Is your DeWalt fully charged but lost it after a little time passed, even though you didn’t use it?
I’ve been there, for examples:
- Battery that not holding charge cause my impact wrench not able spin
- also, provide weak torque and impact
It’s not a rare issue, and it’s also not hard to deal with.
If your DeWalt battery won’t hold charge for long, just follow my list of tips below.
DeWalt Battery Won’t Hold Charge
- Unhealthy Battery
You can test the health of the battery by fully charging it and then using a multimeter on it a few minutes later to check the voltage its storing.
If you need a simpler guide, I made this video to help show you exactly how you can do this, so check it out.
Just like my 20V DeWalt battery below, the measured voltage is 19.9V, which is quite close to 20V.
This means my battery is still healthy.
Another thing I want you to confirm is whether or not the LED indicator fully fills up, like mine does in this photo.
Are all three bars lit up by the end, or it can only be charged up to two bars or even less one bar?
If it does, that’s another sign of an unhealthy battery or something to do with the DeWalt battery indicator problem.
If the indicator isn’t lighting up at all after fully charged, your battery might be dead.
In that case, you’ll almost certainly have to get it replaced, as dead batteries often aren’t brought back to life successfully.
But before that, let’s try one more step to see if you can “reset” your battery.
Just connect B+ terminal of one battery to another B+ terminal, and the B- terminal to another B- as shown in the video below.
- Faulty Individual Battery Cell
Next, I suggest you use a multimeter to check for the condition of each cell inside the battery.
Each of them should be drawing 3.6 -4 volts of power.
I recorded myself checking each of the cells in my battery so you can see how to do it too. Here’s what this process looks like:
Once you use my little method above to test your cells, remove the faulty one you find, if any.
Then, replace it with another cell of the same size and capabilities so that the battery can start functioning like normal again. You can easily find replacement cells online.
- Overcharging or Over-Discharge
You shouldn’t leave batteries on charge for long once they’re full.
And this is something I mean for all batteries, not just DeWalt ones.
Whether it’s your phone, a laptop, a battery like DeWalt’s, or something else, you shouldn’t leave it on charge after 100% for a long time.
This leads to overcharging, which causes battery problems.
If the indicator on your DeWalt’s charger is fully a stable red like I’m pointing at here, that means it’s done charging and safe to remove now.
Overcharging too often leads to damage in the battery’s overall capacity and health, which is why yours isn’t holding charge right now.
So, make sure not to do this, and don’t charge it TOO frequently, as that can cause issues as well.
- Battery Exposed To Extreme Temperature
If your battery is in environments that are too hot or too cold, that could explain its bad performance.
These batteries have a clear temperature limit written on them, and exceeding that limit makes it hard for them to hold charge.
Also, each DeWalt charger can only operate at the designed temperate.
Exceeding the working temperature make it unable to charge the DeWalt battery.
Keep the battery in optimal temperature for a day and that should help it hold charge again.
- Is It An Original DeWalt Battery?
While I was doing some research for this article, I was surprised to see how many people actually got fake DeWalt batteries.
There are lots of sellers that sell fake copies that go bad super quick, and can’t hold a charge as long as an original battery.
But, I also saw a post on Reddit that was pretty detailed at helping users figure out whether or not their DeWalt battery is fake. Give it a try and see if yours is real.
How to spot counterfeit Dewalt 20V batteries
byu/dougeefresh inDewalt
Some examples that I can give you are all in this image below.
For starters, an original DeWalt battery’s indicator lights will all have the same size and look like mine do.
Plus, the DeWalt logo on an original battery will have notable vertical lines inside of its words.
Lastly, fake batteries have a noticeably different yellow shade to their components.
But, you can notice how my battery has a similar coat of yellow and black across its cover.
Note: Fake battery might not provide suitable power to the tool like impact wrench
- Charger Related Problem
I also think the charger could be to blame, and not just your battery.
As faulty DeWalt charger is also one of the most common DeWALT impact wrench problems I have.
A broken charger can’t provide the right voltage a DeWalt battery needs to fill up.
So, even if the charger indicates 100% battery health, your battery might still be on low.
This can usually happen when the charger is connected to a bad power source.
Additionally, it’s possible that this happens when the battery or charger itself are kept in unsuitable temperatures.
You can see here how my charger has a limit of 4 to 40 degrees Celsius while charging.
Operating it in any temperatures other than these might make the DeWalt charger to blink fast, as it would trigger the Hot Cold Delay of the charger.
- Attached To Tool That Turning On Unexpectedly
If you’re using the battery on a machine that keeps turning on or drawing power, it could explain why the charge is draining so quick.
For example, an impact wrench with a faulty trigger could leave the device on, which draws unnecessary power from the battery. This might make you believe the battery isn’t holding charge.
Another example with the DeWalt impact wrench is its light staying on, as I’ve pictured here, which consumes needless power unless you turn it off.
Besides, I also written a post dedicated to troubleshoot DeWalt impact wrench light problem.
To avoid this, just remove the battery from your DeWalt devices when it’s not in use, like I did here. That saves battery and prevents unwanted draining.
