Whether you are using a drill, a blower, or any other Craftsman V20 power tool, it must concern you if the tool begins to perform poorly. Personally, I find it a bad sign when the tool I’m using begins to make a funny noise or to slow down.
Luckily, I’ve learnt from years of using Craftsman power tools that when such a problem occurs, the issue is often with the battery. I’ve also learnt that I don’t always have to replace such a battery. So, what do I do – you may wonder?
Simple. I prepare to recharge my battery. A battery that is running out of charge cannot drive your tools well.
I’ve also made a short video about this topic and you can watch it below.
If you’re experiencing a hot delay, just remove the battery and place it in a shaded area to cool naturally. Do not expose it to extreme cold, like in a freezer, as this can damage the battery cells.
If you’re experiencing cold delay, warm up the battery by bringing it into a heated indoor area before charging.
Craftsman Battery Charger Red Light (Hot Cold Delay): What You Can Do
Sometimes, though, I’m faced with another problem. A red light appears on the battery charger, which is not normal. I straightaway recognize that my Craftsman battery is not ready to be charged – reason being, its temperature is either too high or too low.
The question is: How do you handle a battery that is too hot or one that is too cold?
- If the battery is too cold, move with it to a warmer place. If it’s winter, for instance, take your battery to a heated room.
- If the battery is too hot, simply disconnect it from the charger and give it sometime to cool down. Just don’t try putting it in a freezer or such other place where the cold is extreme.
Now, how I’m I able to tell if the battery is too hot or too cold? Well, when using a Craftsman battery charger, this is easy. The charger has an NTC thermistor, which is a kind of resistor that shows when the charger’s resistance has significantly dropped.
Such a drop in resistance occurs when the battery is too hot. Note that NTC stands for Negative Temperature Coefficient.
Big question: What do you do if, after taking these important steps, your Craftsman charger still shows a red light?
Of course, whenever you try to charge your Craftsman battery and no red light appears you know there’s no problem – hence you continue to charge your battery.
But if the red light appears and persists even after you’ve brought your battery to the right temperature, it means the problem is not the battery temperature.
You might now think it’s time to discard this battery, but is it? No, it isn’t. There’s one other move that is likely to work, and that is resetting the battery.
And this is how the resetting process goes:
- Find another Craftsman battery charger, and connect its terminals to those of the problematic charger: B+ to B+ and B- to B-.
- Let these two batteries remain connected for around 15 seconds, and then disconnect them.
By this time, the good charger should have jumpstarted your faulty Craftsman charger; meaning, your charger is now ready to recharge your battery without a problem.
You can see how quickly you can go back to your work even after encountering a problem charging your battery. And you do not incur any expenses whatsoever.
