Hey everyone! I'm having some trouble with my M18 grease gun. It seems like it's not getting power from the battery. After opening it up, I didn't find anything wrong. I even tried using the battery from my impact tool, and it worked, but then it stopped again after a few minutes. I did some research and learned that the J1 and J2 tabs are supposed to 'wake' the battery up. I'm not an electrical whiz, but I can figure out some simple stuff. Does anyone know if I can just remove the J2 tab by heating it or grounding it somehow?
3 Answers
From what I've gathered, if you bypass the J2 tab, you might lose some important features like low voltage cut-off and temperature protection for your battery. While that might not be a big deal for a grease gun, it's risky. If your tool isn't running properly even with J2 connected, I'd suspect there's more going on with the tool itself. It sounds like that might be the real issue, especially since you managed to get it running with a different battery. Have you tested various batteries with it? I wouldn't recommend modifying the tool just because one battery didn't work; it could lead to more problems down the line.
You can indeed work around the J2 issue. One way is to use a resistor connected from the positive terminal to J2 inside the tool. Keep in mind that this would disable some safety features like low voltage cut-off. Also, just so you know, there’s usually a delay when you pull the trigger before the tool operates – about 50ms while it processes the signals from J1 and J2. Just be cautious if you decide to go this route.
Just a heads-up, if you change anything in your grease gun, it could affect your warranty with Milwaukee. They might deny any claims if they see modifications were made. That being said, since you've already disassembled it, you might have already voided your warranty.