How to revive a dead rechargeable power tool battery easily
3,205,857
Published 2017-06-10
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NOTE: If this doesn't work for your particular battery or it charges but will not hold a charge you can find out how to recondition the battery here - bit.ly/2IzTVKi
You should not try this with the more modern Lithium batteries.
Rechargeable batteries for power tools sometimes will no longer charge but often these can be easily restored back to life with this simple method.
The problem: You have a drill or other power tool with rechargeable batteries but one of the batteries is completely dead and when you plug it into the recharger unit it won't recharge at all. But this may not be because the battery is unusable, just that without use its charge has dropped below the required level for the "smart" charger to detect that a battery has been inserted. Putting a small charge in to the battery then enables to charger to "see" it and start charging.
The manufacturers would tell you that you need to buy a new battery. When you look into it you find that the cost a new battery is so high that you may as well just buy a new drill that comes with a couple of new batteries. Well all is not lost!
A friend in the UK told me about this method to revive a dead drill battery many years ago and I have used it successfully a number of times since. Basically, it seems that when a battery becomes completely discharged the Dewalt 18v battery charger unit effectively does not recognise that a battery has been inserted. This method puts enough charge into the battery so that it is not recognised by the charger and it gets recharged.
I take the dead Dewalt battery and a good fully-charged battery and place them side by side. I then use a couple of pairs of scissors to connect the terminals together (plus to plus and negative to negative). I keep them connected for a minute or so and by then the dead battery has sufficient charge to be fully recharged by the charger unit. Of course you can use two pieces of wire or something else to connect the batteries together but I have found scissors work well when doing it by yourself with only one pair of hands.
Although I have fixed a Dewalt battery here I have used this method to fix other makes when the battery will not charge.
So, in future, if you have a dead NiMH power tool battery try this power tool battery fix first before buying new.
NOTE: In the video you will probably notice that the charging light is on when I put the battery in. This is because when I first filmed this I realised I had not pressed record on the camera. By then it was too late to redo it as the battery had some charge in it.
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All Comments (21)
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Beautiful old people who knows the value of money, the art of repearing and the gift of knowledge... Straightforward.. Simple... Not begging for anything.. Not selling t-shirts or doing stupid jokes... This video is what internet was supposed to be...
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OK, OK, here's another testimonial. Had one B&D 12V battery just go completely dead between last use and today. Charger would not charge. Cut a couple of short jumper wires and paralleled with a charged up one and then left them while I went through Facebook. Maybe an hour later I plugged the dead one into the charger. Boom, it charged right up. Thank you sir!
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I love that nearly 3 million people have benefited from your advise. The power of one!
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I'm in the process of cleaning out my late fathers collection of power tools and I had 6 dead battery's to try this technique on ( I used 10 gauge wire instead of scissors). Total success on EVERY battery! They were all over 15 years old! Great tip J.P.!!!
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I like the use of scissors ✂️. This is cutting edge technology.
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Note to anyone before posting a derogatory comment: 1. I didn't show that the other battery also worked to prove I hadn't switched them because I didn't realise how suspicious some YT viewers are at the time. If I had known that then I would have shown it. 2. Yes, the light was lit at the beginning because I forgot to switch the camera on when I first jump started it and once it had some charge I couldn't redo it. In fact, since I did it the battery has not needed it again. 3. The battery is still working 15 months later. 4. I don't care if you believe it works or not. I am just trying to pass on a tip which may help some. 5. The battery will not explode just because it is being given a little charge from the other battery initially. I don't care if you have worked in the battery industry since Moses was a boy. 6. Any idiots who have nothing better to do than swear and make stupid comments will just be banned.
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Thank you a million times! I revived a battery that has been completely discharged for over 4 years with this simple jump start. Held calipers on the terminals, counted one minute in my head, plugged it into the charger, and Bob's your uncle!
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JP, your advice just allowed me to rejuvenate a 200 euro battery for which I could not find a replacement. You sir, are a legend.
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WOW, THIS WORKS! Just tried it on a battery that has been completely flat and non chargeable for at least 4 years, and now it is charging and works! Thanks a lot.
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Thanks for being straight to the point and informative! I believe that there is No reason for twenty minutes of Posturing and narcissism for something that can be explained in a couple of minutes or less.
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I am so glad that I found this video. It sure saved me a lot of money. I was able to revive 3 of my batteries. I was debating in buying new batteries or just buying a new drill. I decided to see if anyone had ideas to revive them because the batteries were for my Dewalt drill, circular saw, reciprocating and flashlight. This method worked like a charm. Thank you for posting and sharing.
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Great bush fix, we use it all the time. A quick charge when batteries are put in put in parallel like this (one under charged- one at regular charge) can cause some damage to the cells due to rapid current flow, but unless you're comfortable adding in a resistor and slowing the process down it's a great way to stop the corporate greed that the companies make by over charging for batteries. All the best from another island dweller
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so much hate, just a decent guy trying to share a useful trick ! YT is ridiculous
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Great tip. I was expecting a whole teardown that'd take 30 minutes minimum. Good to know there's a quick way of checking. Much appreciated.
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Thank you this video saved me over £100 for a DeWalt battery! Anyone trying it just to say I plugged in and out 50 times twice with no joy, and then the last time I did 100 times, and then it started charging properly. Don't give up too soon if you know your battery hasn't been used much.
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This is the best tip I have every gotten from youtube. Straight forward, no messing around...loved this guy.
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This has been the most helpful video I've seen on YT yet. Thank you
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Thanks man ...was charging my old milwaukee one worked fine the other was not charging did your trick n now its charging
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Worked great for me—thanks for the tip! I had to leave the batteries connected for about 40 minutes, but after that, the charger was able to charge it. I revived two ryobi 18v batteries that hadn’t worked since 2015.
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Fabulous tip JP, figure I was going to throw away what I thought was a dead battery. Not anymore, it is back to life thanks to you!👍
