Hot cold delay is something important that I feel any user with batteries like the ones from DeWALT should know about. That’s why I want to take some time today to talk about it specifically.
After all, it’s something that can brick the battery if not handled well. To avoid that, read up about hot cold delay on a DeWALT battery by reading up on the details below so you know what to do if it happens!
Hot Cold Delay On A DeWALT Battery, and How To Deal With It
What Is It?
Hot cold delay is an instance of abnormal temperatures. It’s called that because it causes a delay in the battery’s charging because it’s either too hot or cold.
Overheating and overcooling are both causes of it. The first thing you need to know about regarding this whole thing is when to know it’s happening. There’s a light specifically to inform users about it.
How Can You Tell It’s Happening?
Two lights are on the DeWALT charger. There’s a small one, and a large one. When hot cold delay happens, both of those lights will turn on at the same time.
Out of the two, the larger light will repeatedly blink. The smaller light will stay completely solid. You can see the picture below to get an idea of what that looks like when it’s happening.
Don’t get confused with other patterns that pop up on the DeWALT charger. This is the only one that means there’s an issue related to temperatures on the battery, so watch out for it.
Normally charging batteries will have the large light on the left turn on. It won’t be flashing either. The small light on the right will be off, and the one on the left will stay solid red on its own.
What To Do About Hot Cold Delay
First and foremost, take the DeWALT battery out of its charger. It’s not going to be charging while the temperatures are abnormal anyway, so there’s no point in keeping it in there.
Matter of fact, trying to charge a battery that’s overheating or too cold can make things much worse. There may be irreparable damage to the battery and its cells, so get it off of there ASAP.
After the battery is off of the charger, the next step is to get it back to normal. Instead of trying some kind of shortcut, I recommend storing the battery in a room-temperature environment.
Trying to fix a cold battery by putting it somewhere hot, or a hot battery by putting it somewhere cold might make the matter worse. It could also change overheating to overcooling, and vice versa.
A few hours of being in a normal environment will bring it back to a sustainable level. It’s just a matter of waiting.
“But, My Battery Isn’t Hot or Cold?”
Dangerously high or low temperatures on a DeWALT battery aren’t that hard to notice. If the battery is cold, it’ll probably be cold to touch too. The same goes for overheating.
So, what should you do if you notice that your battery isn’t overheating or overcooling? Well, I’d recommend storing it somewhere and waiting a few hours before charging anyway.
Once you rule out those possibilities after waiting, check the resistance on the thermistor of the DeWALT battery. This is the sensor that tells the DeWALT charger if the battery is too hot or cold to charge.
If the resistance reads too low, that means the thermistor is problematic. You’ll have to get repairs for the thermistor so the charger can read the temperature accurately to get rid of hot cold delay.
