People might have a faulty charger and decide to toss it away. That isn’t always necessary. Some tinkering can help you save money and get your charger working again.
That’s precisely what I want to help with today, while going over the most common Milwaukee M18 battery charger problems. You might find just what your charger needs below!
4 Common Problems With The Milwaukee M18 Battery Charger
- Contact Points Require Cleaning
Even though it isn’t a big one, the most common issue with these chargers is usually how often their contact points may require cleaning. This usually comes down to the users.
Some users don’t use the batteries or their charger regularly and store them away from dust. Others might use them a lot and leave them exposed where dust can build up in crevices.
While a dirty charger doesn’t sound like the end of the world, it can still stop the whole thing from working. That’s because of the small metal pins on these things.
The image under this will show you what pins I’m talking about. Your Milwaukee M18 charger will have the same ones too. It’s where the charger and the battery connect for the flow of electricity.
Debris getting in the way of the pins on your Milwaukee charger and battery will stop them from connecting. In other words, the charger won’t be able to do its job.
It’s a super common problem that some new users don’t know about, so let me tell you that it’s really important to properly clean these pins out every now and then.
Whenever you have trouble getting a battery to connect with the charger, it’s probably because these pins are dirty. Using a cloth to wipe them off is usually enough to deal with that, though.
Depending on how long the battery’s been in storage, and how dirty it looks, you might have to take the covers off. That’ll fully expose the pins and help you clean them from the base to the top.
Sometimes, your Milwaukee M18 battery may blink red when you put it on the charger. I have made a video about what should you do when you encounter this and you can watch it below.
If your charger is blinking red fast, it means the hot/cold delay is triggered. To solve this issue, just wait for the battery temperature to return back to normal and try to charge it again.
If the charger shows a slow blinking red light, it means battery charging is pending. In this case, there is nothing you can do but to wait for the Milwaukee charger to charge your battery.
I also have a video about the different meanings of the indicator lights on a Milwaukee M18 battery charger. You can watch the video below.
The Milwaukee M18 battery charger shows a solid red when it’s charging a battery. This will turn into a solid green once the battery becomes fully charged.
It will show a flashing red and green when it detects a bad battery.
- Blown Fuses
Chargers are weird, because the issues with them are either really small or really big. There isn’t much of a middle-ground. For example, dirty contact points are nothing much.
Any other problem with these Milwaukee chargers is much grander in scale though. One such example is of the fuses inside these chargers. These can blow out.
I’m sure you’ve heard about blown fuses, and how they stop chargers from working. Well, this is the same thing. Without functional fuses, the charger will refuse to turn on.
Fuses protect from overflowing power which could damage the charger and battery. When they stop working, the charger does too to make sure nothing worse happens.
The image above highlights where you’ll find the fuse on a Milwaukee M18 charger. Although, depending on the exact model you have, it could be in a different place.
Regardless, there’s only one way to fix this. The charger won’t run without a fuse to protect it. That’s a built-in precaution for the protection of the charger and any batteries on it.
You’ll have to do some searching and find replacement fuses for the exact charger you have. Put them in place of the old ones, and you’ll have a fuse to protect the charger again.
Replacing it isn’t that easy, though. You might need some help if you’re not used to tinkering with tools, so don’t hesitate to get someone to do it for you if necessary.
- Failed Capacitors
Capacitors play a pretty similar role to fuses, but are arguably even more important. These things don’t just protect the charger, they help it function too.
That’s exactly why a failed capacitor will cause your Milwaukee M18 charger to stop working. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for these things to fail and stop functioning.
Chargers have capacitors to help them regulate the flow of power. These things even store some extra energy in them, which they release when necessary to balance out the voltage coming through.
But, if the charger ever overheats or gets a surplus of energy, the capacitor can stop working. You can see these little things on my Milwaukee M18 charger in the picture below.
Unlike a blown fuse, which is pretty obvious, it’s harder to tell when a capacitor is bad. There is one telling sign though. Capacitors leak a sort of gel when they stop working.
This gel will harden and form around the top of the capacitor if something happens to it. That’s what you have to watch out for when looking at faulty capacitors.
After that, the story is mostly the same as the fuses. You’ll need to search for a replacement capacitor and put it on. There is one small problem with that, though.
Capacitors require soldering to properly place on batteries. If you aren’t good at soldering or have little experience with it, I don’t suggest doing this on your own. Otherwise, it’s simple.
- Bad Circuit Boards
Out of all the inner components of a Milwaukee M18 charger, it’s the worst when a board goes bad. That’s because these are the hardest to deal with.
With other components, you can just buy replacements and slot them into place. But, with boards, that’s not so easy. Not only are these expensive, they’re hard to get to work too.
The boards on a charger are manufactured to work with all the components inside to perfectly supply power to batteries. Without the right board, the charger won’t work.
Take a look at this board in my Milwaukee M18 charger, for example. If something were to happen to it, the whole charger would be useless.
Honestly, I’d say it’s not worth the hassle (or the money) to replace one of these boards. You’re much better off buying a whole new Milwaukee M18 battery charger instead.
New boards might not work right with the charger, so don’t take a risk. A new charger won’t give you any trouble and will work just fine without needing repairs for a long time.
Lastly, if your Milwaukee M18 battery charger makes a hissing noise while you’re using it you should not be worried. I have a video which discuss this topic and you can it watch below.
The hissing sound usually happens on the Milwaukee rapid charger and it is completely normal. The hissing sound is from the fan cooler of the rapid charger.
