I’ve talked about the light on a Ryobi charger when you plug the battery in before. There are normal lights, and then there are those that signal issues. Today, I want to talk about one of those issues.
When you plug a Ryobi battery in and it starts flashing red, that means there’s hot cold delay. It’s important to know more about this to avoid damage to the battery, so let me teach you more about it!
Ryobi Battery Flashing Red Light – How To Deal With Hot Cold Delay
Hot cold delay is a case of your Ryobi battery getting too hot, or too cold. Most people probably know about overheating, and how bad it can be for devices. Well, it’s especially terrible for batteries.
Excessive temperatures can ruin the performance and overall lifespan of a battery. Worst of all, things can get seriously bad if you try to charge one of them when they’re too hot or cold.
Manufacturers came up with a way to help with this, though. There are thermistors on these batteries that spot the temperature they’re currently at, and stop them from charging if it’s unsafe.
When this happens, the charger doesn’t send power to the Ryobi battery. Instead, it cuts power and flashes red repeatedly until the battery is off of the charger, like in the picture below.
I recommend taking the battery off the charger as soon as you notice this happening. Because of hot cold delay, it won’t be charging anyway, so there isn’t any point in keeping it on there in the first place.
Even more so, there’s the fact that keeping the battery on its charger could lead to serious problems. It might start overheating even more if it’s hot, or get damaged in some other ways.
Why Does Hot Cold Delay Happen?
Hot cold delay is simply a symptom of overheating or overcooling. It isn’t its own thing. It’ll only happen if the battery’s temperatures are reaching unsafe levels.
That means the reason is often the environment of the battery. Keeping it someplace too hot, or someplace too cold, can both bring its temperature dangerously high or low.
People that live in really cold areas might experience this a lot. Because of the dry, cold air, the battery can start to freeze up inside. It starts to get so cold that it can’t accept charge safely, leading to hot cold delay.
For overheating specifically, along with the environment, lots of consecutive use can cause the battery to overheat. It’s best to give it a break and not use it for hours at a time.
Along with heavy workloads, not giving the battery a break between use and charging cycles will also make it overheat. It’s best to wait for a while after using your Ryobi battery before charging it.
How Do I Fix Hot Cold Delay?
There isn’t exactly a solution for this. As there’s no way to fix overheating and overcooling immediately, there’s also no immediate solution for hot cold delay.
The only thing to do is to take the battery off charge and set it aside. After doing so, the next step is waiting for some time. A few hours of rest will revert the battery’s temperature if you keep it somewhere safe.
8 hours is the safe point, I’d say. After that much time in a room-temperature environment, it should be safe to put your Ryobi battery back on its charger.
There shouldn’t be hot cold delay or a red flashing light anymore on the charger, meaning the battery should work like normal!
If it is still not working, the last suggestion you could try is to reset the Ryobi battery as per my video below:
