Lithium Batteries

[Arctic Fox]

I have been winter camping for over ten years and have always used a hand auger for fishing and getting water. This winter I am going to be camping in an area that allows electric powered augers and I am contemplating bringing my Milwaukee Fuel drill and 6" nils auger. My concern is since I will be camping for 4 or 5 nights is it a problem if the battery gets cold. I will be hot tenting so I will have the ability to warm the battery up before use if needed. Has anyone ever done this before? Could I potentially cause long term damage to the battery? I would rather not ruin a battery with how expensive they are. Any replies will be greatly appreciated!

[Lonelake]

Wrap you batteries at night. Wool socks work well.

LL

[Heavy Duty]

I toss my lithium ion batteries in the bottom of my sleeping bag at night and keep them in my bag during the day if I'm not moving.

they'll work when it's pretty dang cold out but output will be diminished until they warm up. I do not have first hand experience on lithium ion batteries getting damaged by the cold....yet.

[Arctic Fox]

Thank you for your responses. I'll give it a try this year to see how it goes.

[Undersky]

On work trips where leaders MUST have working phones 24/7, and when clients bring their own phones for occasional use, we take a small cooler and twice a day add a hot, sealed, 1 L Nalgene water bottle. The devices come out only when required, or once/twice a day to send brief updates. The temp inside the small cooler stays warm, even over 14 hours at -30 C if the sealed bottle going in 2x day is very hot each time. The cooler of choice for me just now is a discarded medical specimen transport cooler - about 25 cm by 25 cm x 25 cm. The walls are about 6cm thick. I suppose you could make one by gluing pink or blue foam insulation into a box with a snug lid.

[Bothwell Voyageur]

I don’t believe it’s a problem if they are stored cold as long as they are brought up to temperature before use. A small cheap soft sided cooler or insulated pouch plus some disposable hand warmer packs should work. What you really need is a way to keep the battery somewhere wam and run a cable out to your auger. I can set my survey gaps like this so I can log data at -20 for half a day.

[Southcove]

Someone that I know who is VERY big into high powered li-ion flashlights (big high draw units for SAR purposes) tells me the difference in output at normal temps (compared to say an alkaline or disposable li-ion) is very minimal, but he is using the best quality batteries that can be purchased. That being said... they store all the units in go bags in the firehouse. (Alaska)