Cordless Drill Battery Care

That phone in your pocket is a modern miracle. Ditto the laptop on your desk, the tablet in your backpack, maybe even the watch on your wrist. And regardless of what each is capable of, they all have one cornerstone component to thank, one that you probably ought to know how to take care of: A battery.

The first step to knowing your device's battery is to narrow down the kind. The first kind you might think of (and the kind you probably grew up with) are nickel-metal hydride, or NiMH batteries. These, generally, are the ones that look like a normal disposable batteries, except you can plug them into a wall charger for some extra juice whenever your TV remote dies.

The batteries in your modern-day gadgets—from iPhones to laptops to Bluetooth headphones to tablets—are a different beast entirely. These are lithium-ion (aka li-ion) drill batteries, and they have some pretty significant advantages over NiMH and other rechargeable batteries that came before. Lithium-ion batteries are also totally different from straight-up lithium batteries, which aren't rechargeable.

That old saw about how you always need to charge you battery all the way up, and use it until it's dead? Memory effect, as it's called, affects NiMH batteries but it doesn't apply to your phone. In fact, you're phone's battery hates when you do that. Similarly, lithium-ion batteries don't need to be "calibrated" with a full charge and a full discharge when they're new.

Li-ions can pack a lot of power into a small size, and they don't lose too much of that energy to leakage when they're not in use. It's a combination of these factors that make them great for your portable gadgets.

How do I take care of my precious lithium-ion battery