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

by Black & Decker

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Review

Black & Decker's VersaPak tools, everything from the ScumBuster to power screwdrivers, are boons to the busy person, saving both time and effort. We know they get a lot of use, so we're glad to see Black & Decker offering single replacement batteries to keep everything running smoothly. The VersaPak line of tools all use this battery, and their main advantage is freedom from "memory," which keeps you from getting a full recharge. Black & Decker tells us that these batteries will take 300 charges, but we've heard of them lasting long past that. If you've got VersaPak tools, granted, you don't have a choice of batteries, but even if you did, we'd still recommend these for great power, reliability and long battery life.--Kris Jensen-Van Heste

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

Product Description

Black-N-Decker Silver NICD Rechargeable Battery - BLDVP100 - 1 Each - Satin

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Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches ; 5.1 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0000302V6
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: VP100
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,235 in Home Improvement (See Top 100 in Home Improvement)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

151 of 154 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NiCd Batteries ALL Have Memory - Use NiMH Instead, July 27, 2003

By 

A battery person (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black & Decker VP100 VersaPak 3.6-Volt 1.2 Amp Hour NiCad Stick Style Battery (Tools & Home Improvement)

My advice to all of you who made negative comments about the standard VP-100 Versapak "Silver" battery is to replace it with the VP-110 Versapak "Gold" battery. It costs about 30% more than the Sliver but offers 60% more energy (watts x time) and little or no memory effect. Be sure to recycle your old Silver batteries. They contain very toxic chemicals, such as cadmium, which are best kept out of landfills. Black & Decker and Sears have even prepaid the recylcing costs. Just figure the cost of a separate Gold battery into the cost of the tool, at least until manufacturers stop shipping the Silver Versapaks altogether. Read on for the thinking behind this advice.

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.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do NOT buy these, September 22, 2006

By 

Sleepy parent (Chicago) - See all my reviews

Do NOT buy the "VersaPak Silver". These are advertised as having no "memory effect" but that is blatantly false. These are nickel cadmium batteries, the old type of rechargeable. "No memory effect" is a term used specifically to differentiate newer batteries, such as nickel metal hydride [NiMH] and lithium ion from the older nickel cadmium (NiCd) types. In fact, these ARE the batteries with "memory effect". Because of this effect, "VersaPak Silver" batteries will quickly lose their ability to hold a charge after your Dustbuster or other tool is plugged in continuously. Instead, save yourself the trouble and spend the extra few dollars to buy "VersaPak Gold" batteries which are NiMH and DON'T have the bad memory effect. You can leave a Dustbuster with the gold batteries plugged in continuously without having a real impact on battery life. Remember to recycle your "VersaPak Silver" batteries because they contain toxic cadmium.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor Quality/Engineering, December 13, 2005

By 

Kryler (Bay Ridge-Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black & Decker VP100 VersaPak 3.6-Volt 1.2 Amp Hour NiCad Stick Style Battery (Tools & Home Improvement)

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