Owning power tools can be incredibly helpful when it comes to a variety of projects, big and small, around the house or at work. Makita makes some of the best-known and loved power tools out there. When it comes to their batteries, simply putting them onto the charger and letting them power up until the light turns solid green will guarantee a power tool that can get the job done quickly and effectively.
However, sometimes a battery will not charge. The first thing you should do in that case is to make sure that the charger itself is not faulty by testing another battery. Once you have established that the charger is working properly, you may decide that you are not ready to give up on the battery. Read on to find out how to fix your Makita battery so that you can keep using it for a long time to come.
How Can I Fix a Makita Battery?
If you find that your battery will not charge at all when you put it in the charger, then the most likely issue is that it does not have enough charge left in it for the charger to recognize it as a battery and finish charging it. To solve the issue, you need to get enough charge into the battery. This can be done using another Makita battery of the same voltage. In addition to another battery, you will need the following:
- A multimeter. You will use it to check the voltage of each of the batteries.
- A wire. You will use it to connect the two batteries.
- Two positive terminals and two negative terminals. You will connect these to the wire
Start by testing the charge on each battery. A multimeter will have two probes-one negative and one positive. Press the negative probe to the negative terminal on the working battery and press the positive probe on the positive terminal of the working battery. If it is fully charged it should read at one volt higher than what is listed. For example, an 18-volt battery should have a 19-volt reading. Test the faulty battery in the same way with the multimeter.
If the charge on the good battery is where it should be, you can proceed on to the next step-connecting the batteries. Connect the positive terminals to a wire, one on each side. Do the same with negative terminals on the other wire. Tie the two wires together, leaving enough room on each side that they can easily reach the terminals without pulling the other side out.
Next, while taking care that the ends of the wires do not brush against each other, connect one end of the positive terminal wire to the positive terminals on the bad battery. Then, connect the negative terminal to the negative terminal on the same battery. Once the terminals are securely fastened to the bad battery, place the good battery next to it.
Take the ends of the wires already connected to the battery and connect the other end of the positive terminal wire and connect it to the positive terminal on the good battery. Finally, connect the other end of the negative terminal wire to the negative terminal of the good battery. The good battery should be charging the faulty one.
You can measure the voltage with the altimeter every few minutes to see if the voltage is being transferred and to make sure that the good battery’s voltage does not fall too low. Once you have transferred some voltage to the faulty battery, test it again in the battery charger. If the light turns to solid red, then it means that the faulty battery is now charging and has been fixed.
*Note: It may take several tries transferring the voltage from the good battery to the faulty one before it works, so be sure that the good battery does not get too low.
Conclusion
One of the most frustrating things about owning a Makita is when the battery is faulty and won’t charge. This typically happens because the voltage has gotten so low that the charger does not recognize that it is a battery and cannot charge it. However, there is a way to get the voltage up to the point where you can put it into the charger, and it will continue to charge it to full power.
To do so, you need to connect the faulty battery to a good battery of the same voltage with two wires connecting each of the positive terminals to each other and each of the negative terminals to each other. Once they are connected, the good battery will transfer some of its voltage to the faulty battery. You can keep track of whether the voltage is being transferred using a multimeter.