Is your DeWalt battery indicator and charger indicator not working properly?
They’re both pretty important for managing the device’s battery life, so I think everyone should try to deal with a problem like this as soon as possible.
I will talk about this into TWO scenarios:
- DeWalt Battery Indicator Not Working
- Charging Indicator On The Dewalt Charger Not Working
If you’re currently facing troubles with it, here are some solutions for both indicators that I’ve tested out myself.
Read:
- Common DeWALT Impact Wrench Problems Troubleshooting
- DeWALT Impact Wrench Light Not Working Troubleshoot
DeWalt Battery and Charger Indicator Not Working
DeWalt Battery Indicator Not Working
Let’s cover the battery indicator first, because I personally think it’s more important.
Here’s what your indicator should look like, fully lit up to 3 bars and functional after fully charged.
But, if that’s not the way it is, then here’s what I recommend you should look into first.
- Faulty Battery
A lack of anything on the battery indicator of your DeWalt product usually means that there’s something wrong with the battery itself like not holding charge.
So, use a multimeter to measure the voltage on the battery and see if its holding any kind of charge, just like how I perform this test as shown in the image below.
The readings on your multimeter should be within 18V – 20V.
If it’s drastically lower or higher than that, you know something is wrong with the battery.
Here’s my video showing how to measure the voltage of DeWALT battery (19.9V recorded for a 20V battery – pretty close)
The cordless impact wrench might not even able to remove the lug nuts in this case as it does not has not enough power.
Even if the readings are normal the first time around, I recommend putting the battery on charge for a few hours.
Then, after a day passes, check to see if the battery is holding voltage properly or not.
If the voltage drops after few days, that’s mean the battery is not so healthy anymore as it is not holding charge.
Real scenario example, if you use the unhealthy battery on the DeWalt tool like impact wrench, you would feel that it is not strong enough.
If the DeWALT battery is not charging at all, watch my video below how to fix this issue.
- Loose Connection To The Battery Indicator
The wiring inside the battery could be to blame too.
To verify the claim above, I took the cover off and check to see if that’s the case or not.
It should look like this image I took of my battery here.
If it doesn’t look like that and is obviously loose, you’ll need to adjust it properly by putting the wires back into proper positions.
You might need to solder the wires back to its original position.
But, I believe you shouldn’t try that unless you’re sure you can handle it properly.
If you fixed the wiring like I said, or if it didn’t need to be fixed in the first place, use a multimeter to see if the battery indicator itself is getting any voltage.
It needs a study flow of power to keep the LED lights on.
If there’s no voltage, that’s mean there is wire connection problem somewhere.
You might need disassemble the the batteries piece by piece to recheck all connection.
- The Indicator Display Is Faulty
If the test in the Step 2 above shows that voltage and power supply to the indicator circuit board are normal, the real problem must be the components within the indicator circuit board.
LEDs aren’t the most durable things. They eventually break or go faulty with time.
If my other tips weren’t helpful, I think the next logical step is to take the battery’s cover off once again and check each individual LED light.
If you notice any visible damage or displacement, that should explain why the battery indicator is not working.
If you notice that the battery can only charge up to certain bars, for example, can only charge up to two bars and the third LED indicator would never light up no matter how long you charge.
The problem can be due to the battery age or the third LED indicator is faulty, causing problem like the battery can only charge up to two bars.
Actually the burned third LED won’t affect its performance, just you won’t be able to check the battery power correctly in future.
Besides, there is one more thing you should check – The Battery Indicator Switch
If this switch is not working, it won’t be able to switch on the LEDs no matter how long you press.
This is how a working switch should look like.
I would suggest you to use a multimeter to check the connectivity of this button.
If you do not have a multimeter, you may simply use a wire to short circuit or bypass it and let the power flow through the LEDs.
Now, I will talk about another LED indicator, the Charger Indicator.
Charging Indicator On The Dewalt Charger Not Working
First, you should know what each of the lights on the indicator mean.
In the image above, you can see THREE different conditions.
- If the light is on but flashing, that means your battery is charging but not fully done.
- If it’s a solid color and not flashing, that means it’s fully done charging.
- If you notice that the whole light is on, and the last part of the charger indicator is flashing, that means that there’s a temperature issue. Your DeWalt charger is either too hot or too cold and triggered its Hot Cold Delay, and needs to be taken off charge and kept in a suitable temperature. (4°C to 40°C)
Read: DeWALT Charger Light Meaning
Now that you know those things, let’s see if my solutions can help you if your charging indicator is not working the way it’s supposed to.
- Battery Or Charger Is Overheated
There’s already a setting on the indicator that tells you if your battery is overheating.
It serves as a warning and makes sure you can handle the situation before the device gets damaged.
But, if you don’t listen to that warning in time or something else happens that causes the battery or charger to overheat, then the device might not work at all and show no lights.
Make sure that the temperature of the DeWalt battery stays within the temperature range on the sticker, like this one here (4°C to 40°C).
- The Indicator LEDs Are Burned
This problem is pretty self-explanatory. The LEDs on the charging indicator might’ve burned or gotten damaged some other way.
If that happens, it obviously won’t light up, and this is one of the most common DeWalt 20V charger problems.
Check the condition of the lights by using a multimeter on the LEDs to see if they’re drawing power.
If they aren’t, you’ll need to get the lights repaired.
Please take note for safety issue, DO NOT touch the metal pin of the multimeter as you might get electrical shocks!
Also, DO NOT touch the circuit board with your bare hand as you might get electrical shocked too as above!
Instead, place it on a flat surface and use multimeter to touch the pins of the indicator LED.
- Wrong Battery
I don’t think I need to tell you that you shouldn’t use the wrong battery charger with your DeWalt.
It’s very rare that another charger will be compatible, and even rarer that it’ll function as intended.
Make sure you only use DeWalt’s battery and charger for the device, and don’t do something like using a Black and Decker battery like I’m doing below.
That should get the indicator working fine.
Yeah, I know DeWALT and Black & Decker are manufactured by the same company, but their batteries and charger just simply not compatible with other as shown in my experiment.
Also, as you can see from the image above, this charger output 18V to 20V in DC, avoid placing any other models of DeWALT battery to this charger.
For examples, 12V DeWALT battery might not compatible with this 20V charger, get a compatible DeWalt charger instead!
- Battery Is Too Old
Batteries degrade with wear. Some have good health and some have pretty bad health.
DeWalt batteries usually lie in the middle of things, with batteries that have a life span of around 3 years.
After this, you’ll notice that it holds low charge, or doesn’t work at all.
The whole point of me saying this, is that you should look at the manufacturing date on your DeWalt battery.
If it was made around 3 years ago, chances are that its lifespan has come to an end and you need a replacement.
Just like my battery below, it was manufacture in Year 2021 and I might need to replace it soon.
But, before that, let use it until the last moment of the battery.
- Loosen Contact
Before closing this off, I’d like to mention that the issue could also be something as little as loose contact on the charging pins.
Some debris might be stuck where the pins of the battery and the device make contact, or there might be some other problem causing a loose connection.
That will prevent the LEDs from lighting up because they’re not getting power.
Make sure that the battery fully slots into the device, and there isn’t anything loose.
This is how the charging pins on the DeWalt Charger looks like after removing its cover.
Make sure all the 8 charging pins are connected to the circuit board and no breaks on the pin connectors.
Conclusion
Whether you have a battery indicator, charger indicator, or both not working on your DeWalt, these solutions should help get them up and running again.
If you are having similar issue, let me know in the comment box below.
