Black and Decker VP100 VersaPak 3.6-Volt 1.2 Amp Hour NiCad Stick Style Battery

What's in the Box
VP100 3.6-volt VersaPak silver battery

Product Description
3.6 Volt VersaPak Battery, Interchangeable Battery Works With All VersaPak&tm. Products, 360 Degree Design Guarantees Correct Insertion, Grooved Cap Provides Superior Gripping Surface, Multiple Battery Packs Provide Continuos Power, Designed For Repetitive Recharging, No Memory Cells.

The Versapak Silver battery, which comes with nearly all Versapak-powered B&D as well as similar Sears Craftsman products, have "battery memory" despite what the creative folks who write the product listings at Amazon and other websites want you to believe. As talented as these folks are, they have not and cannot repeal the laws of battery chemistry. All batteries based on the nickel-cadmium (NiCd) design have memory which means they stop accepting a full charge if they are continually recharged before being fully discharged. Think of it as that "always full feeling" you get if you do a lot of snacking around the house.

The newer battery chemistry is nickel-metal hydride or NiMH. Although not as new as the lithium ion or the even newer lithium polymer batteries found in cell phones and laptop computers, the NiMH design delivers more energy and weighs significantly less than NiCd. The Versapak Gold version is said to offer 60% more battery life than the Versapak Silver version. Most importantly, NiMH batteries suffer little or no memory effect. That makes them useful and valuable even without the big improvement in tool running time.

NiCd batteries work perfectly well for those applications that drain the battery to its discharge voltage. For example, a construction worker will use a NiCd battery in a power drill until the drill motor won't turn. At that point the battery has been discharged to the point where the memory effect during recharge will be minimal or non-existent. He or she simply pops in a fully charged NiCd pack and drops fully discharged battery on the charger.

By the way, by "discharged" I do not mean zero battery voltage. Discharging a NiCd by taking it to zero volts, either by shorting out the terminals (a very dangerous idea) or by putting a high wattage resistor across it, will effectively destroy the battery. There are many NiCd conditioners around that properly discharge these batteries, but most consumers are too busy to use them on a regular basis. Now back to our story...

NiCd batteries are terrible in those applications where the particular cordless tool is used for a few minutes and then put back on its charger. For example, think of a Versapak-powered DustBuster or ScumBuster. Fortunately, the latter doesn't holster the tool on its charger, which means its battery is more likely to get discharged before being recharged. The ScumBuster also comes with a separate charger because of the shock danger of charging a typically wet tool in its holster.

The DustBuster, unfortunately, is charged in its holster. A quick pick up with the ol' `Buster and then back in the holster pretty much guarantees most owners will see the memory effect in as little as a few weeks. Performance will just get worse and worse until it will only run for a few minutes before it's dead again.

If you just can't bring yourself to recycle those old Silver Versapaks and go for the Gold, I suggest you don't plug in the DustBuster holder's wall wart. When its Versapaks are pretty much dead (as in discharged), put them in a separate charger. Leave them in there overnight. It takes about 15-18 hours to bring a Silver battery to full charge.

As I said at the outset, the better idea for the DustBuster or any other short use tool is to simply replace the Silver Versapaks with the Golds. Yes, it's a big hit for the DustBuster which probably didn't cost that much to begin with, but it will run for years just like it was brand new.


Poor Quality/Engineering   December 13, 2005
Kryler (Bay Ridge-Brooklyn, NY USA)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

For the last 10 years I've used B&D's cordless driver with torque adjustment with much satisfaction with one caveat.
Their VP100 (Silver) battery sucks. I've now gone through at
least 11 of them with this driver. They all worked fine for the first several months then performance drops off rapidly. Most of them would take a charge but capacity was diminished. Under load their useful life was measured in minutes.
Maybe B&D's strategy was to get us hooked with the inexpensive VP100 (Silver) just to make it impossible to get along without upgrading to the more expensive VP110 (Gold) version.

I would suggest when you purchase one of these batteries through retail that you save the receipt and scratch a mark on the battery every time you recharge it so when it fails (& it will fail), you can place a warranty claim for it's failure to recharge 300 times. B&D really wouldn't like that. Ha!

Caveat Emptor! (Buyer beware!)
Jake


Buy Versapak GOLD instead.   February 21, 2004
David Gerba (Dallas, Texas)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful

The silver version of these batteries just dont last. You will get 60% MORE life from the Gold batteries for a few dollars more. I have many B&D tools that run these batteries, including the "Snake Light"...the Silver will go dead with one days use, as compared to the Gold, which will last up to 5 full days of use. You can get these for the same price at Lowes and Home Cheapo. You'll pay tax of course, but it evens out after subtracting the cost of (not) shipping.


Don't hold charge as long as expected   September 19, 2000
B. Chandler (Arlington, Texas)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful

To those people that can not find batteries without the charger, I say you will need at least two chargers at all times. The batteries need to be in a constant state of charge while you are using the others. The shelf life of the charge is pitiful and the length of charged batteries is not anywhere near your project-required time.

On the positive side you can not find a better "versatile" cordless system and this has make it possible for me to do many projects tat would be clumsy if I needed a cord.


Have Memory; Don't Last   January 1, 2003
11 out of 13 found this review helpful

Unlike what B&D cliams, these batteries do have memory and don't last. Plan on replacing them about every 2 or 3 years (assuming you use and charge them to the letter). The standard battery chargers take 3 to 6 hours to charge these which is too long considering their typical life of only 5 or 10 minutes in use. On the good side, there is a lot of VersaPak stuff out there. The batteries are more suited to the flashlights than the power tools. The Gold versions work much better in the power tools.