<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.
<h3>Can I tell if a battery is already charged?</h3>
<p>Simplest is try to charge it again and find that it says it is done
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>
<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>
<ol>
<li>Make sure charger is powered (flashing green LED).</li>
<li>Slide battery into Makita charger. It should start charging.</li>
<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
after a few seconds, use the yellow (Pro-Peak Prodigy II) charger instead.</li>
<li>Eventually it should show '100%' (steady green LED) (in about 1
hour max). You are done.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Everything below here may be out of date due to breakages</h2>
<h3>Using Balance charger</h3>
<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>
<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>
<h3id="RCcharge">Accucell 6 RC charger</h3>
<p>This is black all-purpose charger with LCD display. Charges at up to 50W</p>
<p>The Yellow Propeak chargers do the same job, and instructions are
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
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>
<ol>
<li>Make sure charger is powered (display lit up)</li>
<li>Connect charger to battery (either hardboard adaptor or empty
Makita green/turquoise base adaptor). Check polarity is correct with hardboard
adaptor.</li>
<li>Check display says 'Lion' or 'Lipo' and '14.4V' and '3A' and 'CHARGE'. Hold
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.
<pstyle="
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;">
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>"
again. Charging will start (fan comes on, display changes). If it
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
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>
<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
(between 50 and 2900 depending how discharged it was).</li>
