2016-06-14 03:08:56 +01:00
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<title>CUCC Expedition Handbook: Drill Battery Charging</title>
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<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expedition Handbook</h2>
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<h1>Drill Battery Charging</h1>
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<h2>Instructions for charging</h3>
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2017-08-06 13:49:29 +01:00
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0) <li>If the battery has insulation tape on it (red, green, or earth) it won't
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charge on the Makita standard charger and the Balance/RC charger
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should be used. All batteries will charge on the RC charger, but not
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as fast as on the Makita charger. Go to <a href="#RCcharge">RC charger</a>.</li>
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2016-06-14 03:08:56 +01:00
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<h3>Using Makita charger</h3>
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<ol>
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<li>Make sure charger is powered (flashing green LED).</li>
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<li>Plug batt into Makita charger. It should start charging.</li>
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<li>Look at the LEDs for status - the legend is printed on the charger.
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If it flashes 'broken battery' (flashing red and gren LED) at you
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after a few seconds, use the yellow Pro-power RC charger instead.</li>
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<li>Eventually it should show '100%' (steady green LED) (in about 1
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hour max). You are done.</li>
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</ol>
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<h3 id="RCcharge">Using Pro-Power (or Accucell 6) RC charger</h3>
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<ol>
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<li>Make sure charger is powered (display lit up)</li>
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<li>Connect charger to battery (either hardboard adaptor or empty
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Makita base adaptor). Check polarity is correct with hardboard
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adaptor.</li>
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<li>Check display says 'Lion' or 'Lipo' and '14.4V' and '3A' and 'CHARGE'. Hold
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down 'start/enter' button (on right). It will do a battery check.</li>
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<li>If it shows '4' as the number of cells, then press 'start/enter'
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again. Charging will start (fan comes on, display changes). If it
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shows anything else like 'polarity reversed' or 'connection break'
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2017-07-08 15:05:58 +01:00
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then fix the connection to the battery. If it shows '3' as number of
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cells it is probably knackered, but possibly can be coaxed back into
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action. Find a battery expert - don't just use the charger anyway.</li>
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2016-06-14 03:08:56 +01:00
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<li>Once it beeps and says 'FULL' (flashing) then you are done (should
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be less than 2 hours). Display shows number of mAh put in in
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bottom right. Should be a number like 250 for each hole drilled
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(between 50 and 2900 depending how discharged it was).</li>
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</ol>
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<h3>Can I tell if a battery is already charged?</h3>
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<p>Simplest it try to charge it again and find that it says it is done
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in a couple of minutes. This may waste a 'life' on batteries that
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still work on the Makita charger. Checking it on the RC charger will
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not waste a life. It will quickly rise to 16.4V, and the current drop
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to 0.1A or so. That indicates a full pack. It will tell you so after a
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while (1-5 mins).
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2016-06-14 03:08:56 +01:00
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</p>
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<h3>What sort of batteries are they</h3>
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2017-08-06 13:49:29 +01:00
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<p>The drill batts are 4S2P 14.4V lithium ion packs (8 18650 cells: 4 in
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2016-06-14 03:08:56 +01:00
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series, each being a parallel pair). This means that they are charged
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2017-07-08 15:05:58 +01:00
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as 4-cell packs, to 4.1V per cell-pair. They can be charged at up to
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3A rate. Battery 1 has connector wired as balance connector. No other
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2017-08-06 13:49:29 +01:00
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packs have this yet (2017). The official Makita packs use Sony SE
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US18650VT (1.5Ah, 20A high-drain) cells, and we have a few with with Samsung
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INR18650-13Q (1.3Ah high-drain cells). All give a reliable 2.3-2.6Ah
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capacity in practice, even after 9 years expo useage. </p>
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<h3>Makita charging protocol issues</h3>
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<p>Makita have put very 'conservative' software in the batteries which
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will stop them working on the Makita charger, even when they are in
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fact fine. The monitoring board is powered off the 1st cell pair so
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that one tends to get discharged more than the others when left
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sitting for the 11 months of not-expo. If an unbalanced (or
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over-disharged, or too-hot) pack is inserted into the makita charger
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the charger and battery will do serial-coms negotiation, the charger
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will refuse to charge the battery and the battery will remember this.
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If you try this 3 times, the battery will mark itself bad and will
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never charge again on a makita charger. Only a replacement monitoring
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board can fix this (or new software if we knew how to nobble it).</p>
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<p>Such batteries are normally still fine and charge on a sensible (RC
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- Radio Control, because RC people are the main market for these
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chargers) charger, possible after a balance charge to get the cells in
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the pack in sync again. Expo has a couple of these and will be getting
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more. Unfortunataly Makita don't build the 14.4V packs with balance
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connections to the cells, so the PCB has to be replaced to make this
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work easily for expo, which is the plan for 2018.</p>
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<p>Note that the drills have no battery-voltage monitoring at all, and the
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monitoring circuit is bypassed when conected to the drill (the charger
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uses a different connector-pair from the drill - that's why there are
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3 slots). Thus the drill can easily be used to over-discharge a
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battery, so please stop drilling when it gets slow and put on a new
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batt, unless it's an emergency. Drilling with an excessively-sagged
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voltage is a good way to knacker the weakest cell-pair. If your battery
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does get to this state, try to charge it up as soon as possible. Cells
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must not be left at <2V for any length of time as they rapidly
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(hours/days?) degrade to useless in this state (and that pair will
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need replacing).</p>
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2016-06-14 03:08:56 +01:00
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</body>
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</html>
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