As you might recall, the inductive charging technology works when the compatible wireless battery – either by itself or attached to a drill or driver – is placed on top of the charger.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Coming Soon: Bosch Wireless Battery Charging System
As you might recall, the inductive charging technology works when the compatible wireless battery – either by itself or attached to a drill or driver – is placed on top of the charger.
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3 comments:
Wireless charging! Finally! Too bad I absolutely don't see the use in this kind of situation. Is it really that hard to take 5 seconds to pull the battery off a drill and slide it onto a charger? I don't see the point in spending money on a whole new charging system and batteries to save a few seconds. While the holster looks cool, it means you have to put the drill in which is fine if you're done for the day but otherwise you would just put the battery on the charger. The only situation where I could see it being useful is when you are putting a drill down for a few minutes at a time and want it to charge while not in use. The question for that would be whether it would charge enough in that small amount of time to make a difference and would that actually be damaging to the battery? All that being said this is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of wireless power being developed and coming more and more into use. I can't wait to see a more useful application.
This is a very cool idea, but overall the first of its kind looks bulky and having the drill holster seems unnecessary because, in my experience, rarely is the drill actually put away when the battery is charging. More often than not, a battery swap is made. I do understand their motives for wireless charging, though. Often at job sites, power is easily unavailable and having these chargers stocked would be a great convenience to keep close by without the need for an outlet.
Wireless device chargers have been on the market for some time now, allowing you to charge your cellphone or mp3 player without ever plugging it into a cable. You just set it on that fancy charging pad and everything is taken care of…as long as you don’t disturb it anyway. Don’t pick it up to answer a call or text or tweet or you’ll interrupt the charging cycle, and most batteries are only rated for a certain amount charging cycles. Every time you unplug a device or remove it from the charger you end a cycle, it’s recommended that you drain the battery as much as possible before charging and that you avoid prolonged charging periods. The same is true for cordless drill batteries, they can only be charged so many times before the health of the battery declines. I believe that most manufactures recommend .5-1hrs for a full charge cycle and that batteries should only be left to charge overnight once a week. Given that, having a cordless charging station for your battery isn’t incredibly helpful, because charging it for a minutes at a time is impractical and foolish unless you enjoy burning out your batteries. Furthermore, who are the people that use these the most…contractors, journeymen from various fields? Most of those individuals travel, frequently and their tools are often being bounced around when going from job to job and the same is true for entertainment technicians and carpenters. I for one would prefer the traditional style battery charger where my battery locks into place to be charged properly, because then it is much more difficult to interrupt the charge cycle. I don’t know that I trust this product enough to guarantee that the gun or battery wouldn’t shift in transit or storage and not charge properly.
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