Cordless Tool Battery Storage in Cold

[XCRN]

I finally moved out of the dark ages and got me a lot of Milwaukee cordless tools with all these Christmas sales going on. Have only had them a week and they have been a phenomenal help with various house and car projects.

However I ran into an issue that I believe to be cold temperature related. When I went out into my uninsulated garage this morning the light on the charger for the 18v battery was flashing green and red which according to the manual indicates a bad cell. Battery works fine and I think being in the teens is giving it a false reading and I heard it’s not a good idea to charge in sub-freezing temps.

I wamt to charge them in the top hutch of my tool box but was thinking of putting insulatinag panels around it so I can store and charge the batteries with no issues. I know the simple solution is charge them in the house but I do not want to bring any more clutter in the house.

What have been some of the things you guys have done to charge cordless tool batteries amd store them during these cold months?

Sponsored

 

[FreePenguin]

Put them inside the house. Charge them up when warm, just keep the batteries inside for the winter, in closet or something

 

[CrashOverride]

I moved, now the coldest it gets is probably about 40 in my garage

But, what you might be able to do is build yourself a little heated chamber. Perhaps put a clear plastic tupperware box over the batteries with a non-LED night light in there. Then you'd have ~3 watts of heat to keep them warm. If you need more, you could add a few, or step up to a 25w regular incandescent bulb...I don't think they make smaller ones. Or maybe an appliance bulb. Not sure, but that would be the easiest way. If you wanted to really make it nice, you could include the charger inside the enclosure, and then have the whole shabang hooked up to a power strip with the switch external to the enclosure. That way the "light" will let you know it's on, and you could turn it off without opening the top, keeping the heat in. Heck you could even use a cheap lamp timer to run every other half hour or only at night when it is cold.

 

[Interceptor]

Just keep batteries in the laundry room with one charger during the cold months. I have love for the Milwaukee stuff too. I purchased the lightweight jacket for wives Christmas present.
I keep a impact in my trunk, I do keep an eye on battery. I also have on backorder the new M12 drill that has different heads to get into hard to get to areas.
I'm addicted, I check all the the time on "Toolnut" and "Home Depot" for what to buy next.
I like the M12 stuff also

 

[CrashOverride]

I'm a tool geek like you both. I used Milwaukee and Makita when I was in Maintenance of an assembly line. I explain the difference to people like this. If you have a drill and it catches with the Makita, it will pull a muscle in your wrist. If you do it with a Milwaukee, it will break your wrist. My buddy has some awesome stuff, including Hilti. Amazing stuff, but oh how expensive.

You might want to check out "Ave" on YouTube. The guy there actually takes the tools apart and tells you if they are any good, or if they are junk. Some of the harbor freight stuff is not bad, and some is pathetic. It's fun to see the difference. I'll be honest, for cordless stuff I'm using the Rigid line just because of the lifetime warranty on the tools and batteries. But, it's by far an inferior tool to a Milwaukee!

I believe that Li-ion batteries don't like to be stored "full" so if your batteries have a meter (Or the tool), you might want to store them at 75-80%

 

[FreePenguin]

Get a maintainer in your system. Ryobi makes a charger/maintainer that I leave batteries on 24/7 for years. Have never had a battery die

mine charges/maintains 6 at time. It’s on the back wall to give an idea

 

[Dave TBG]

Li-ion batteries can be damaged by freezing temperatures. Keep them indoors if you garage can drop below freezing.

Sponsored