17:10 Cells wired in parallel are in balance by the nature of the parallel connection which forces them to equalize quite rapidly. Parallel cells act as one unit to the extent that if one goes bad and discharges to 0V it pulls down the other too. They are twins, live together and perish together.

So I have self built a house over the past few years. So rather than most tools only being used occasionally in people's garages, I have sent all my drills, heat guns, saws and grinders through the toughest trials and use cases. It has been one hell of a job and my tools have taken a hammering. My primary drill is a DeWalt but pretty much everything else is Lidl and I can't fault it. Sometimes the saw fences are a bit flimsy and need a little modification but generally Lidl improves the designs themselves over time. The batteries have been used to hell and back and are mostly the 4ah with a couple of 2ah and even some of the 12v tripoid shaped ones. They hold charge well,  last brilliantly, never overheat, and charge fast. Not a single failure or complaint. My angle grinders get a particular hammering mortar raking and brick cutting, getting plastered in brick dust. All still work, but the batteries are faultless. I honestly can't make a single bit of criticism.

I'm a Church (pipe) organ builder in the UK. I've been using the Parkside 20V range as long as they've been around. I've got six 4AH batteries & two 2AH batteries. None have ever failed as yet. I standardised on the Parkside power tools about six or seven years ago & get on with them very well.

I'm a gardener I used all parkside tools with 4amp batteries and have had no problems but great results

I have two parkside drills with three 2ah batteries for about 15 years and they are still working for all my DIY projects.

I am always pleasantly surprised by Park side tools, and have used them in many different scenarios, both professionally and for DIY.
Great value indeed.

The 2Ah battery is the new version but the 4Ah has been around  for a few years and is of the older design.
The value of the 4Ah is hard to beat, 10 18650 for £14.99p is excellent.
Parkside has a vast array of tools that use the 20v batteries and I have found them to be adequate.

Parkside stuff seems to be quite good for the price.

I have built a huge collection of Parkside 20V tools over the last decade or so and they have been brilliant. The only weak spot was the 1/2" Impact gun where the tool itself comes nowhere near the claimed Nm and its 4AH Fast charger quit after a few cycles. The drills, Multitool, angle grinders, sanders, chain saw, blower, 3/8" ratchet (12v), sabre saw, impact driver, etc, etc, have all been incredible value for money.

I have several parkside tool with two batteries, up to now they've performed well.

Out of balance of 2Ah cell most likely contributed to the low result. First cell was definitely ending the charge while the other was far from fully charged.
Pulling the battery from the charger as soon as light turn green prevent balancing from kick in. From what I've seen, balancing put a resistor over the highest charged cell(s) to drag down the voltage, then whole pack is topped up. Doesnt happen unless pack is connected to charger. No sign of trickle charge might be a problem, or it was a limit of the wall meter unable to detect light loads.

Excellent video, great that you're not pushing any rubbish half way through the video. Are you able to do similar comparisons between some of the bigger brands of batteries

I have a 10 year old Parkside drill that had a pretty bad runtime since New and also charged remarkably fast. I've recently opened it up and discovered that one cell was severely unbalanced. I charged it independently from the rest using some wire and behold: it works MUCH better than ever before. I had the same problem with a cordless vac, also since New. Something tells me that certain battery pack manufacturers don't even check the cell state properly before dispatch.

Cheers from Romania.Thank you fro al the info.

Interesting presentation, thanks for posting.
For a completely discharged Parkside battery, I have recovered them by feeding a limited 1 amp 20v direct charge from a bench power supply directly to the + and - terminals for 10 minutes just to get something into the cells before putting it on the OEM charger - that works fine if the batteries have not gone down TOO far or been in that state for too long.
If a cell really is dead it will soon error out again, but from a newly purchased flat battery I would expect full recovery.

I have a DeWalt battery hammer drill and use this for serious jobs (as a screw/bolt driver mostly, when I need a really heavy torque it is best)
I bought the Parkside hammer drill for a quick-grab tool for light work where I don't need to worry if it gets stolen (because it is a bargain) but its torque characteristics are limited, it gives up immediately if it encounters sudden resistance.  However, as a light duty tool, it gets used more than the DeWalt.
I have used the Parkside for numerous small workshop projects and fitting a large garden gate for example, drilling into concrete posts to fit latches, hinges etc. and it performed exactly as I expected it to.

The one thing I was disappointed about with nearly all battery drills (not just Parkside) is that they do not have a 'collar' for a clamp to use it in a drill stand, I have to break out the 40 year old mains B&D drill for that.

My verdict is 'Good enough for most things, an excellent choice if you have no drill at all and a very reasonable price too.'

Regardless of quality and capacity, you need to work at least 3-4 cycles from low to full to break them in properly. They sit for months on the shelf, just slowly discharging through the BMS board. You need to condition them a bit. I find that the best tool to do that, is the parkside grinder.

Yep the 4A batteries are excellent, quick charging, take plenty of hard use and last for ages.
I discharged a 2A in the Parkside fan and that was it. Dead, couldn't jump start it, tore it down and 3 cells had died.

Capacity (mAh of cells are rated at a constant current of around 200mA. No cell will provide it's full rated capacity when given a 5A discharge, let alone the 20-30A from a large power tool.
A big factor in this is the voltage droop that occurs is under-spec'd cells in cheap packs. When you pull a large current from them, the voltage sags... So the undervoltage cutoff kicks in very early (under load).
Quality cells will handle the current better under load, and thus give better performance under load.

Had Parkside stuff for years and found it excellent, I've also had a few Ryobi tools and Batteries from the original blue ones to the later lime coloured  and found the batteries very expensive and the tools just Ok

On these battery packs, the individual cells or cell pairs are charged at the full series voltage, rather than being charged individually.
The balance is done by bleeding off the excess energy through resistance, dropping the cells with the higher voltage, down to the lowest voltage.
To maximise battery capacity, several charging sessions are needed, to bring all cells up to the same voltage.

The 2Ah battery is out of balance, doesn’t have cell balancing, same as many other battery packs, so the lowest cells in the group pull the overall capacity down.