And it takes something around 3-6 hours to charge.With my 3 year old skil drill, I have 2 of these batteries. I absolutely refuse to buy a new battery because it's such a bad value. So if you have a charger that understands that, you'll get a nice long life out of lithium batteries. Their high energy density makes them lighter and smaller, and their long shelf life helps them out perform larger, higher voltage batteries.So, stay away from this battery.
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