not sure who the five people are that gave this a thumbs down for some reason...$6 at autozone for alligator clip test leads and i'm back in business with two of my batteries that had died. used this method last night and let them charge overnight, and now all is well...thanks so much for posting this! also, just a note in case anyone else sees this behavior - when i was doing mine, the green light never went to solid green...it kept blinking. so, i just did about 10-15 seconds each time, 5x just as in the video...worked like a charm.
Count me among the many grateful people wanting to thank you. 5 minutes after watching your video, I had 2 of my "bad" batteries charging. I appreciate your efforts to post this video. - Mark
Isn't that cool or what? Genius video - I've never seen a better one on fixing something. Outwitting stupid battery circuits! I nearly threw out my expensive battery until I tried this method by Toolboy. Truly a saviour of money.
Did this on my 4AMP HR battery, worked like a charm. Ryobi sent me another one under warranty telling me to throw it away! Now i have two batteries! You sir are the man.
My husband bought me new 18 volt batteries for power drills about two years ago. I got on the web to find out about recycling batteries because one of my batteries would not charge any longer. I found this video and so we gave it a shot. The only difference is our charger did not show the solid green light during the tricking of the battery to accept a charge. It worked and we are both very pleased with the results. Excellent video, very clear instructions! Thank you so much for the save.
This works like a charm. you just saved me about $50... my battery was .034 volts before on the external contacts. 3.9volts on the inside. followed your video, got it up to 13volts and then put it on the charger. its now fully re charged at 20v. awesome.
Just finished doing this on my dead/sleeping P190. Worked like a charm. Video was very good- no nonsense, well done, and clearly explained. Thanks for saving me $40-50.
Worked great...I ended up using a trickle charger to jump the battery to enough voltage but your video game me confidence that I could fix the battery instead of recycle it. Thanks!
I had a bad Ryobi 18v battery that wouldn't take a charge. Of all the methods to revive a battery, this looked to be the simplest and required the fewest tools and equipment. I followed your steps here and now my battery is working again. Thanks Toolboy!
Thanks Man! Fantastic. I already bought some new batteries but thought, "these batteries aren't old enough to be scrapped." Stumbled onto your video, and fixed two batteries. Thanks again!
Worked for me. P102 battery and P118 charger. Your procedure raised my battery from near nothing to 11 volts. This allowed the charger to read the battery and continue to charge mode. Best "revive" procedure is the best I've found on the net. Thanks, Toolboy.
Just tried this fix and was successful at bringing my Ryobi P102 up to charging requirements for the charger. I took the cover off and just used my Schumacher charger at 2A small. It started on 4 and within seconds got to 14. I put the battery back in the Ryobi charger and was able to get a full charge in 25 minutes. Thanks for the video - you saved me $24!
Worked!! My battery was less than a year old and it would not charge today after leaving it in the charger over the winter in the garage. I did have to buy a T10 Security Bit in order to break down the battery. Thanks again.....
What I have to say is "Thank you" you just saved me a couple of dollars, 2 out of my 3 did not charge, they were not under warranty, Ryobi was not very helpful, this video help me out extremely, it worked just like you indicated, when I verify if only had 3v, I raised it to 11 mv and the charged saw it perfectly. Thanks again for taking the time to post this video
Thanks mate! I had 4 dead ryobi batteries which wouldn’t kick start. This worked for 2 of them, one is dead still despite the cells being fully charged( no current from circuit board) and the fourth, has 2 dead cells. Kept it for spares. Great video.
Hi mate. The battery that you are saying that the cells are fully charged, and no current from the circuit board, did you check everything single cell?
@@todaywefly4370 😂join the club hoarding stuff. So after you check the cells were all charged up, did you put the battery back on charge? Or did you just realise that there was no voltage in the tower/pillar (the bit that goes in the tool) and put the battery again on the side thinking it was useless? I had one battery which I had to charge every single cell individually in order to bring all of the cells to the same voltage. After that I had to insert the battery on the charger just for a few seconds in order to have a fully working battery again. For some odd reason the board inside the battery wasn’t letting any current coming to the pillar until I connected it to the charger. After that happy days.
@@ruinunes8251 Thanks mate, that’s why we hoard isn’t it. Just in case more info comes along. I’ll give it another go. Cheers…and happy what ever holiday you celebrate.
Just revived 6 batteries. Thank you. I had purchased a 0-30V 0-5A project bench PS, got the same result, found out that the charger had also given me 2x 20v batteries too. So 8 in all fixed, I owe you a beer.
Just wanted to add my thanks to this video. I left my batteries in my storage pod while I moved and when I took them out they would not charge. I did this, an hour later the battery was charged and worked in my flashlight and other tools. Work perfectly!
Excellent! You All my 5 STAR for this! I wondered saving a Ryobi 18V 24Wh battery ( Not more than three years old ) for my Air Compressor which failed to charge ! The instructions were simple and helped me Regain its Full charge . Thanks for your post!
Great video - just revived a dead P190 with this method. Way better than drilling holes in the side of the case and other devilry like some other vids recommend.
A while ago one of the two batteries that came as part of a kit wouldn't charge. I never got around to disposing of it, but I called across it again and got curious if it was a common problem, and is there was any fix. This method worked! Really easy to disassemble these batteries. The charger didn't seem to want to go steady green, and I didn't want to leave it connected too long, so I let it flash green for about as long as you did for five times, and lo and behold it took a charge! Very happy to have another battery back in service. Thanks!
Toolboy; hats off to you, your method is pure pure BRILLIANCE. It is the ONLY easy method to revive a Ryobi battery that won't charge, you explained also how you trick the charger into thinking the battery is NiCad! I tried it and it works like magic. I am so impressed by your knowledge. All the other methods I checked out before yours require a trickle charge (what is that really? I bought one or I thought I bought one and wasted my money ---- yours only requires 3 alligator clips that's all) or other methods that are even wilder goose chases.....you are one GREAT RU-vidr with awesome and useful knowledge given to others! Thank you!
I used your method the first time I had a P105 problem (Thank you)! This time I found a fast cool way to bump charge it easier. 1/Removed the top of the battery. 2/Plugged in my Canadian Tire 12V car battery maintenance (2A) charger. The car battery post clamps fit perfectly on the sides of the p105, and connect to positive and negative posts tickedy-boo! 3/Left it on for a minute or two, then checked the voltage across the P105. It had jumped from 4.35V to 13.45V! 4/Put the top back on the battery and put it in the Ryobi charger, and after a brief pause it began to charge the battery with green light flashing! Hardest part was drilling the little security screw's little post off to get the security screw out, as I had misplaced my security screw remover screwdriver tip. The drilled screw is now insecure, poor thing! Battery is now up to 18V in the time I wrote this! Yahoo!
Thanks for the video. I followed this procedure and it worked perfectly. I didn't have alligator clips, so I just bared about 3/4" of wire about 3" down from the end of the wire so I could make a loop with the bare wire at the bottom, then reached the loop down into the charger and twisted the end around the main length of wire to hold it in place. Worked fine. Thanks again.
Thank you so much for this informative video. I bought a reconditioned P189 a couple of weeks ago. When I got it out of the box it would not accept a charge. I called Ryobi's support number and after running a couple easy diagnostic steps while on the phone with them they confirmed that the battery was defective. Three days later I received from them a brand new (not reconditioned) P189 that works perfectly. Disappointed to have to add the bad original to the recycling stream, I did some Googling and came across your video. After spending 5 bucks locally to buy an inexpensive security Torx set I followed your steps. Only difference was that before starting my defective battery's voltage barely nudged the needle on my analog multimeter and during the procedure my charger lights never turned solid green. Nonetheless after 5 repetitions I put the battery on the charger and, viola! It now works perfectly. Thanks for adding another working battery to my collection and saving me from figuring out how to recycle it!
That worked perfectly for me. I found a brand new P102 battery in my basement that appeared dead. This trick revived it. The only difference is that mine didn't give the solid green light, it kept flashing like it was charging. I did the wire connection x 10 for 15 seconds each and then started to charge as normal. Thanks very much!
This is so useful. My dad bought one 2 years ago and was failing to charge. I followed the instructions with just a 12v charger and tap the positive and negative and now its fully charged! Thanks so much
Thank you very much! I was already shopping for a new battery. A note for anyone who, like me, accidentally stripped the head from one of the screws (so it refused to come out). I was able to just slightly open one side of the battery, wide enough to slip in a pair of test leads that were attached to a 12-volt power supply. This allowed me to connect the minus lead to a bridge contact connecting two of the middle (1v) batteries, and the positive lead to the "last" battery in that serial circuit. Having applied intermittent voltage to those contact points, I was easily able to get the whole battery up to approx. 12 volts, despite the fact that I was really charging only three or four 1V batteries. The charger accepted the battery from there! Glad I didn't have to break the case or drill holes in it to get this done.
Thank you for this video. I didn’t have the same results you had... when I connected negative and “yellow”, the charger would just flash red. Instead, I hooked up the battery connectors to a 12v car charger, set to 2amps. I used the same charging protocol you used. Five hits of 2-3 seconds. I then checked the battery pack, it showed 11.5V. I placed it in the Roni charger and have a flashing green light. I feel like this is going to work out. Bonus....I’ve never had a use for those tamper-resistant bits I bought years ago. It paid off today.
I had 2 batts that wouldn’t take a charge, I was irritated to say the least, I followed your video and both work again, great fix, stupid battery design!
It's not a stupid design. Lithium cells have a minimum SAFE voltage, and need special handling if they drop below that. Many people reckon it's dangerous to recharge any cells below about 2.7V, but in reality they can often (sometimes) come good if they have fallen below that. In this battery the cells were at ONE VOLT each. That is definitely considered "completely dead". Even if you can kick start them, they really shouldn't be charged at such a high current from such a low voltage... the best solution is to bring EACH cell up to (say) 2.5V using a current-regulated supply of 50mA or 100mA, then see if they are all holding that charge after a few days. If yes, then proceed to recharge, otherwise that cell is 100% dead.
I just want to say thank you so much on how to fix the ryobi battery. I revived my battery today and It is working perfectly now and I saved some money in not buying an expensive ryobi battery. You are the best!!!!
WOW !!!! What a great video. Thank you so much for taking the time to help us all out. This procedure did the trick for my P102 battery. I thought it was dead. And it’s less than a year old. Only been used a few times. I left it in the back of the car for a few months and then it’s dead. This video was perfect and really helped me out. Thank you.
Just bought cheap alligator clips and a t-10 security bit to try this and it worked perfectly!!!! $7 fix work a $35 replacement. Thank you!!!! Only difficulty I had was removing the plug that hit the last screw.
Great video, thanks so much! I've had 2 batteries I thought I wouldn't be able to do anything with but thanks to your video I've brought them back to life. It took a few more tries than 5 but now I have 5 to use when I need them!
This worked like a charm! The hardest part was finding a hardware store with alligator clips with leads. I didn't want to deal with stripping wires and attaching to the clips. Found alligator clips with leads at a Radio Shack still open in my area. I stripped one of the screws getting them out, so had to use Craftsman Screw Out to get the screw out. Missing one battery screw now. I can happily say that the battery appears to be charging. Thanks very much. The other videos on You Tube, for this fix, did not work....turning charger on and off very quickly, etc. And I'm a 61-year-young lady...go girls, you can do it!
You're informative page, your knowledge and this video are absolutely the best ever. Not only did it teach me how to fix my battery, which worked BTW, but it also taught me the best way to store the batteries and gave me the confidence to purchase these batteries in the future knowing I can fix them if they completely deplete! Your information should be sold for profit to Home Depot, as they don't know any of this. Thank you!
+contondant Oh and by the way, I figure the reason these batteries died was because they were in the charger in the garage for several cold months of winter so the charger wasn't charging them, instead draining them, just as you theorized.
Great video! I opted to bring the pack voltage up with just a couple of 9-volt batteries in series. I was going to follow your instructions exactly, but the batteries were just sitting on my workbench, along with a couple of 9-volt snap leads. After watching I realized that I just needed to bring the pack voltage up enough for the charger to deem it worthy. Regardless, I appreciate the information you have provided as I was about to toss that battery. If a battery was saved for every view, this video has resulted in a gross loss of over $10M in battery sales, assuming a unit price of $50.00 per battery. LOL!
Thanks for your video. I found that I have two versions of the P102. One with a solid central connection post and one with two wires holding the post in place. This method worked well for the rigid post as in your video but the other version does one cycle and then the circuit board begins to smoke and the charger doesn't cycle.
It worked!!! Good thing i saw this video. Saved me some few bucks of buying a new one. Previously followed a different method from another video but did not work. Your method did it and thank you for this!
Many thanks After 2 years whitout my battery Now its working With your help I do like you said, 10 secondes 6 or 7 times Not working I wait 30 secondes 4 times And was OK THANKS VERY MUCH JLBOIS
Your mention of the security bit screwdriver cannot be underestimated. Those retaining screws are torque screws with a protruding nipple at the center. That nipple prevents the screwdriver from fully seating into the screw and prevents the easy removal of the screw. Another point I would like to discuss is when the red led on the charger does not come on. This has happened to me several times. It occurs when the charger is inserted into a wall outlet or extension cord. If the outlet experiences a power surge, the onboard electronics get fried. If the battery has been placed into the charger, it suffers the same fate. All my chargers are now protected by a surge-protected power strip.
I followed the method shown in the video and presto my Ryobi charger began to charge my P102 battery again. The only difference I had in taking apart the battery was that the Torx T-10 screws in my battery were tamper proof. I used a 1/32 punch to tap the points down with a hammer so the T-10 bit would fit. I put the battery on concrete and used the punch on each of the 4 corners. For the center battery post I GENTLY hammered the punch repeatedly to get the point down. I learned latter that Harbor Freight makes a set of tamper proof bits including Torx for a very modest price.
Yup it worked like a charm. I used a setup I had made from a defunct NICAD battery frame with leads to jump start batteries similar to using the charger. Plugged a hot battery into the frame and momentarily jumped 5 times and the put it on the charger, REPAIRED!!
thankyou thankyou thankyou. This worked perfectly on my little-used P102, which the charger analyzed as "defective". I applied the jumper leads for longer than shown in the video because my charger never got "solid green" as shown on the video. Regardless, the battery is now happily charging like normal. Caveat: I haven't tested it in the Ryobi tool yet.
Thank you! I followed your instructions exactly and revived my battery. I am sure I will need to do this again...seems like a bad decision for the batteries to be powering the board and not the charger itself.
This is a nice video. I also have jump started low voltage batteries using another fully charged battery. Also I should say, after you bring the battery to a minimal voltage to be accepted by the charger, please check every single cell. You may be surprised to see that sometimes one or more cells are dead and there is no point putting to charge because you may overcharge the remaining good cells. Overcharging lithium cells is not really a good idea.
Thanks, this helped immediately...one note, I have the P117 charger...it displayed red and flashing green while doing this...I held it for about 10 sec or so...then got worried so I disconnected...measured the voltage and it was 13v. So for at least the P117 folks you don't get the solid green-charged indication...it just continually shows charging. I don't know if it will damage anything holding in that charge mode too long...but I wasn't going to test the theory... One ten sec charge was enough to get my battery back alive.
Thank you for this video and explanation as to what is happening and why. Your video was the only one I found that didn't require the use of an additional charger or 12V DC source. The only thing that went a little differently for me, is when I connected the simultaneous (yellow and black in video) wires to negative side of the battery, it would blink red, and then green, and just keep on blinking green. I let it blink for about 30 seconds, and then tried it again. After the third time, and still after about 30 seconds, the green light stayed solid. I am guessing maybe my battery was really dead? After that, it worked just like your video! Thanks again for your help!
Thank you for posting this, I just tried and I believe it’s fixed, it’s currently charging now. I used my bench power supply to bump it up to 14v by just holding the wires from my power supply to the same two locations for about 2 minutes. Put the cover back on and dropped it in the charger, bam!, shows charging. Now, why did this happen and how do I stop it from happening again?
Thanks for the insight. I resurrected 2 of these using this method. The only difference is I didnt use a multimeter and while tapping the yellow and black the green light kept flashing. Whatever it worked. Thanks again
That was a Awesome Hack. My battery got wet and won't charge at all going to try that Thanks So much..Wow.. I thought I was going to have to buy a new battery...Thanks.. for helping me save money I'm a disable Dad with 3 kids on a fix income that helps me out so much..
Hands down best video. I have the green 30 min charger for p102 and you have to put the black negative on the two charger silver wires. I tried connecting to one skinny portion and it didn't work Also I had to keep detaching the positive connected to the Ryobi p102 and the negative connected to the two silver charger portion and reconnect to get it to blink red fast. I couldn't charge all five straight like on the video.
You're correct that this can be tricky with a P117 charger, as the + terminal has two contacts and not one. Inside the P117 charger these two contacts are actually doing a continuity test to detect that an actual battery has been inserted, a safety feature not found on the other Ryobi chargers.
I performed this procedure. Only difference is that I used a 12v battery tender as my power source to jolt it back to 12V. After the procedure, battery would charge and it's now back to life. It was unfortunate at first since the battery was less than a year old and without a receipt, I couldn't get it replaced. Thank you so much for this video!
+madbrad78 Hi, I'm glad this video helped! There's certainly no reason why another power source couldn't be used. However, one must remember that the purpose here is to "wake up" the cells gently and then let the Ryobi charger do the rest as it was designed to. Using the Ryobi charger itself is a good way to ensure that the current is rate limited. A Battery Tender is also a good choice as it's current limited at an appropriate level. But if someone were to try this with, say, a car battery there's a real risk for melted wires and fireworks! The car battery could potentially supply hundreds of amps and within seconds it could violate the integrity of the cells and the connection wires.
Melted wires for sure! 500+ amps, poof! The battery tender had a 2 amp setting for motorcycle batteries, which is the setting I used. Again, thanks for the video!
JUST BUY A CHEAP PANEL AMPERMETER AND SOME CERAMIC (NO PLASTIC) POTENTIOMETER AND COMNECT TO ANYTHING. IF THERE ARE SHORTED CELLS YOU WILL SEE THE CURRENT.
thanks for the video. for helping me out my p102 ryobi battery now is charging after nothing no lights. realistic video for average person doesn't have a table top adjustable voltage charger or drilling holes through the ryobi battery in other videos.
Isn't it like doing a CPR to the battery cells!!??? Especially when I watch at the point that hitting black and yellow clips together to the battery cell for few seconds and then repeat this process for several times. Thanks for sharing! Nice work!
Nice job, the procedure seems to have worked. I needed to use about 15 compressions (instead of the 5 in the video), because the voltage on my battery was about 1V instead 4-5V in the video. Battery is on the charger now and charging as described.
Tried it on mine. Battery read 150 mv just like yours, did this and it read 12ish volts. Did it 3 times for good measure and now it charges. Mine was dead so it didn't stop flashing green. But it still worked. This was like shocking it back to life.
Success! On a 4 year old battery that wouldn't take a charge. Charging now. Two of the T10 screws seemed to have a safety post in the middle that stopped the standard t10 from fitting in. I carefully hammered them down until the T10 fit in and worked..
The post in the center of the screws is on purpose and it's there to discourage folks from using a standard tool to disassemble the unit. The "safety" T10 bits/tools have a hole in the center and are designed to be used with these screws.
Cost me 10 bucks for alligator clips. I had the t10. Only flased once and stopped. After that she charged. Thanks a bunch it appears you saved me 50 bucks.
This totally works. But you don't have to use the charger. All you need is a charged Ryobi battery, two bits of random wire, and TORAX 10 bit. I just pulled the top of the case (just the top) on my dead battery. TORAX security size 10 bits. I only had a standard TORAX 10 bit. I was able to get four of the five screws with a standard TORAX 10 bit despite the tittie in the middle. One I had to cut out with dremel tool using a dental bit. I used two random strands of wire I found under the sink to jumper pos/pos neg/neg to a good battery for 30 seconds. Pulling the top of the case allows you to bypass the circuit board, and send juice straight to the cells. After I juiced the cells for 30 seconds with the wires-I-found-under-the-sink jumper, I put the top of the case back on the bad battery, and threw it on the charger. Now the bad battery is accepting a charge. I'll put some of the TORAX screws back in if it goes to steady green on the charge indicator. You don't need a volt meter, and you don't need to know the voltage of the various cells before you jumper. You don't need any special tips on the ends of the wire. If the ends of the wire are bare, you just hold the bare ends of the wire against the two batteries. Then jumper the batteries for 30 seconds, and throw the bad battery on the charger. If th green light starts blinking, you win.
Success!!!!!!!!! Thank you for your help My wife cannot believe I fixed it I feel like a surgeon. Oops, I am a surgeon But could not have fixed this without your video
Nice video. I must have a faulty circuit board. After doing the same steps as you, it will go into charging mode, but after about 10 seconds, it goes back to the fading red light. However, I can charge the battery manually by holding the clips on the terminals in the same way, but for many minutes at once. That's not really practical to keep charging it that fashion, so I'll have to get another battery.
Just an FYI, I continued the flashing for maybe 10-15 minutes then I was able to stop using the sensor jump wire the battery charged enough to spin my drill I reassembled everything and charged till full about 30 minutes. Thanks I used the same method for two different dead batteries on the same day thank again
