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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 > Makita Drill Battery Charging< / h1 >
< p > [None of this applies to the Bosch drills and their battery packs.]
< h2 > Instructions for charging in 2018< / h3 >
< p > Please check with a battery nerd whether this is still up to date. It was valid on Friday 27th July 2018.
< p > These instructions are for the
Pro Peak/ Makita Charger [photo needed]: This will charge all Makita drill batteries.
This is the charger which has the Makita slide-socket for the battery which is connected to the yellow ProPeak box.
< h3 > Short Instructions< / h3 >
< p > First insert the battery.
< p > < img src = "i/propeak.jpg" align = "right" hspace = "10px" / >
< p >
Check that screen looks like this: Displaying < br >
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< p style = "
color:darkblue;
background-color:lightblue;
display: block;
margin-top: 1em;
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border: 2px solid blue;
padding:2%;
font:22px/30px monospace;">
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LiIo CHARGE< br >
C=3300mAh 14.4Vp
< / p >
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< p > If this is not the case then move to < a href = "#long" > the long instructions< / a > .
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< br > < br >
< p > If it is showing < em > exactly< / em > as shown above, hold down the "< b > Enter, Start Stop< / b > " button
(the one at the < b > right-hand end< / b > , the < b > 4th one from the left< / b > ) for two seconds.
The screen will display "battery check" and then start charging.
< p > The screen will then look something like below
(but with different numbers) when charging:
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< p style = "
color:darkblue;
background-color:lightblue;
display: block;
margin-top: 1em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
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border: 2px solid blue;
padding:2%;
font:22px/30px monospace;">
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CHG 0.04 00002< br >
LI+3.26A 15.331V
< / p >
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< p > If this is not the case then move to < a href = "#long" > the long instructions< / a > .
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< h3 id = "long" > Long Instructions< / h3 >
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< p > First insert the battery.
< p > If the charging screen is not displaying the settings shown above then the correct < b > charging settings< / b > need to be selected.
You can do this as follows.
< ul >
< li > First using the "< b > Batt Type< / b > " button (First from the left) cycle through the settings until < b > Li-ion< / b > is displayed.
< li > Next using the "< b > Enter, Start Stop< / b > " button (4th from the left) select the "< b > C=< / b > " field
(this will flash when selected) then increase or decrease the current using the "< b > Inc< / b > " or "< b > Dec< / b > " buttons
(2nd and 3rd from the left) until < b > 3300mAh< / b > is displayed.
< li > Using the "< b > Enter, Start Stop< / b > " button cycle to the next "< b > Vp< / b > " field. Again use the "< b > Inc< / b > " or
"< b > Dec< / b > " buttons until < b > 14.4Vp< / b > is displayed.
< / ul >
< p > Now hold down the "< b > Enter, Start Stop< / b > " button for 2 seconds until "< b > Battery Check< / b > " is displayed
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and the screen looks similar to below, but with different numbers:
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< p style = "
color:darkblue;
background-color:lightblue;
display: block;
margin-top: 1em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
margin-left: 10px;
margin-right: 65%;
border: 2px solid blue;
padding:2%;
font:22px/30px monospace;">
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CHG 0.04 00002< br >
LI+3.26A 15.331V
< / p >
< h2 > Background knowledge about drills and batteries< / h2 >
< p > This information will not go out of date.
< h3 > Drills - read this!< / h3 >
< p > Note that the drills have no battery-voltage monitoring at all, and the
monitoring circuit in the battery is bypassed when connected to the drill. Thus the drill can easily be used to over-discharge a
battery, so please < b > stop drilling when it gets slow< / b > and put on a new
battery, unless it's an emergency. Drilling with an excessively-sagged
voltage < b > will< / b > knacker the weakest cell-pair. If your battery
does get to this state, try to charge it up as soon as possible. Cells
must not be left at < 2V for any length of time as they rapidly
(hours/days?) degrade to useless in this state (and that pair will
need replacing - which means reassembling it back in Cambridge and welding in a new cell pair).< / p >
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< h3 > Makita charging protocol issues< / h3 >
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< figure >
< img src = "i/makita2.jpg" >
< figcaption >
< em > An unmodified Makita mains charger< / em >
< / figcaption >
< / figure >
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< p > Makita have put very 'conservative' software in the batteries (as bought) which
will stop them working on an as-bought, unmodified Makita charger, even when they are in
fact fine. The monitoring board in the batteries is powered from the 1st cell pair so
that pair tends to get discharged more than the others when left
sitting for the 11 months of not-expo. If an unbalanced (or
over-disharged, or too-hot) pack is inserted into the Makita charger
the charger and battery will do serial-comms negotiation, the charger
will refuse to charge the battery and < em > the battery will remember< / em > this.
If you try this 3 times, the battery will mark itself bad and will
never charge again on a Makita charger. Only a replacement circuit
board in the battery can fix this (or new software if we knew how to nobble it).< / p >
< p > Such batteries are normally still fine and charge on a sensible (RC
- Radio Control, because RC people are the main market for these
chargers) charger, possible after a "balance charge" to get the cells in
the pack in sync again. Expo has a couple of chargers capable of doing a "balance charge" (Yellow Pro-power
Prodigy II). Unfortunataly Makita don't build the 14.4V packs with
the necessary connections to the cells, so the circuit board in the battery has to be replaced to
make this work easily for expo. For 2018 this was done for 7 of our
packs, and 3 automatic balance chargers were built by Wookey.< / p >
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Further explanation: the charger uses a different pair of electrical connections from those used by the drill - that's why there are
not just two electrical connectors in the charger - to accommodate those extra connections.
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< figure >
< img src = "i/makita-panel2.jpg" width = 45% >
< figcaption >
< em > A close-up of the control panel of an unmodified Makita mains charger< / em >
< / figcaption >
< / figure >
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< h3 > Types of charger< / h3 >
< p > We have these types of charger; the non-mains chargers are all at top camp and can run all night using the car batteries:
< ul >
< li > Makita green/turquoise plastic as-bought mains-powered charger - only at base camp.
< li > ProPeak/Makita charger - a yellow ProPeak box with a blue LCD display connected to the green battery slide connector cut out from a Makita charger.
< li > Balance charger - This is the set of 3 (2 half-width) chargers made from old green Makita chargers.
They have a set of 4 LEDs. (The full-width one only has 1 LED in 2018).
< li > RC charger - a black all-purpose charger with blue LCD display.
< / ul >
< h3 > Makita batteries< / h3 >
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< p > New for 2018 is varying battery capacity. We have 3Ah, 4Ah and 5Ah
packs. Bigger packs will take longer to charge from empty. The
capacity is on the cell label next to the yellow connector.< / p >
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< p > Each pack has a sliding indicator on the side. This is entirely
manual, but is very useful for indicating when a pack is known to be
charged, flat, or partly discharged. Slide the slider to show green
for full, red for flat, half and half for 'partly used'.< / p >
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< h3 > Makita batteries: taped and un-taped< / h3 >
< p > If a battery has green insulation tape on it it has been
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modified by us and < b > will not charge< / b > on an unmodified as-bought Makita charger.
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< ul >
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< li > Taped batteries must be charged on the balance ProPeak (or RC chargers).
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< li > Untaped (standard, as-bought) batteries will not charge on the balance chargers, so must
be charged on the Makita charger (or RC charger).
< / ul >
All batteries will
charge on the RC chargers, but not as fast as on the as-bought (mains power only) Makita
charger. Go to < a href = "#RCcharge" > RC charger< / a > .< / li >
< h3 > Can I tell if a battery is already charged?< / h3 >
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< p > Simplest is try to charge it again and find that it says it is done
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in a couple of minutes (Up to 4 mins on the balance chargers). This
may 'waste a life' on batteries that still work on the Makita
charger. Checking it on the RC charger will not waste a life. It will
quickly rise to 16.4V, and the current drop to 0.1A or so. That
indicates a full pack. It will tell you so after a while (1-5
mins).< / p >
< h3 > What sort of batteries are they< / h3 >
< p > The drill batts are 4S2P 14.4V lithium ion packs (8 18650 cells: 4 in
series, each being a parallel pair). This means that they are charged
as 4-cell packs, to 4.1V per cell-pair. They can be charged at up to
3A rate. Battery 1 has connector wired as balance connector. No other
packs have this yet (2017). The official Makita packs use Sony SE
US18650VT (1.5Ah, 20A high-drain) cells, and we have a few with with Samsung
INR18650-13Q (1.3Ah high-drain cells). All give a reliable 2.3-2.6Ah
capacity in practice, even after 9 years expo useage.< / p >
< p > At end 2017 we bought two 4Ah packs. The non-makita one uses LG
DAHD21865 cells (2Ah, 25A). I can't read the Makita cell type without
unwelding the pack. For 2018 we made 3 new 5Ah packs from Samsung 25R
cells (2.5Ah, 20A) (Sponsored by uk18650.com).< / p >
< p > The drill discharges at 26A current draw when drilling (~400W), so
that's 13A per cell in a 2P configuration.< / p >
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< h3 > Using Makita mains charger< / h3 >
< p > This is the green/turquoise charger with 3 LEDs, and diagrammatic charging info on RH side. Charges at up to 100W.< / p >
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< ol >
< li > Make sure charger is powered (flashing green LED).< / li >
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< li > Slide battery 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.
If it flashes 'broken battery' (flashing red and gren LED) at you
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after a few seconds, use the yellow (Pro-Peak Prodigy II) charger instead.< / li >
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< li > Eventually it should show '100%' (steady green LED) (in about 1
hour max). You are done.< / li >
< / ol >
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< h2 > Everything below here may be out of date due to breakages< / h2 >
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< h3 > Using Balance charger< / h3 >
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< p > This is the set of 3 (2 half-width) chargers made from old green/turquoise Makita chargers.
They have a set of 4 LEDs. (The full-width one only has 1 LED in 2018). Charges at 40W.< / p >
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< ol >
< li > Make sure charger is powered (flashing green LEDs).< / li >
< li > Plug batt into charger. After a few seconds it should start charging.< / li >
< li > Look at the LEDs for status - the legend is printed on the RH end charger. Steady red for bulk charging to 80%. Steady orange for last 20% charging. Steady green for finished. If it flashes red and beeps (repeated 5 times) something is wrong - see table. If you get an 'undervoltage' reading, use an RC charger instead to get the charging started.< / li >
< li > Eventually it should show '100%' (steady green LEDs). (1hr 50 max possible charge time). You are done.< / li >
< / ol >
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< h3 id = "RCcharge" > Accucell 6 RC charger< / h3 >
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< p > This is black all-purpose charger with LCD display. Charges at up to 50W< / p >
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< p > The Yellow Propeak chargers do the same job, and instructions are
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similar, but have no fan, no backlit display, and if pack is low
voltage will charge at C/10 (10% of normal) until voltage rises
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sufficiently. < b > Ensure that charge rate is set to 4000mA< / b > otherwise
charging will be un-usably slow. Charges at up to 50W (5W in C/10 gnetle start).< / p >
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< ol >
< li > Make sure charger is powered (display lit up)< / li >
< li > Connect charger to battery (either hardboard adaptor or empty
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Makita green/turquoise base adaptor). Check polarity is correct with hardboard
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adaptor.< / li >
< li > Check display says 'Lion' or 'Lipo' and '14.4V' and '3A' and 'CHARGE'. Hold
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down "< b > Enter, Start Stop< / b > " button
(the one at the < b > right-hand end< / b > , the < b > 4th one from the left< / b > ) . It will do a battery check.
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< p style = "
color:darkblue;
background-color:lightblue;
display: block;
margin-top: 1em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
margin-left: 10px;
margin-right: 65%;
border: 2px solid blue;
padding:2%;
font:22px/30px monospace;">
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LiIo CHARGE< br >
C=3300mAh 14.4Vp
< / p > < / li >
< li > If it shows '< b > 4< / b > ' as the number of cells, then press "< b > start/enter< / b > "
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again. Charging will start (fan comes on, display changes). If it
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shows anything else like '< b > polarity reversed< / b > ' or '< b > connection break< / b > '
then fix the connection to the battery. If it shows '< b > 3< / b > ' as number of
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cells it is probably knackered, but possibly can be coaxed back into
action. Find a battery expert - don't just use the charger anyway.< / li >
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< li > Once it beeps and says 'FULL' (flashing) then you are done (should
be less than 2 hours). Display shows number of mAh put in in
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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