{"id":2687,"date":"2018-06-21T04:18:31","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T04:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2023-05-04T08:58:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T08:58:36","slug":"how-to-fix-a-cordless-tool-battery-when-it-wont-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/how-to-fix-a-cordless-tool-battery-when-it-wont-charge.htm","title":{"rendered":"How to fix a cordless tool battery when it won’t charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have any cordless power tools, especially Ryukyu, you will undoubtedly encounter a terrible red charger light. If you don’t… You will. It’s inevitable – you run into the basement and get your cordless drill, because after 10 years of thinking, you’re finally going to build the 4 Tudor’s small kitchen with a small kitchen. Or you have to hang up a picture.<\/p>\n

\"Wholesale<\/a><\/p>\n

Either way you put your battery in the charger and all you get is a flashing red light, which according to the label on the charger means your battery is defective.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t just dead.\u00a0 It\u2019s \u201cdefective\u201d.\u00a0 I\u2019m here to tell you you it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 You probably left it in the charger too long which weirdly drains the battery.<\/p>\n

Your battery is fine. It just needs a little boost.<\/p>\n

You Can Fix a Rechargeable Battery That Won\u2019t Take a Charge.<\/h1>\n

You heard me right.\u00a0 You do NOT have to buy a new $50 battery.\u00a0 You do not have to call the company and swear at them because this stupid \u201cdefective\u201d battery is only 2 weeks old. (although by all means feel free to do so) You do not have to wait until they ship you a replacement HITACHI EBM1830 Power Tool Battery<\/b><\/a> to finish your project.\u00a0 You can get that battery up and working in about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n

How to Fix a Lithium Ion Battery<\/h1>\n
\n

Note:\u00a0<\/strong> If you aren\u2019t used to doing this sort of thing, or using things like a \u201cmultimeter\u201d\u00a0 this is going to seem crazy and hard and way out of your DIY league.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Steps<\/strong><\/p>\n

Step 1.<\/strong> Cut the end off of your AC adapter.\u00a0 That\u2019s right.\u00a0 Just cut it off.\u00a0 It\u2019s for a 10 year old cell phone, you\u2019re never going to use it again anyway. It\u2019s frankly kind of weird that you saved it to begin with.<\/p>\n

Step 2.<\/strong> Separate and strip off 1\u2033 of each wire.\u00a0 You have *just* made booster cables!\u00a0 Good for you.<\/p>\n

\n

TIP:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Black wire = negative\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Striped or solid white wire = positive<\/p>\n

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO NOT MIX THE TWO UP.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Step 3.<\/strong> Remove the screws holding the battery together.<\/p>\n

For Ryobi batteries it\u2019s a star shaped screw head like this.<\/p>\n

A few years ago I bought a kit of weird small screwdriver heads from Amazon.\u00a0 I initially bought it because I needed a special tip for removing my Macbook Pro cover to replace the battery.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve used it for a ton of other stuff since getting this kit.<\/p>\n

\n

TIP:<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hidden screw under a piece of plastic.\u00a0 You need to pry the plastic off to get at the screw underneath. I used a very thin screwdriver to pry it off.<\/p>\n

\n

Step 4.<\/strong>\u00a0Pull the top off of the battery case.<\/p>\n

Step 5.<\/strong> Remove the 2 plastic side pieces. They\u2019re the things you press in to remove your battery from your drill.<\/p>\n

Step 6.<\/strong> Lift the battery pack out.<\/p>\n

\n

TIP:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Volts are symbolized by a \u201cV\u201d with one or two straight lines over it on a multimeter so it\u2019s that section of the multimeter that you use.\u00a0 The section under the V with the straight line(s).\u00a0 Not the squiggly line.\u00a0 The straight line.<\/p>\n

\n

Step 8.<\/strong>\u00a0 Touching the red probe to the positive (red) terminal and the black probe to the negative (black) terminal, read the voltage shown on the multimeter.\u00a0 In my case the battery was carrying a charge of 0.06 volts.\u00a0 Which is *almost* nothing, but not completely<\/em> nothing.<\/p>\n

Step 9.<\/strong>\u00a0 Plug your AC adapter in and using the wires, boost your dead battery.\u00a0 Just touch the black wire to the negative terminal (the one with the black wire going to it) and the white wire (or striped wire) to the positive terminal (the one with the red wire going to it).\u00a0 Do this on and off for approximately a minute.<\/p>\n

\n

TIP:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Apparently lithium ion batteries should be \u201cpulse\u201d charged.\u00a0 Which means you hold your wires down for 15 seconds or so, then release them.\u00a0 Then hold them down again.\u00a0 Over and over.<\/p>\n

DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOU ARE TOUCHING POSITIVE TO POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE TO NEGATIVE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Step 10.<\/strong> Test your the voltage on your battery pack again.\u00a0 It should be higher than it was before boosting.\u00a0 (Again, if you don\u2019t have a multimeter don\u2019t worry about this \u2013 you\u2019ll just have to press on without one)<\/p>\n

Mine went from 0.06 volts to 7.58 volts after a minute long boosting session.<\/p>\n

Step 11.<\/strong> Put the plastic cover back on the battery pack (just the part that goes into the charger) and set your battery on the charger to see if it will take a charge.<\/p>\n

If you still only get a red flashing light and the battery won\u2019t charge, boost the battery some more. I find the battery charger will recognize that the battery is good again when you boost it to between 10 and 14 volts.<\/p>\n

Just keep repeating the \u201cpulse\u201d boosting and testing the electric tools battery<\/strong><\/a> until it will finally be recognized by the charger and you get the green light.<\/p>\n

To those of you who found this subject matter to be on par with spending 3 hours in a waiting room, sorry \u2019bout that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have any cordless power tools, especially Ryukyu, you will undoubtedly encounter a terrible red charger light. If you don’t… You will. It’s inevitable – you run into the basement and get your cordless drill, because after 10 years of thinking, you’re finally going to build the 4 Tudor’s small kitchen with a small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,239,3,6],"tags":[991,992,835],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battery-knowledge-base","category-cordless-drill-battery-tips","category-how-to","category-tech-info","tag-hitachi-bcl1815-cordless-tool-battery","tag-hitachi-eb-1414s-power-tool-battery","tag-hitachi-eb-2420-power-tool-battery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2687"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3128,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions\/3128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Step 7.\u00a0<\/strong>Set the Multimeter to read volts.\u00a0 For testing an 18 volt Hitachi BCL1815 Cordless Tool Battery<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0choose the 20 volts setting. This will give you the most accurate reading.\u00a0 (If you don\u2019t have a multimeter skip to Step 9<\/strong> and hope for the best)<\/p>\n