20 Most Recent Makita 18V LXT Lithium - Ion Cordless Impact Driver Kit Model BTD140 Questions & Answers

If the red and green lights are flashing, the charger is detecting the battey has a defect and is not safe to charge. It could be one of the cells in the battey, a short in the wiring or circuit board or bad contacts. Usually the only fix is to replace the battery.

I think your tryiong to charge NIMH batteries oon a charger designed for Lithium Ion batteries. With all the new style batteries such as NICAD, NIMH and LI-ION, charging becomes difficult. Most chargers pre NIMH and LI-ion, were designed for NICAD's. The best advise, match your batteries with the correct charger

Some of the Makita 18v LXT tools require the BL1830 3.0AH battery and are designed that the 1.5AH battery will not fit.

Hi there the solution for how to mod a DC18RA charger can be found here. The "how to" comes with pictures and descriptions and it should be easy to follow, and best of all it works :)

What has happened is the hex part of the bit has twisted slightly making it hard to remove. What I would do if you are comfortable with partial disassembly is remove the quick release mechanish. There is a split ring that comes off first and then a washer and spring, next remove the outer collar and SMALL steel ball from side of chuck. I take a pick (dental tool) and push up or try and twist the stuck bit. Sometimes it takes while but usually this works. Let me know if I can try and help further.

When Li-Ion batteries are discharged to a too low voltage (below 2,75 V/cell, in this case 13,75V) the charger will assume that the battery is damaged, and will not charge the battery. First measure the battery voltage with a volt meter, if the voltage is significally below the 13 V the battery are no good. If you have a reading of lets say around 10 V, you can raise the voltage shortly on the battery, by jumping it with a fully charged battery. Connect the "-" poles on each battery. After this, shortly connect the "+" poles, for no more than 5 seconds,disconnect the wires and immediatly put the battery in question in the charger. If it starts charging, every thing if fine. If not, try the process again, you might wanna recheck the voltage if it rises.
Please be aware, that over discharging Li-Ion batteries, will lead to damage of the Li-Ion cells, which results in loss in capacity, therefore, if you are not to use your Li-Ion tools for a while, make sure the batteries are fully charged.

Hope you guys could have sucess with the above

Best regards
Soeren

Don't go buying more stuff when you can fix the problem yourself without buying any converter. The modification required to do it is very easy and most people wont have any problem following it.

You can go to this webpage where a detailed walkthrough is given (with pictures):
http://www.byggebolig.no/index.php?topic=5572.0

Some of the post are in norwegian but the walkthrough is in english.

Good luck and happy moding :)

P.S.

For those of you that have "blowed up" a makita charger 110v on a 220v, don't throw it away!
If you are lucky you have only blowed up the fuse and the varistor, which are easy to replace, and if you follow up the walkthrough you might even go all the way a mod the charger to 220v.

I know, I have already manage to "save" a blowed up charger.

Mail it to a Makita Service center. They will replace a battery that has under 150 charges, regardless of warranty. They have a design defect in the battery which causes these spurious failures. Hopefully one day they will fix it.

Lithium batteries have a limited lifespan, typically 3 or 4 years, and their capacity between charges decreases over the years.
To extend the lifetime of a battery it should be run completely flat after every few charges rather than topping it up. New batteries need to be charged several times and run flat under normal use before they gain their full capacity.

The battery sometimes is old and without capacity but you problem more has to do with heat dissipation inside the ancre of the motor part , about 2 or 2.5 years old tool it must be it, the right time to repair replace also the brushes and the motor ancre of it (not the magnet field) is neccesary MUST be replace because when you only replace the brushes its 80% possible that your machine eats the brushes in a few weeks or a few months already again to the same short size .compare the sound listen to it how it sounds now at the moment and replace the motor and brushes and listen to the sound again, well you will hear the difference. And listen to the machine that it sounds again good and makita parts of the motor is realy cheap and not to expensive compared to Panasonic or Milwaukee . absolut its 70% that this is the right option to get a succesfull repair. but the capacity of the batteries to test is also important in priority . thats the most expensive thing . but i think the motor and brushes Succes

Check with your carrier or regulator. You should not have any problems with land based transport - bus, train but may encounter problems if flying.

try toolpartsdirect.com & go to makita & type in model #

Things I've run across in my shop to check for: 1. Is power getting out of the switch to the motor. It is possible for the part that powers the light to work and not the part that goes to the motor 2. Is the armature jambed by something that doesn't belong in there so it can't turn.3. Is the armature burned up. Check the wires for burn spots, broken wires or discoloration of the windings, they should be the color of a new penny.

The Makita 18V LXT Lithium - Ion Cordless Impact Driver Kit Model BTD140 us the BL1830 battery, there are several types for it, 1.5Ah, 3.0Ah, 4.0 Ah. Maybe 5.0Ah battery for it will be available. And, the inside of the BL1830 uses the 18650 battery cell. If you have a good knowledge and skill about electronic, you can buy some 18650 cell to do it yourself. If not, I suggest you to buy a brand new one. You can buy some original battery for replacement battery for Makita BTD140 Battery

The circuit board is protected by means of a fuse and a varistor. The variatistor looks like a painted coin (penny-size) with a wire attached on each side. This is connected in parallel of the chargers main supply. The varistors job is to shortcircuit the main power (this causes the fuse to nlow) in the event of too high voltage, thus protecting the rest of the electronics. you need A new varistor, new fuse and some basic soldering skulle. enjoy :-)

Remove the ring clip which holds the chuck outer sleeve in place and take out the washer and spring, the outer sleeve should now slide off, under the sleeve you will find two steel balls in the holes of the driver shaft, remove them (use a magnet if they won't come out easily) you should be able to get the bit out now, if not clamp the bit in a vice and using a soft face hammer strike the end of the driver shaft to release the bit. Note: dismantle the chuck over a cloth in case the balls fall out so you don't loose them