Milwakee 18v cordless drill battery problems?

I bought one a year ago and now both batteries that came with it won't take a charge anymore. The second one failed a month after the first? I normally leave a battery on the charger so I always have a spare, wonder if that is the problem? At first I could leave a battery in the drill for weeks and it would still have power. Later a fresh charged battery would drain in two days even with no use. I love the drill, but this battery problem is disappointing.

Now I need some new batteries, any option other than the stock ones? Any better ways to care for them?

I don't think the battery mfg's recommend leaving batteries in the charger all the time. The Ni-Cad style needed to be cycled to essentially fully discharged before charging, or they would get a memory and short cycle. Later types like Lithium ion are not supposed to do that, but I think you are better off fully charging them and storing in the drill case. When one goes down you should have time to re-charge it while using the other one.

Ni-Cads will normally discharge over about 90 days time just sitting in the case. the Lithium types do not do that to any extent.

Most drill mfg's also do not recc leaving the charger plugged in all the time, from what I have read. Same goes for cell phone chargers.

One other point. Use a pencil eraser to make sure the battery contact and the charger contacts are bright and clean. They will tend to dull and get oxidation on them and that affects the charging ability and battery life in some cases.

Don't know what kind of batteries they are, but the chargers normally operate on heat buildup to tell it when to shut off. This is why they usually tell you not to sit the charger in hot sun, or a hot environment if at all possible.

You might try to fully discharge the batteries and possibly they will be salvageable. It would take several charging/discharging cycles to get some life back, but depending on type of battery, they may be toast.

It is also possible that your charger has gone bad and I would try another one to see if that helps the situation.

I went back and re-read your question. It sounds like there could even be a short in the drill switch, or it is for some reason draining the batteries by not being completely off, but you should be able to hear it "growling". Absent that problem the batteries just could be bad at this point, i.e. internal drain.

The battery supply houses may stock batteries for this drill. I doubt that Milwaukee makes their own batteries.

If I may intercede I currently have an 18v Milwaukee that was given to me by the company I work for. And I have to say its the worst cordless drill I've ever had. The 18v provides no more power, torque, or battery life than my 3 Dewalt 14.4v that I keep in my shop at home. In fact the Dewalt batterys actually hold a charge longer. And the best part is that if I do actually burn up a battery, the Dewalt batterys are half the cost of the Milwaukee's. Though I have not yet lost a battery in the 4 years I've been using the Dewalts. On the other hand I replace my Milwaukee 18v batterys about every 9 months to a year. And I too always leave a battery in the charger at home.

I'd also like to suggest browsing the web (google) for your particular make. About a year ago I had a charger go bad (forget the make now and it's up in the garage) But I went looking on the web for a new charger for mine 'cuz it crapped out, only to find that they had been recalled for a "fire hazard". They replaced it for free.

Mark

on a similar note......i've 2 Dewalt 9.6v drills
of which the batteries have turned to crap.
while the outer case says "NiMh ", the cells
inside are actually NiCad crap.

modern nickel/metal/hydride
batteries are supposed to have no nicad memory,
2-3x the Ma/h capacity , and recharge more times
than nicads.
i recelled with nimh at batteries plus for around $15
each pack, and the thing works great, but i'm
pissed w/ Black and Decker for lying about their
tools. i suppose i feel ripped off....

I went back and read the instructions for some of my Makita and DeWalt chargers. The older ones seem to suggest that leaving the charger on and the battery in them for a long time is not good.

However, the newer ones seem to indicate that it is perfectly ok. Clearly they have changed designs to make the chargers "smarter". I guess the question is, how new is your drill and charger and what do the instructions suggest.

From other posts it seems that Milwaukee may have problems with batteries. I have not had any similar problems with various voltages of Makita, or an 18 volt DeWalt.

If I were buying a cordless, Milwaukee would be on the bottom of the list! Their corded tools rate pretty high but their battery stuff is junk!

P.O.

Sometime in the last 1-2 years, Fine Homebuilding published an article on the topic of maintaining batteries for cordless tools. The article quoted factory reps, etc. The bottom line was, most batteries and chargers made within the last few years are made so that you can leave a battery in the charger all the time.

The article also said that it is not necessary to fully discharge the newest batteries, unlike the old NiCads that had a "memory" effect.

The article mentioned that charging a NiCad or NiMh battery at temps < 40F or > 100F (those are approximate numbers, I'm working from memory) is a really good way to kill the battery fast.

I have gotten great life out of my DeWalt "XR" battery packs. The first pair lasted 2 years of hard use and frequent recharging, I'm on the second pair now. I have always left one battery in the charger while the other battery is in the drill.

- Glenn M.

My Dewalt is several years old, so it may be an old-tech type. But if I forget, and leave the battery on charge over its time, I notice that it is warm, even if left for long enough that it could have cooled off. So something is clearly going on.

Sounds like a poor plan to leave batteries on charge long-term, unless that is specifically recomended.

The Dewalt has held up well, I run the batteries dead, then charge. But I notice that they do lose significant charge in 2 or 3 weeks if I don't use it. Time until recharge drops a lot.

OTOH, our Sony portable phone kills batteries in a year or less, I've spent half its cost in replacements. We charge it, and then let it run untill it quits, then charge again. Should be perfect for NiCad, but they crap way early, failing by not holding a charge for more than a day or so.

BTW:
Milwaukee, IMO, is a brand that is coasting on its old reputation. New Milwaukee stuff has failed dramatically, shearing shafts, etc. Things that I have never seen any other brand do. We won't have that trash in the shop anymore.

Have 4 Ryobi drills, 2 are 14.v and 2 are 18.8. My 14v are about 4 years old, my 18.8 about 2 years old. Have not seen any battery problems with either drills. There have been a number of times when I have put a battery on the charger and then forgotten that it was there and ended up on the charger for a few weeks with no apparent effect. After taking the battery off the charger when it has been on there for a few weeks there is no heat build up. Obviously the charger has enough smart to shut down when not charging. Very happy with the Ryobi's.

TMD

Just my opinion, but I think that there's more to battery chemistry than meets the eye. I think manufacturers degrade the chemistry in favor of their cheaper cost of production, rather than selling a full performance battery using the best of technology.
I used to have a set of alkaline rechargeables that served me well for years. There had to be a thousand full cycles put on them before they started getting weaker. Now they claim that alkalines are only good for maybe 25 cycles. Do I sense something here that should be flowing down a sewer pipe? Heck, that was in '69. Can't industry at lease deliver the equivalent these days? I believe we're being scammed on rechargeables, simple as that.
Anyway, a friend of mine just had his dewalt batteries start dying. They're not more than a year and a few months old. They get used the way they should be, drained then recharged. They don't get much time sitting around. There should be two years left in them. The charger gets unpowered each night, and often has a battery in it. I'm wondering if there's an internal drain situation there- same question goes for the drill when it's sitting idle.
Strange things, these. I have two cordless drills that I bought new, no-name, and cheap. Their batteries have outlasted all the name brand drills I've had anything to do with, except the bosch and the makita.
Dewalt, Milwaukee, Blackened pecker? Perfect examples of good brand names gone for a shit. All over us. Rant over.

Hey all,

I have to agree that there is probably an issue of lower quality of batteries in some stuff. When I was in high school I was big into R/C cars. Real ones, not the radio shack type. They all used NiCad sub c cells for power and there were lots of packs out there. Cheap ones were maybe $20. Good ones, high capacity, matched cells, etc. could go to close to $75-100. At least back then there was an issue of better and worse batteries.
A lot of times, in my exp., only one cell may be really dying/dead and messing up the rest of the pack.
Also, to get more capacity out of a given set, we would recharge them in a cooler full of ice. Keeping the pack cold had a marked effect on how long they would run.
A friend has recently started to buy cheap HF packs when they are on sale to harvest the batteries inside & rebuild his other packs that are dying. He has had pretty good luck. Seems that a lot of NiCad stuff still uses good old sub c cells. Sure you have to solder it all together and reassemble a plastic pack that was never meant to be opened, but for some it may be worth it.

Just what came to mind.

Pete.

I noticed that if you leave the battery on the DeWalt charger there does seem to be a drain. I would think that might be true of many chargers.

I used to buy $5,000 worth of mobile radio nicads once or twice a year. We had the regular chargers plus ones that would "re-condition" by discharging and then re-charging. At the end, it would display the amp hour capacity of the battery.

I would see a few that lasted 3 years or more. I saw some that were bad out of the box. I have had good luck with Dewalt batteries. There are companies that will take your old one and put new cells in at a fraction of the cost of a new one.

I still think that portable power tools are a ploy to sell new battery packs.

rustyzman,

I too have been into electic RC cars for the past 20 years. I design and build all my 1/10 scale off-road buggies from scratch, even the shocks and wheels. I have high tech peak detecting chargers and dischargers and match my cells. So I do know all about the right ways to care for nicads.

I think the problem is that Millwakee uses cheap un-matched cells. Once the weakest cell goes, the pack is dead. The charger does shut down after about one hour, the red LED goes out. At that point it switches to a trickle mode since the battery does stay slightly warm. It could be the trickle circuit is too hot and wears out the cells.

I tried to make things simple for myself and assumed Millwakee designed the charger for thier packs. When I buy new packs, I will remove them after the charge light goes out and see how long they hold charge. But sometimes it is a few weeks between use, so it was easier to just leave a pack on the charger.

The dead packs will not charge at all.

I have not had problems with the drill. I like the fine 20 position clutch, easier to set the right torque than a Makita I had before. The keyless 1/2" chuck also works good.

See, there you went and inspired me.

Since I am new to actual machining work, it hadn't even crossed my mind yet to build R/C stuff. I've got to start planning now. I always wanted some of those cool three piece aluminum rims for my old Jrx-pro. Now I can make them. Guess I have to pull it out of mothballs and start playing again.
Does your peak charger have the capacity to charge your milwaukee packs? Might be an interesting experiment to use it for a brand new pack and see if run time/cell life etc., is improved. Of course, it is kind of a PITA to do that for a cordless drill.
Anyway, sad to see a good name brand start to roll down hill. If this keeps up, we might just eventually run out of quality small electric hand tools (at least at somewhat reasonable prices).

See you all later,

Pete.

The way the battery is made, it would need a special adapter or something to use it on the other charger. Voltage may be too high. Most packs I use in the cars are sub-C 1.5v x 6 = 9v.

I want to open up the 18v pack and see what cell arrangement it has. Maybe I can just replace a cell? I am also thinking, if the cells are a common size, to buy some good quality cells and put it back together. Might get more power with longer run time. Uh oh, how about over-volting it?

Have fun with the car, I raced against Losi jr. at Ascot when they first started testing that car. Back then, Losi only made accesories.

Yea I used to work for Milwaukee Electric Tools repairing the sawzalls. I also used to walk "next door" to see what they were doing on the drill isle. The batteries hold up very well. As long as you take care of them. No excess heat/cold and also do not over charge them. Max that you are supposed to leave them on the charger is about eight hours. Leaving them on the charger all the time is not good. They are not as bad as the old batteries about developing a "memory" but that does not mean that you should charge them for an hour or so use them for 15 mins only to stick them on the charger again. It is recomended that you discharge your batttery every so often. I will take my drill and put it in the vise till the thing is completly dead. Than I will charge it back up completly, this helps prolong a battery life. It is like a car battery, some last 4 or 5 years and others last 4 or 5 months from the same company. Hope this help everyone Newt.

Glen,
There are 14 sub c cells in a B&D or Dewalt 18 volt battery.

I looked into rebuilding, but with shopping around can get new Dewalt 2.4 ah for $40 or 2.6 ah $45 verse $26 per 14 set to rebuild at wholesale quanities. These are the 2.4 ah batteries.

Ray

Just bought a new li-ion battery for my computer (battery made in China) . One charge and it would not charge anymore. Dealing with Amazon.com on that one now.. they are pretty good so should not get stung.

TMD