Thank you! You saved me a new battery. My battery was down to 1.6V. I didn't have a power supply, so I used car charger with a Lithium setting, and got it back up to 14V. After about 10 min, the charger deemed there was a problem with my battery, but put it back on the Milwaukee charger and it started to charge. Worked like a charm. I was lucky it wasn't completely dead. Thanks for the video.
This works amazing got 70 m18 and m12 batteries for 200$ for the lot they were from a renovation company but we're sitting for awhile with no charge and hovering around 15.6 - 17.6v not taking a charge got them all running for the most part one thing i would mention is that i charge them up to 20.5v because alot of them were showing only 3 bars at 20v and showing full on the charger 20.5 is completely safe and actually made them show 4 bars regulardles your literally a life made my money back on the lot on 5 batteries and have a ton of m18 & m12 batteries now thanks 👍👍👍.
This happens to me about once a year. One of my battery's go to long. I go+ to + and -to -g on the good and bad battery for about 1 second and its enough to get it back to charge. I do my fix outside. Been doing this with RC cars and boat packs for years!
Thank you for the education. I have at least one if not two of these same batteries giving me the same red/green blink so I just purchased the power supply that you had a link to. Many thanks!!!
@@TheElectronMan I got my power supply today and followed your instructions and now have a working battery rather than a paper weight. I'm so happy to know this trick now. Thanks again!
This is fantastic if you have his knowledge and Equipment. You can also simply hook the negative terminal on the bad battery to a negative terminal on a working battery and the same for the positives and let it go for a couple of hours. Hook it up to your charger and you are good to go. I tried this last night and it worked great. Just make sure that your contacts are touching. I had to try to jam my wire in there a couple of times.
@@KollynJ I connected a charged 18v to my drained 18v for over a day and it did not bring the charge up at all. Either some circuitry is preventing it, or a cell is bad. Being that it is a brand new battery I find it hard to believe the cell is bad.
@@Dan.Parker I only see people hooking them up to the same two prongs where as it seems you’d want to hook up to whichever ones connect to the low cell, not sure if this works or you have to take the case off to do that
Awesome video, I have a brand new set, and one battery was "JUNK", brought it back to the store for an exchange, and wouldn't you know it, the replacement battery was "JUNK" too. I wonder if I can use a 1.5 or 2 Amp trickle charger? Your thoughts on that?
More than likely yes just be careful don't let the battery get warm just get enough charge so that it will finish charging on the factory charger who knows how many of these batteries are like this that just need a jump start due to setting to long discharged from not using it.
Mr ElectronMan, or anyone else. I have something going on and need a little advice. This will be a little long, but it will help, hopefully figure this out. A buddy has Milwaukee stuff, he had a 5.0 pack go bad. I pulled it apart. Had LG HE2 cells. 6 were good, approx 4.05v. 4 were at .10v to .05v. Replaced cells w/ Samsung 25R'S. I checked before install. All cells were 3.54-3.55V. Internal resistance 11milliohm- 17milliohm. Installed the pack was 18.19V. Fuel Gauge wasn't working I thought Milwaukee charger would reset. Solid red for 15-20 minutes, then red/green alternate flashing. Pulled off battery, back on solid red 10 minutes red, then flashing again. I checked V. At 18.30. I then hooked it to my Keenstone UP100AC and it brought the pack to 20.0V. Put on Milwaukee charger and solid green. I'm at a loss. Any help would awesome. Thanks L
I disassembled one 2.0 18 v and charge every cell independently at 3.75 volts, now the battery is working but when I connect it to the charger the charger gave the the same red/green error code. All cells are keeping the voltage. Im not sure if the problem is the charger, the output voltage of the charger is only 10 and somethings volts.
What I showed is the only way I know to bypass it, basically that is what putting voltage in them is just to get the cell high enough to let the charger take over, if putting some voltage in the cells didn't work more than likely you have a bad cell which will not take voltage in that case there is no fix other than taking the pack apart and replacing the bad cell and depending on the pack it might be really hard to open@@Dan.Parker
That fuel gauge is part of the internal pack charging circuit sounds like to me something has malfunction on that internal packs charging circuit I haven't personally diagnosed one of those but if I were troubleshooting it that is where I would go. Check all traces and check the diodes; unfortunately, they are not good with providing circuit diagrams on these components.
Thank you. I am going put battery on a leaf blower and bring the battery voltage down and start checking. Does anyone have the meaning of the codes that the fuel gauge tosses out??
If you looked after the drill that you purchased and followed the instructions that came with it, you wouldn't have to. Bit late to complain something doesn't work after you've neglected it. I would add that 2A is far too high a current to revive a small lithium battery - the recommendation (other than don't do this is you don't know what you're doing) is for around 0.2 of an Amp. It takes a lot longer before you can put it on the charger of course, but is much safer, and better for the cells.
@@will_doherty Not my drill I was just fixing it and actually it depends on the lipo battery specs for charging these were rated for 1500mah at 2c meaning technically you could charge them per the manufacture at up to 3 amps but I agree slower is better. I had no intention of charging them completely up anyway just enough so that the factory charger could take over and if you notice I also warned people they are hazardous and be careful when charging them but thanks for the feedback...
@@will_doherty will it is obvious you don't know what my problem was and mainly, what do you care? There are many videos trying to teach how to fix batteries when we shouldn't even try to do this. I experienced twice that just opening the pack the battery marked as a defected battery so i bought a different brand and there you go... no problem. When I ask you opinion express it.
Yes our tools come with warranty but after the battery warranty is up, this is helpful. I sent my brand new battery back to milwaukee to repair and after a year of very light use, it’s doing the same thing again but this time it’s past the warranty mark.
Thank you! You saved me a new battery. My battery was down to 1.6V. I didn't have a power supply, so I used car charger with a Lithium setting, and got it back up to 14V. After about 10 min, the charger deemed there was a problem with my battery, but put it back on the Milwaukee charger and it started to charge. Worked like a charm. I was lucky it wasn't completely dead. Thanks for the video.
You are very fortunate that the battery didn't explode.
This works amazing got 70 m18 and m12 batteries for 200$ for the lot they were from a renovation company but we're sitting for awhile with no charge and hovering around 15.6 - 17.6v not taking a charge got them all running for the most part one thing i would mention is that i charge them up to 20.5v because alot of them were showing only 3 bars at 20v and showing full on the charger 20.5 is completely safe and actually made them show 4 bars regulardles your literally a life made my money back on the lot on 5 batteries and have a ton of m18 & m12 batteries now thanks 👍👍👍.
Thanks yes I have saved I don't know how many packs this way...
You are my hero. Use an old charger to boost it up a little, and now it’s charging like it should!
what did he do?
This happens to me about once a year. One of my battery's go to long. I go+ to + and -to -g on the good and bad battery for about 1 second and its enough to get it back to charge.
I do my fix outside. Been doing this with RC cars and boat packs for years!
Interesting that is where I came up with the idea, as I do RC cars and Planes...
Awesome, i just found 3 brand new 18v 5 ah Milwaukee batteries that are doing this. I was mad but you have given me hope. Im headed to fix them now
Thank you for the education. I have at least one if not two of these same batteries giving me the same red/green blink so I just purchased the power supply that you had a link to. Many thanks!!!
Glad I could help at the price of lithium batteries it sure is worth saving them when you can...
@@TheElectronMan I got my power supply today and followed your instructions and now have a working battery rather than a paper weight. I'm so happy to know this trick now. Thanks again!
@@v8chevy788 Awesome so glad I could help you out...
This is fantastic if you have his knowledge and Equipment. You can also simply hook the negative terminal on the bad battery to a negative terminal on a working battery and the same for the positives and let it go for a couple of hours. Hook it up to your charger and you are good to go. I tried this last night and it worked great. Just make sure that your contacts are touching. I had to try to jam my wire in there a couple of times.
Trying this now hopefully it works. These batteries are expensive. Kinda stupid technology if its making the battery shut off and not charge.
Did it work long term battery works and holds charge?
@@KollynJ I connected a charged 18v to my drained 18v for over a day and it did not bring the charge up at all. Either some circuitry is preventing it, or a cell is bad. Being that it is a brand new battery I find it hard to believe the cell is bad.
@@Dan.Parker I only see people hooking them up to the same two prongs where as it seems you’d want to hook up to whichever ones connect to the low cell, not sure if this works or you have to take the case off to do that
@@KollynJ not sure what youre explaining to do here
Glad I seen video I returned my first set and replaced everything and same thing battery blinks green and red ..
That trick for charging does work, thanks. And just what is a see-ment floor ?
LOL Redneck for cement floor...
Awesome video, I have a brand new set, and one battery was "JUNK", brought it back to the store for an exchange, and wouldn't you know it, the replacement battery was "JUNK" too. I wonder if I can use a 1.5 or 2 Amp trickle charger? Your thoughts on that?
More than likely yes just be careful don't let the battery get warm just get enough charge so that it will finish charging on the factory charger who knows how many of these batteries are like this that just need a jump start due to setting to long discharged from not using it.
Mr ElectronMan, or anyone else. I have something going on and need a little advice. This will be a little long, but it will help, hopefully figure this out. A buddy has Milwaukee stuff, he had a 5.0 pack go bad. I pulled it apart. Had LG HE2 cells. 6 were good, approx 4.05v. 4 were at
.10v to .05v. Replaced cells w/ Samsung 25R'S. I checked before install. All cells were 3.54-3.55V. Internal resistance 11milliohm- 17milliohm. Installed the pack was 18.19V. Fuel Gauge wasn't working I thought Milwaukee charger would reset. Solid red for 15-20 minutes, then red/green alternate flashing. Pulled off battery, back on solid red 10 minutes red, then flashing again. I checked V. At 18.30. I then hooked it to my Keenstone UP100AC and it brought the pack to 20.0V. Put on Milwaukee charger and solid green. I'm at a loss. Any help would awesome. Thanks
L
Super useful and educational, thank you!
I disassembled one 2.0 18 v and charge every cell independently at 3.75 volts, now the battery is working but when I connect it to the charger the charger gave the the same red/green error code. All cells are keeping the voltage. Im not sure if the problem is the charger, the output voltage of the charger is only 10 and somethings volts.
Hum interesting sounds like maybe you have a charger problem do you have a good known pack you can test in the charger that is what I would do.
@@TheElectronMan gonna buy one tomorrow to test the charger. Let's see what happens
@@TheElectronMan for all the interested, yeah, the battery charger was the problem, so check that before u disassembled the battery.
Very helpful video. Thanks
Thanks man, helpful info thanks
You bet!
Thank you so much! i knew my battery was ok
Way to go! 👍
J'ai essayé le truc , mais la charge sur la perceuse dure pas plus de 30 secondes et les 4 lumieres était allumé ?🤔🤔
Will someone elaborate why these batteries will no longer charge at all if they go below say 1.5v??
It is because of the charger, it detects low voltage on the batteries and then refuses to charge them.
@@TheElectronMan then how do i bypass it? your method is not working for me. the battery is used about a dozen times, and the battery is like 130$
What I showed is the only way I know to bypass it, basically that is what putting voltage in them is just to get the cell high enough to let the charger take over, if putting some voltage in the cells didn't work more than likely you have a bad cell which will not take voltage in that case there is no fix other than taking the pack apart and replacing the bad cell and depending on the pack it might be really hard to open@@Dan.Parker
@@TheElectronMan The voltage on my battery has stayed at 12v, I do not have an amperage tester, would a bad cell still show 12v?
Forgot 1 thing. Press fuel gauge and the red light flashes quickly 7 times.
That fuel gauge is part of the internal pack charging circuit sounds like to me something has malfunction on that internal packs charging circuit I haven't personally diagnosed one of those but if I were troubleshooting it that is where I would go. Check all traces and check the diodes; unfortunately, they are not good with providing circuit diagrams on these components.
Thank you. I am going put battery on a leaf blower and bring the battery voltage down and start checking. Does anyone have the meaning of the codes that the fuel gauge tosses out??
its a very helpful video but for he money we paid for the drill and battery plus charger we shouldn't have to do this.
Totally agree
If you looked after the drill that you purchased and followed the instructions that came with it, you wouldn't have to. Bit late to complain something doesn't work after you've neglected it. I would add that 2A is far too high a current to revive a small lithium battery - the recommendation (other than don't do this is you don't know what you're doing) is for around 0.2 of an Amp. It takes a lot longer before you can put it on the charger of course, but is much safer, and better for the cells.
@@will_doherty Not my drill I was just fixing it and actually it depends on the lipo battery specs for charging these were rated for 1500mah at 2c meaning technically you could charge them per the manufacture at up to 3 amps but I agree slower is better. I had no intention of charging them completely up anyway just enough so that the factory charger could take over and if you notice I also warned people they are hazardous and be careful when charging them but thanks for the feedback...
@@will_doherty will it is obvious you don't know what my problem was and mainly, what do you care? There are many videos trying to teach how to fix batteries when we shouldn't even try to do this. I experienced twice that just opening the pack the battery marked as a defected battery so i bought a different brand and there you go... no problem. When I ask you opinion express it.
Yes our tools come with warranty but after the battery warranty is up, this is helpful. I sent my brand new battery back to milwaukee to repair and after a year of very light use, it’s doing the same thing again but this time it’s past the warranty mark.
See-ment 😆
Duh get to the point!