Dewalt brushless tool battery life and maint.?

Htm84

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Jun 16, 2019
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Bingo. Mine live in my uneated machine shed. I'm guessing that's contributed to the poor life. I will bring them in for sure this fall.

That’s probably why. I keep all
My stuff inside in the winter up here. I still have a couple Makita batteries that are 8plus years old and work ok. I usually try and run them down most of the way before charging also. Dewalts customer service has got to be the worst on the planet in my experience.
 

Beendare

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Dewalt brushless is good stuff. Batteries here in non freezing climate go 3-4 yrs of non stop use- that’s pretty darn good versus having to drag an extension cord all over through your job site.

I run Makita stuff and its top quality. I learned the hard way on the quality of these tools when working side by side with my nephew. At the time I was running Milwaukee and he was using Makita. We were driving 3” screws into large form panels all day and my Milwaukee driver burned up while his Makita was still going strong
 

Marbles

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Lithiums have a limited lifecycle. Because most users care about how long a charge lasts, Dewalt maxes out charge and discharge, which shortens the total number of charge cycles the battery can take.

If you can find a way to only charge them to 85% they will have roughly twice as many charge/discharge cycles.
 

Sled

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Lithiums have a limited lifecycle. Because most users care about how long a charge lasts, Dewalt maxes out charge and discharge, which shortens the total number of charge cycles the battery can take.

If you can find a way to only charge them to 85% they will have roughly twice as many charge/discharge cycles.

True. With lithium batteries, like a cell phone, below 20% and above 80% is where the damage happens. Never let them run out of battery like you did with nickle cadmium. The last bit of charge above 80% has a lot of spikes which isn't good. The slower a lithium battery charges the better. But who wants to wait for a charge?
 

grfox92

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Unfortunately while Dewalt makes great cordless tools. Their batteries are terrible.

We build custom homes and work with a crew that uses Dewalt, we use Makita, their tools are always dead. I used to joke that they needed to wear a combat vest with batteries in the magazine pouches to keep up with how fast their batteries were dying.

I used to work for a company and all we used was Dewalt, I had no reason to think anything was bad about them, until I started working with a guy who runs all Makita. I very quickly sold my Dewalt stuff and bought all brand new Makita stuff. That decision was mostly based off of battery life.

I do not believe leaving them on the charger will hurt them, I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the modern charges stop supplying power to the battery once fully charged.

Most aftermarket options are Chinese junk and not an upgrade.

Sent from my SM-G990U using Tapatalk
 

Maki35

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Aug 21, 2020
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I do not leave my batteries charging overnight/ for a long period of time. I take them off the charger once the green light comes on. Over charging them causes them to wear out faster.
Same reason I don't over charge my cellphone (I don't buy new c. phones every few years.)
Fridged temps are also bad for batteries. I know a few contractors that had to buy new batteries for their dewalts because they left them in their truck overnight during a fridged winter storm.
 
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I also don’t leave mine on the charger- have a couple that are probably close to 8 years old and still work fine, I don’t notice a difference between them and ones that are only a year old.
 
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I never leave them on the charger once they are fully charged but not sure that matters. Can buy replacment authentic 20 volt dewalt batteries for cheap on ebay.

I’d watch out. I’m betting those are replicas. I doubt retailers can get them that cheap.
 

def90

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Aug 12, 2020
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I have DeWalt drills, impacts, multi-tools and a vac that I use daily at work doing commercial low voltage work. They fall off ladders on to concrete floors, get rained on, get coated in drywall and all other manners of dust and dirt. I have yet to have any issues with the batteries if they don’t get stolen first.
 

Catchfish

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Jan 21, 2019
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I got a set of Dewalts from the in-laws when building my shed. I was running all ridgid at the time. Both batteries failed before I had completed the shed build.
I took both batteries to our local hardware store during Dewalt day and walked up to their booth. When they asked if they could help me I told them yes the batteries are crap and I want replacements. They sent them in and a week later I had new batteries delivered. Funniest part was watching the Makita dealer snicker in his booth. Dewalt rep told me they had a batch of bad batteries, cheap lithium from china blah blah blah but they did me right.
 
Joined
Jun 7, 2018
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South Carolina
I have the Dewalt chainsaw and blower. I have found that I need to take the battery out of the blower (gets the most use) and bring inside during winter. We're not getting many freezing cold days in SC, but definitely wet.

I have called Dewalt and had two batteries replaced by them at no cost to me. Keeping them inside and pulling off the charger once fully charged has helped with their life span.
 
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