Hey! I'm new here but I was just reading about a comparison between a ridgid and a dewalt and it reminded me of how disappointingly short the battery life is on the Ridgid. I bought it reconditioned, and promptly bought a brand new battery, hoping it would last an hour or two of driving 2inch exterior screws for a fence I was building. It maybe lasted 20 minutes, maybe 30, and i had to switch over to my 1/2 inch cordless drill. What's the deal???Does anyone else have similar experiences with the Ridgid or should I break down and buy a brand new one? Or, god forbid, switch brands?
Ridgid 14.4 impact driver battery life
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That doesn't sound right to me on a brand new 14.4v battery. I have a Bosch 14.4v (NiCd) impact and I was just using it on 3" deck screws (into redwood) and it would run screws in consistently for about 45min to 1 hour per charge with constant use.
One thing that would help when driving a lot of screws is to get yourself wax to dip each screw into before driving it into the wood. This helps tremendously on how hard the drill has to work and for battery life. You can sometimes find a small container of wax to carry in your nailbag in the hardware aisle of HD or Lowes.
It didn't sound right to me either. I bought the new battery from Ridgid just to make sure it was new and I got the warranty. I got turned on to the whole impact driver thing by using a little 12 volt Makita while putting up a fence for a friend. That little thing lasted what seemed like hours. I got a Ridgid because I had been a plumber and all my other tools were ridgid. Maybe a Makita might be the one to try or maybe buy one of the Lithium powered Ridgids. Thanks for your reply.
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The Ridgid 14.4 is supposed to be their best as far as performance goes. Don't know anything about battery life. I have the 18 volt and love it. Use it with the compact NiCd battery and it works great. Not had any issues with battery life. I have 2 batteries, and they charge in 20 minutes. Never been without a pack available.
Their MaxSelect (works with the 18 and 24 volt) is supposed to be thir worst performer.
Their MaxSelect (works with the 18 and 24 volt) is supposed to be thir worst performer.
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Could be the battery or the charger. The battery can be checked with a power resistor and a DVM.
What's the voltage and amp-hour capacity of the battery? Is it NiCad?
If it's 12v and 2 A-h, you'd need a 120 ohm 2w resistor (from Radio Shack).
I use the same charger for my 18volt battery and it works great. The impact driver battery is a 14.4 volt, Ni-cad, 1.25Ah battery, bought new from Ridgid. I love its performance, too, as long as the battery lasts. but at this rate, I will need three or four of them to get any work done. Thanks guys..
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Based on the first post, I am assuming that you are giving this a pretty good work out. Other makes may not be much different. The 1.25Ah is a small battery, but that also helps to keep the overall weight of the tool down. How quick is the recharge? Probably about 15 minutes. You bought the tool reconditioned; did you get a battery with it, or do you only have the one new one. If you have 2, you should be able to rotate them and not have much down-time.
It's not ideal to be constantly needing to have a battery on the charger, but I'm not sure other makes would be any different under the same use unless their batteries are bigger.
Don't know how much truth there is in it, but if you look for another impact, you might want to stick with NiCd batteries if you can rather than go to the Li type. You can draw more current from a NiCd battery than from a Li battery, and if the impact is in constant use, the Li battery can shut down because you are trying to draw too much current from it. It quickly resets itself, but could be annoying. I only use NiCds in my impact, so this is not from experience.
It's not ideal to be constantly needing to have a battery on the charger, but I'm not sure other makes would be any different under the same use unless their batteries are bigger.
Don't know how much truth there is in it, but if you look for another impact, you might want to stick with NiCd batteries if you can rather than go to the Li type. You can draw more current from a NiCd battery than from a Li battery, and if the impact is in constant use, the Li battery can shut down because you are trying to draw too much current from it. It quickly resets itself, but could be annoying. I only use NiCds in my impact, so this is not from experience.
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