Makita LXT 18V impact and charger issues

[Matt Day]

I helped my in laws build a small front deck yesterday. Charged up my batteries the day before at home just fine. After about a hundred 2 1/2" deck screws my impact driver (BTD140) started to sound a bit unusual but nothing too weird. It also got pretty hot and seemed to be loosing power and driving screws less efficiently. I stopped using it and used my drill/driver which finished the job doing another 500 or so screws on my last two batteries (I have 3 total).

Toward the end of the project, I put a dead battery in my charger (DC18SC) in case I needed it. My charger's fan sounded louder than usual but it's done that before.

There were a couple light rains during the project but nothing soaking and I covered the charger.

So, I get home and check the brushes in the impact and they look fine, check the switch for obvious signs of overheating and it all looks good. There was never an issue of the trigger not working properly. I blew out the dust and crossed my fingers.

The charger reads that ALL three batteries are defective. I find that nearly impossible that all three died simultaneously. I understand there's a max # of charge cycles before the battery's computer seems it dead.

These tools are about 10 years old I think, have been only been used in my hobbiest woodworking shop, around the house projects, and DIY car work, and have worked great.

Any suggestions on the charger or the impact? New chargers seem to sell on eBay for under $40, should I try a new charger?

[larry senen]

Can you buy a charger locally? I ask because if your charger is not the problem you can return it easily. But in all likelihood i think it is the charger. Not a common occurrence but I've had one or two go bad.

[Martin Wasner]

I'd be worried about the lvc being bad in the driver and allowing the voltage to fall too low. Lithium batteries can get nuked from being discharged too far.

[Mike Heidrick]

Id take a batt to HD and try it on one of their demo display chargers.

[Gene Takae]

I'd be worried about the lvc being bad in the driver and allowing the voltage to fall too low. Lithium batteries can get nuked from being discharged too far.

I think Martin is correct. You may have killed the batteries. Try and find a Makita service center. They should have a battery tester.

[Matt Day]

The impact only had one battery in it. Once it started acting funny I put it down, and didn't use the other batteries. If anything the driver only nuked one battery.

Good thought on going to an HD and testing on their charger. I'll do that or go to a service center.

[Martin Wasner]

Probably the charger then if you had the packs in different drivers. Tiger batteries have always been Makita's Achilles heal. Fifteen minute charge times is hard on them, and chargers can be fickle anyways.

Trust me, it's way better having the snap to fail safeties they do on the chargers than the other way around. Lithium batteries are not to be trifled with. I've got a buddy who's house almost burned down from a Lipo exploding on the charger. I've had one pop in my living room, if I wasn't right there to immediately wing it out the front door, I could've had a homeless problem too.

[Jay Nossen]

I've had my charger insist that some of my batteries were dead. Tried it again a few hours later and everything was fine.

[Greg R Bradley]

I have lots of LXT stuff for both business and personal. I have had a charger say that a battery was bad only to have it work fine later. This is rare and usually only when the batteries have been run real hard and are hot. It is hard to imagine seeing that problem affect 3 different batteries so I might be inclined to suspect the charger.

Running the batteries completely dead is certainly not a problem as I run 4-12 to dead every day for the last 5 months so that is certainly over 100 times on many of the batteries. Used on fans and worklights where they run until they are dead.

3ah batteries charge in 30min, 4ah in 40min, 5ah in 45min.

Let me know if you need an inexpensive charger as I have a couple that have never been used and probably never will be used now that I've bought some multi-battery chargers.

[Matt Day]

Thx for the offer Gregg. Your PM box is full. Please let me know the models you have and price shipped to 44022. Thx again

[Mike Heidrick]

Greg rocks!

[Greg R Bradley]

Thanks Mike,
I sent Matt an unused extra charger today for $20, which means UPS gets $14 and I get $6 for a charger that I might otherwise just use for a backup of a backup of a backup. Hopefully that means Matt can figure out his problem and I will have a tiny bit less extra stuff to store.

[Matt Day]

Just to close this thread, the issue was in fact a dead charger. Thanks to Greg for the charger! Good to be back in business.

[Tom M King]

I had one of those quit too. I bought another one. Maybe a year later, the first one was still somewhere around, and was put in the truck again instead of the newer one. It went back to work just fine. Now I have two working ones. That was maybe four years ago.