Dewalt battery failed need advice please

[happyhero]

Hi, I went to charge one of my batteries and got the fast flashing on the charger indicating that the battery is faulty, but before I throw it I was wondering if there is anything I can do with it to kick it into life and also how to test it. I have a multimeter and I am getting a dead short across the terminals. I have taken it apart and I can see a bunch of cells bound together, but no signs of burning or anything else abnormal.

What is the most common reason for failure, is it normally dead short or open circuit when they have had it or something else?

It is a XR2 14.4v 2.0Ah battery DE9091.

Any tips about buying new,

ie

Different technologies now with batteries?

Should I buy Dewalt or are there copies that will work just as well?

Best place to get them cheap?

Any help appreciated.

 

[Symptoms]

happy - age of the battery and the number of recharge cycles determines the life (or end of) of the battery. So I suspect, like alot of us out there, you'll have to buy a new one. A couple of things to consider ... if you buy one of the same rating you can use your old charger, upgrade the battery and you may have to buy a new charger. Expect to pay £35+ for the battery but give them a ring to see if they'll do a deal for a couple ('cos pound-to-a-pinch your 2nd battery's going to die soon). I've always got my new batteries from www.itslondon.co.uk ... an excellent firm to do business with IMO. You're using decent tackle so get a DW battery; I'd imagine clones will have a more limited life span ... maybe others out there will correct me.

 

[scousespark]

If you have 2 batteries and only one is fried, you probably won't need a charger. When you get a new battery go for ni-mh (DE9502). These can be recharged at any time and don't suffer memory effect. Dewalt tend to give you ni-cd from new.

 

[happyhero]

Cheers guys, so my old one will be a ni-cd then I take it?

Will the one you quote, the ni-mh, fit my existing charger do you think?

And if it does fit will it charge ok if the charger was originally designed to have the ni-cd's put into it? ie will it take longer or do anything else odd?

 

[gregers]

i had this with both my batteries on my dewalt,as i work in a school i took it to the physics technician and he blasted them with high voltage and said the cells inside crystallize,this he done a few times over a period of 6 mths then they gave up totally,you can if yu know how to do it recell your batteries.

 

[mattylad]

A colleague has simply strapped a 12v 1.7ah alarm battery to the bottom of his drill, its about the same weight & he says there seems no difference in performance

 

[muggles]

Dewalt chargers do seem to be dodgy, unless it's just my experience - I've had two chargers break on me in three years, and both times they took my full set of three batteries with them (six in total) as they mis-charged them somehow. With that and other problems with the tools themselves breaking under normal use and having difficulty getting warranty repairs, I've binned the lot and switched to Bosch