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Makita LXT Batteries


K78

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If it's the DC18RC charger then the green light on steadily means it's charged. Green light flashing means the charger's on but there's no battery in it. I don't think the fan goes off until a bit after the charge completes but it's been a while since I watched one closely. Normal charge from flat is about 20 minutes I think. Initial charge of a new battery should be shorter than that as they'll be shipped at least partly charged.

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There is also a possible wrinkle to watch out for as the charge sense circuit may be devised so as to not sense the presence of the battery if the battery is in the charger when it is first turned on. My Dewalt multi charger has this problem (Which might be a design feature I suppose) - if the battery is in the charger when you plug it in / turn it on it never charges the battery, take the battery out and pop it in again and it does its job perfectly.

Edited by MikeSharp01
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Just tried with the DC18RC - inserted battery, plugged in, turned on at wall. Started charging immediately. Battery I charged last week so came to full charge pretty quickly. Green light on. Fan still running. Will turn off as it's annoyingly loud, rather than wait for it to go off by itself.

 

That's why I'd forgotten the sequence, I always leave it in another room because of the noise. Wish they did a slower charger which didn't need the fan and probably would look after the batteries better.

Edited by Ed Davies
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4 hours ago, Ed Davies said:

Just tried with the DC18RC - inserted battery, plugged in, turned on at wall. Started charging immediately. Battery I charged last week so came to full charge pretty quickly. Green light on. Fan still running. Will turn off as it's annoyingly loud, rather than wait for it to go off by itself.

 

That's why I'd forgotten the sequence, I always leave it in another room because of the noise. Wish they did a slower charger which didn't need the fan and probably would look after the batteries better.

Au contraire. 

The Makita is a clever beast. If you’ve been working the battery hard and it’s hot the charger will refuse to charge it when first inserted into the charger. The fan will blow through the battery pack ( it has a dedicated airway designed to effectively cool the cells inside ) and when the onboard thermistor says it’s cooled down the charger will start to charge the battery. 

The fan will then run to keep the batteries cool whilst being fast charged. 

As I’m ‘in the trade’ I need my batteries chop-chop and favour the design.

 

When one of my batteries dies it gets full honours and quite deserved too. I then list it on eBay and someone gives me £10 plus p&p for it!

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I'm not sure what you have to do to kill a Makita LXT battery. I'm still using the original pair of 4Ah ones I bought three or four years ago, and they've built an entire house and a heap of other stuff besides. Still seem to be going strong.

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Yep, have one 3 Ah LXT battery bought 2014-07-21 and two 4 Ah bought 2015-04-24. Still going strong, touch C24.

 

From what I've read the problem is that the internal electronics in the battery runs off just one row of cells so that row discharges quickest when left on the shelf. Combine that with shallow charges and the cells can easily get out of balance.

 

So my strategy is to run them to empty then recharge that evening, cycling through them fairly systematically (numbered 1 to 3, replace one that's empty with the next number in the cycle) other than if I'm using the circular saw a lot when I tend to jump to the 4 Ah batteries even if the 3 Ah is next in turn. Typically I start a day's work with one battery at whatever state of charge it was left at the previous day and two fully charged. I've only run out once on a day when I was doing quite a bit of circular sawing.

 

I can see why Makita makes fast charge the default they sell but I would like at least the option to charge slower. Maybe it really doesn't make much difference or maybe Makita either wants to sell more batteries or doesn't dare admit that fast charge is sub-optimal. Dunno.

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12 hours ago, Ed Davies said:

I can see why Makita makes fast charge the default they sell but I would like at least the option to charge slower.

 

Oddly mine is the standard charger and a 3Ah takes less than 40 mins to charge to full. I rotate the two I have and rarely run out as one gets an overnight charge and the other goes on when I have a brew. 

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