Ryobi customer service - excellent

[neilyweely]

I keep a set of Ryobi tools, which I use on the run of the mill jobs where the hilti/festool/etc stuff is not really necessary. Point being that if it got pinched I would not be too gutted. Recently I thought about selling the lot (circ saw/jigsaw/planer/drill/vac/angle drill/sander/impact driver) because the 3 nicad batts were just not holding their charge. They were OK in the impact driver and drill, but the circular saw, for instance, was useless. When I first got it I could cut kitchen worktop with it, now with the nicads I would struggle with ply, unless the batteries had just come out of the charger a minute ago.

So, when I saw a drill set with a 2.4ah Li ion battery and charger I bought it (off ebay) for under a hundred quid. I had heard good things about the batteries and figured I could just sell it all on if I had been misinformed.
The stuff came, but when I put the batt on charge it got very hot and did nothing else! The vendor asked me to get in touch with Ryobi, which I did, but with no receipt I didn't expect much. I couldn't even say where I got it!!
Anyway, customer service told me, after a little to-ing and fro-ing, that they could send out a replacement if I could give them the serial number of the drill from the information plate. This I did, and two days later I got a brand new battery.

So; a big thumbs up for Ryobi customer services, and Annie, and also I should say that all I had been told about the batteries dramatic improvement over the Nicads is true; the circular saw now performs very well. Almost as well as the Makita li ion, and much cheaper. I will be getting another li ion battery and then selling all the nicads, with the tools I don't use, on ebay.

I told Ryobi I would mention their excellent service on the forum I use (occasionally), so am as good as my word. Which they were.

Thanks Ryobi. I really do recommend the batteries, if you do have the old nickel cadmium batteries these are SO much better it is amazing. Like a new tool.

Neil

 

[Richard D]

I was thinking about li-on batteries driving home tonight. They have a limited lifespan (more dependant on the battery's actual chronological age AFAIK), whereas with nicads it was more about *how* (and how often) they'd been charged.

When all these li-on batteries start dying in 3 or 4 years time, what guarantees do we have that the manufacturers will still be making replacements? I know that I'd rather hoped that my Bosch drill and impact drivers would last for years - but the batteries won't, and when Bosch decided next to upgrade to some new format, will my tools become expensive paperweights?

 

[neilyweely]

Errr, it's not my trolley!!! (Do you remember that?)

Quite right. Worrying, isn't it. Do Li Ion batteries have life span from when they are manufactured, or from when they are used? In other words - could I buy spares now and leave them sitting on the shelf whilst I use the others, eventually putting them into service when required?

Any ideas anyone? I do know people in the know who seem to think that a good nickel cadmium battery is the way to go. Trouble is that most are not good. There is no doubt that the Ryobi lithium ion batteries are a massive improvement over the nicads, even when new, but my old Makita Nimh batteries lasted well over five years with heavy use. Would li ion batteries do that? Do the manufacturers even want them to? (Not cost effective)

Mmmhhh, food for thought.

Neil (who is now going back to college for more exams)

 

[Richard D]

I'm no expert, but I believe that the date of manufacture is the important one, though battery life will be shortened by high temperatures, poor charging regimes and deep discharging (unlike a nicad a li-ion battery can be - indeed prefers to be - regularly "topped up" with small charges). There's little point in storing a battery on a shelf "for the future" as it won't work any better than a battery that's been used and charged carefully. If you really do want to store a spare, keeping it in the fridge or freezer has been recommended! Don't keep it anywhere where it will get warm, and don't let it completely discharge - charge it every 4-6 months, as a deeply-discharged li-on is a dead li-on.

I suspect that the lifespan of li-on batteries will continue to improve (there was a time when they were good for two years tops), and good ones will probably be useable for 4-5 years. There are plenty of bright people working all the time on improving the existing technologies, and pushing new ones (fuel cells have been rumoured to be the "next big thing" for a while now). But unless the manufacturers are committed to the current voltages, currents and form-factors, the tools we are currently using will be so much scrap before the decade ends. It's worth remembering that in the past it's not been possible to update tools each time a new rechargeable battery technology arrives - nicads and lions run at different voltages, for example, so you can't just buy a li-on battery for your old nicad drill. I don't imagine that the next new technology will be any more backwards-compatible than the last one.

My mains-powered hammer drill doesn't see a lot of use, but I've had it for about 15 years and can't imagine it not lasting another 15+. In the same period I've scrapped three rechargeable screwdrivers, and although they were cheap ones, I can't see my expensive li-on driver lasting anything like as long - and as soon as Bosch abandon that particular format of battery, it's doomed.

 

[Jonzjob]

Perhapse a little light reading would clear up everything?

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/

Trés intéressant!!

 

[SNight]

Festool gaurantee thier lithium-ion batteries for three years, as do Metabo I think, and also Bosch.

 

[Richard D]

I think that most of us would accept buying new batteries every three years or so; my worry is that Bosch/Festool/Metabo et cetera will at some point simply stop making those particular batteries.

If you know what you're doing, it's fairly easy to hack together a new nicad or nimh pack for an old tool long after the original manufacturer has ceased supplying the original packs (though I don't believe that those technologies have the same shelf-life issues as lithium-based cells). But although I'd be happy replacing worn-out nicads myself, lithium-based cells are not something that I want to be messing about with.

 

[SNight]

If they are gauranteeing their batteries for three years, I hope/expect that they will last about five years. After paying just over £400, I will be dissaponted if my Festool batteries don't!

 

[andycktm]

Nice of you to mention Ryobi after their customer service,
maybe you should mention the ebay seller for the opposite reason!