Please like and subscribe if you found this video useful. See below for more battery videos 0Dewalt Battery repair: ua-cam.com/play/PLduybcJ2nSYXq0Dq1bpEZLIpaXPZsuIfv.html
One thing that hasn't been brought up is that the strips that you get with the spot welder is 99% chance of being nickel plated steel. Couple of reasons why they include plated steel vs. pure nickel is; Its cheaper for them, it's easy to spot weld than pure nickel. Big drawbacks are; nickel plated steel will corrode and rust over time and it carries less amps, which is important in a high drain device like power tools. For example .15 × 8mm copper 18A of CDR, pure nickel 5A, nickel plated steel 3A. 2 ways to test what you have. I'll take Dremel with cutoff wheel and cut a little of the strip. If you see sparks, plated steel, no sparks, pure nickel as nickel doesn't kick sparks. If u want to be double check, make a salt water solution and put a small piece of strip in. If no corrosion the next AM, pure nickel. Shows heavy corrosion, plated steel...
That runs...but control the right balance after a few charges and discharges, because you add new cells to old used cells, with certainly different internal resistance.
Few warnings: I would isolate the other cell-ends with tape before removing and adding the nickelplates, it's easy to short the cells. Furthermore, I'd check the cell battery voltages after a few charge cycles to see if they keep their balance. If charging takes much longer you know there's an inbalance in the pack and more cells needs to be replaced (I'd replace them all if the pack is old). Performance will be better if the cells are from the same production batch. PS. I'd work on a desk instead of on the ground, makes it easier to do the job. 😏
Imo not worth replacing them at all.. For a genuine high discharge 30a cell from the likes of sony, lg ect, your looking at 4 to 5 euros new..x10 thats 40 to 50 euros when you include any shipping.. Add in the labour and you might as well just bin it and buy a new one from dewalt..
I have this exact issue with one of mine. Going to order the spot welder and batteries to fix it. What thickness nickel strips did you use please? 0.2mm? Thanks 🙏👍
It held up well I am still using it. I suppose wear gloves is important. I try and put in cells that are at a very close voltage to the rest this stops cell imbalance which stops the battery achieving its full voltage potential.
@@doctorlefthandthread cheers for that one I though there would have been a difference between the 4ah and 5ah. Going to open my first one tomorrow and give it a shot. I have sent you an email over mate. Just when ever you get chance to take a look pa.
The PC board will work for a variety of packs. Usually when I get 3 Ah, 4 Ah or 5Ah, instead of replacing the 20R cells, or the 15M cells, I just put 25R cells in. So the customer get 5Ah battery packs...better than new
Got two 5ah batteries from ebay. Seller won't refund or exchange the one that won't charge. I don't think I am up to foolin with tearing it down and have already tried the jumping it from tge other battery trick- no go. Do you know if Dewalt will replace it?. It was new in the packaging when I got it.
Perhaps an OPUS battery charger/discharger would be good to add to your collection (plus the modded cooler fan). You can great test each cell and roughly gets its mAH reading. You can also get dedicated IR testers. Also I’m surprised that cheap welder did the job. You can make one or go for a decent branded one for £100. The problem these days is sourcing cells. It was easy before EBay and others cracked down on postage due to fire hazard. It’s getting cheaper just to source a whole new unit battery pack now sadly. Good video for an amateur and from now I never bin bad units but keeps/test/label each cell.
@@doctorlefthandthread I also think there’s a V2.2 now that is upgraded with an inbuilt cooling fan. Great bit of kit to test each battery. The first version used to trip when doing discharge test to get mAH reading.
You're not done yet. If you have a power supply, you can use it to balance charge the cell pairs separately through the Dewalt battery contacts. Set the power supply charging voltage to no more than 4.2 volts. If your cells get above 4.2V, they would catch fire or explode so be careful. You can bridge the power supply and the Dewalt battery contacts using paper clips with the insulation stripped. It's going to charge very slowly taking hours to bring the cell pair voltages up as it is essentially equalizing to the power supply voltage. Cell pair 1 is B- to C1 Cell pair 2 is C1 to C2 Cell pair 3 is C2 to C3 Cell pair 4 is C3 to C4 Cell pair 5 is C4 to B+ Get all the cell pair voltages to be more or less equal to each other. Then battery is balanced. Doesn't make much difference whether you bottom balance, top balance, or any voltage in between. That's for an advanced discussion. Try to get the cell pairs to be within 0.02 volts of each other.
Thank you so much for your comment that is what I intended to do however time was an issue and the guy who owned the battery has collected that and the 4 others I revived and repaired if I get one like this again and I have time I will do the video on it. This is why I love youtube I show people things and they tell me helpful things
Just an addition: Charging the individual cells/cell pairs (because in this case they were in parallel) to the same voltage makes the balancing process much shorter, it doesn't have to be 4.20V (max), but going to the highest cell voltage in the pack would do it as well (saves time to charge all of them). The charger will most likely also balance the cells, but it might be a very slow process when the cells are off too much.
I do not see the point of testing and replacing individual cells. If a couple have failed, the rest are probably not far behind. Why not just change them all?
@@doctorlefthandthread They do seem to be good batteries. I have four 5AH Dewalt ones that are shared between power drill, circular saw, recip saw, etc. They have lasted about three years of regular and sometimes brutal use, such as stone cutting. They are only recently started to give problems.
Please like and subscribe if you found this video useful.
See below for more battery videos
0Dewalt Battery repair: ua-cam.com/play/PLduybcJ2nSYXq0Dq1bpEZLIpaXPZsuIfv.html
One thing that hasn't been brought up is that the strips that you get with the spot welder is 99% chance of being nickel plated steel. Couple of reasons why they include plated steel vs. pure nickel is; Its cheaper for them, it's easy to spot weld than pure nickel. Big drawbacks are; nickel plated steel will corrode and rust over time and it carries less amps, which is important in a high drain device like power tools. For example .15 × 8mm copper 18A of CDR, pure nickel 5A, nickel plated steel 3A. 2 ways to test what you have. I'll take Dremel with cutoff wheel and cut a little of the strip. If you see sparks, plated steel, no sparks, pure nickel as nickel doesn't kick sparks. If u want to be double check, make a salt water solution and put a small piece of strip in. If no corrosion the next AM, pure nickel. Shows heavy corrosion, plated steel...
Thanks for the info 👍
i say it before and i say it again. you're a treasure mate! hopefully you can repair more defective flexvolt battery too and post it. thank you
Thanks for commenting again I am trying to gather more info on the flexvolt at the moment to see if it can be cracked
@@doctorlefthandthread hopefully you can find a way
Great work my friend. I love this kind of content
Thanks for commenting I took inspiration from your battery videos so thanks for that too.
@@doctorlefthandthread your doing great man. We have definitely recommended your channel to everyone
@@IMPACT-NATION I know thanks for that you guys are awesome 👊
That runs...but control the right balance after a few charges and discharges, because you add new cells to old used cells, with certainly different internal resistance.
That is certainly true
Few warnings: I would isolate the other cell-ends with tape before removing and adding the nickelplates, it's easy to short the cells. Furthermore, I'd check the cell battery voltages after a few charge cycles to see if they keep their balance. If charging takes much longer you know there's an inbalance in the pack and more cells needs to be replaced (I'd replace them all if the pack is old). Performance will be better if the cells are from the same production batch.
PS. I'd work on a desk instead of on the ground, makes it easier to do the job. 😏
Thanks for your comment I have done a few since that here is my latest
ua-cam.com/video/qwOC9FC_oeA/v-deo.html
Imo not worth replacing them at all.. For a genuine high discharge 30a cell from the likes of sony, lg ect, your looking at 4 to 5 euros new..x10 thats 40 to 50 euros when you include any shipping.. Add in the labour and you might as well just bin it and buy a new one from dewalt..
Great video! Are you working on the ground for safety reasons?
Yes and I didn't have my workshop and wooden bench at the time a metal bench is a no no
And next to a drain grate…lol. Good job on the battery repair! 🙌
I slightly nicked the green wrap on one of the battery’s so covered it with black electrical tape is that ok doing that?
I would say yes
@@doctorlefthandthread ok thank you was just worried incase it was unsafe
I have this exact issue with one of mine. Going to order the spot welder and batteries to fix it.
What thickness nickel strips did you use please? 0.2mm?
Thanks 🙏👍
I have better more recent videos if you need more help some of the spot welders come with strip so that will make it easy to start with
Can you detail the tools used, most specifically the spot welder please
Yeah no trouble this should explain
ua-cam.com/video/WHRuJBJ6EOs/v-deo.html
Does anyone know the name of the lil spot welder used in the video?
ua-cam.com/video/XXuvlVmbcb0/v-deo.htmlsi=a__CGvi3VIo3QcAc
Thanks for the tutorial. I'm looking to do this myself. How did the battery hold up after the repair? Anything you would do differently?
It held up well I am still using it. I suppose wear gloves is important. I try and put in cells that are at a very close voltage to the rest this stops cell imbalance which stops the battery achieving its full voltage potential.
What cells do I need for a 18v 4AH DeWalt. Many thanks
2000mah lithium ion Samsung 18650 or equivalent. I have plenty of spare ones at the minute
@@doctorlefthandthread cheers for that one I though there would have been a difference between the 4ah and 5ah. Going to open my first one tomorrow and give it a shot. I have sent you an email over mate. Just when ever you get chance to take a look pa.
Did you send it to the right email?
drlefthandthread@gmail.com
The PC board will work for a variety of packs. Usually when I get 3 Ah, 4 Ah or 5Ah, instead of replacing the 20R cells, or the 15M cells, I just put 25R cells in. So the customer get 5Ah battery packs...better than new
Got two 5ah batteries from ebay. Seller won't refund or exchange the one that won't charge.
I don't think I am up to foolin with tearing it down and have already tried the jumping it from tge other battery trick- no go.
Do you know if Dewalt will replace it?. It was new in the packaging when I got it.
It'd be worth trying if they are new
Thanks so much for your useful video!
How many mamp for a single battery?
Thanks again!
The 5ah batteries have 2500mah cells 4ah have 2000mah cells
Well done, great job👌
Thanks Phillip 👍
how do you check for broken boards? whats the indicator of faulty boards?
usually if the cells are all testing ok and there is still a problem it is the board
Good job 👍
Thank you sir lots more battery content on my channel
Perhaps an OPUS battery charger/discharger would be good to add to your collection (plus the modded cooler fan).
You can great test each cell and roughly gets its mAH reading.
You can also get dedicated IR testers.
Also I’m surprised that cheap welder did the job. You can make one or go for a decent branded one for £100.
The problem these days is sourcing cells. It was easy before EBay and others cracked down on postage due to fire hazard.
It’s getting cheaper just to source a whole new unit battery pack now sadly.
Good video for an amateur and from now I never bin bad units but keeps/test/label each cell.
Thanks for your comment I will certainly look into getting an opus battery charger and I probably need a better spot welder at this stage
@@doctorlefthandthread I also think there’s a V2.2 now that is upgraded with an inbuilt cooling fan. Great bit of kit to test each battery. The first version used to trip when doing discharge test to get mAH reading.
@@PT4LifeYO thank you
You're not done yet. If you have a power supply, you can use it to balance charge the cell pairs separately through the Dewalt battery contacts. Set the power supply charging voltage to no more than 4.2 volts. If your cells get above 4.2V, they would catch fire or explode so be careful. You can bridge the power supply and the Dewalt battery contacts using paper clips with the insulation stripped. It's going to charge very slowly taking hours to bring the cell pair voltages up as it is essentially equalizing to the power supply voltage.
Cell pair 1 is B- to C1
Cell pair 2 is C1 to C2
Cell pair 3 is C2 to C3
Cell pair 4 is C3 to C4
Cell pair 5 is C4 to B+
Get all the cell pair voltages to be more or less equal to each other. Then battery is balanced. Doesn't make much difference whether you bottom balance, top balance, or any voltage in between. That's for an advanced discussion. Try to get the cell pairs to be within 0.02 volts of each other.
Thank you so much for your comment that is what I intended to do however time was an issue and the guy who owned the battery has collected that and the 4 others I revived and repaired if I get one like this again and I have time I will do the video on it. This is why I love youtube I show people things and they tell me helpful things
Just an addition: Charging the individual cells/cell pairs (because in this case they were in parallel) to the same voltage makes the balancing process much shorter, it doesn't have to be 4.20V (max), but going to the highest cell voltage in the pack would do it as well (saves time to charge all of them). The charger will most likely also balance the cells, but it might be a very slow process when the cells are off too much.
Is the solder on the battery itself?
I don't solder the cells I use a spot welder it's safer. They are spot welded by the manufacturer so it is the correct way.
What's that tool u ust to reconnect them
amzn.to/3mfPXLi
Always charge or discharge the new or any battery to the same voltage when you rebuild or build your pack.
You are correct an imbalanced pack is a suboptimal one
You could have likely respot welded the existing nickel plates. Instead of removing and putting new ones
Not with that little DIY spot welder I used. It wouldn't be powerful enough for heavy strip I used lighter stuff to reconnect.
Where did u buy replacement cells from? There are a lot of fakes out there for me
I got them on ebay but it is getting more difficult to get cells especially legit ones
Where can I find that welder
Ebay and it is not expensive
@@doctorlefthandthread Hello, Nice work, What is the name of the welder?
@@gwabmpofu8650 it is listed on ebay as DIY spot welder 30 gears. It has mash-wb merc written on it. I hope this helps
i just bought a rechargeable battery back on the clearance rack 10 dollar with 10 18650 in it .
Fantastic that's the way to do it cheap battery packs are a great way to get affordable cells
@doctorlefthandthread thanks for the reply. This is a first for me learning how to work on equipment battery packs.
@@danecrude I have lots of battery content on my channel if you need more info
@doctorlefthandthread thanks I was just looking at your
content. Merry Christmas, have a great day
@@danecrude Merry Christmas and thank you
Send me a link to buy replacement batteries
battery101.co.uk/collections/chargers
I do not see the point of testing and replacing individual cells. If a couple have failed, the rest are probably not far behind. Why not just change them all?
You do make a good point if a battery is old enough it is pointless replacing the individual cells this particular battery has done well however.
@@doctorlefthandthread They do seem to be good batteries. I have four 5AH Dewalt ones that are shared between power drill, circular saw, recip saw, etc. They have lasted about three years of regular and sometimes brutal use, such as stone cutting. They are only recently started to give problems.
You didn't connect the end cells
That battery is still in my possession and it still goes?
Place batteries on counter, slide debt card through machine.
Thanks for your comment lol
My knees hurt, buy a table brother
You are correct. This was 2 1/2 years ago I have since built a workshop and got a work bench
@ thankyou
Not going to work the batteries don't have the same usage or voltage. There's something called back voltage.
I still have that battery and it still works 2 years on
@stownley2005