FELCOtronic 24V 5000mAh Compatible Battery 82/101

My Felco pruner cuts fine for a few branches then suddenly loses power mid-squeeze — is the battery dying or is something else wrong?

With 24V Ni-MH packs, this is almost always voltage sag under load rather than a dead cell — the battery reads charged but can't hold voltage when the motor draws hard during a thick cut. Ni-MH is more sensitive to this than lithium, especially if the pack has been stored partially discharged for a season. Before replacing anything, charge it fully, let it rest for an hour, then check the pack voltage with a multimeter — a healthy 24V Ni-MH should read between 25V and 28V at rest. If it drops below 22V the moment you make a cut, the pack has lost its ability to hold under load and needs replacing.

The charger for my Felco 82 just finished a full cycle but the pruner still feels weak — did the battery not actually take a charge?

Ni-MH cells can develop a condition called voltage depression — often called memory effect — where the cells accept a charge and show full voltage at rest, but have lost usable capacity from repeated shallow cycling. This is common with pruning tools that get topped off after light use rather than run down fully. Run the pack completely flat doing actual cuts, charge it fully without interruption, and repeat that cycle twice. If the pruner still feels sluggish after two full discharge-charge cycles, the cells have degraded past recovery and the pack needs to be replaced.

My Felco battery sat in the shed all winter and now the charger won't even start charging it — just sits there doing nothing.

Ni-MH packs that self-discharge over a long storage period can drop below the threshold the charger uses to detect a valid battery, so the charger simply refuses to start. Check the pack voltage with a multimeter — if it reads below roughly 18V, most standard chargers will reject it as a fault condition rather than attempt recovery. Some chargers have a manual recovery or "boost" mode that applies a trickle charge to bring the pack back up to a recognizable voltage before switching to normal charge; check your charger's manual for that option. If the pack reads below 10V, the cells have over-discharged to the point where safe recovery is unlikely and the pack should be replaced.