Testing of Skil 18v lithium ion and NiCad battery packs

I know a guy who works at the local hardware and tool shop and he agreed to give me some cordless power tools to test out. I will be getting a different model to check out every week so I can report on it here at my blog. What I’m really curious about is how Skil 18v lithium ion battery packs compare to the regular NiCad ones. I’ll keep the same batteries throughout my testing along with the new ones that come with each tool. This way I can see how well the Skil cordless power tool operates with a brand new battery, and how the battery will degrade with use. I’m especially curious to see this with the NiCad ones, since they seem to be notorious for loosing their performance very rapidly. However, I also want to be able to see what kind of upgrade the Skil 18v lithium ion battery packs have compared to the NiCad. Everyone that I know claims a huge performance increase, but I want to know exactly how much. I also want to see how the new 18v lithium ion battery packs work on older cordless power tool models that originally came with NiCad. I think that once I’m through with my tests, you will get a very clear picture of every type of power tool and battery that Skil has to offer.