When Home Depot was selling off some of their cordless sets last year I
bought a set by Ridgid that includes drill, impact driver,
recriprocating saw, flashlight and 2 18V Lion batteries. I haven't had
much occasion to use them until recently. Friday I bought a 2x4 at
HomeDepot for a little project, and actually needed it in 2 pieces so I
took the cordless saw with me thinking I could cut off the one piece and
then the remainder would fit in my car easier. I noticed that after
cutting about 1/2" through the board the saw stopped. It would restart
but only about 1/8" before stopping again. I did this for awhile until
I got all the way through the board- cut, stop, cut, stop, .... I
thought maybe something was wrong with the saw. Today I was assembling
things and had to put in some long 1/4" lag bolts, so I thought I would
use the impact driver. It basically worked the same way- start, stop,
start, stop. I did quite a bit with the drill and it worked fine until
I decided I would screw in the long lag bolts with it instead. It
eventually got to the same point- drill, stop, drill, stop, etc. Now
I'm beginning to wonder if there is something wrong with the batteries.
I know that Lithium batteries have builtin circuitry to keep them from
over-charging or over-discharging. I wonder if this protection circuit
is limiting the current that the batteries put out to keep them from
overheating.
As a test I pulled out my old DeWalt 14.4V NiCad drill. It would
actually out-torque the 18V Lithium drill on these long lag bolts.
_______________________________________________
Shop-talk@autox.team.net
Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.html
Suggested annual donation $12.96
Archive: http://www.team.net/archive
Forums: http://www.team.net/forums
|