I've had a Black & Decker cordless power drill for 3-4
years - used maybe 10 times and always recharged when
finished. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that it didn't
seem to be charged, and when I tried to recharge it I don't
think it charged fully. Eventually I took it to a B&D
Service Store, and the employee said that although the
battery was old enough to be going bad, mine seemed to be OK
and accepting a charge just fine. I left puzzled. At home
I put a voltmeter on the B&D wall wart recharger that came
with the drill, and instead of 15 vac output as labeled and
specified in the manual, I was only getting about half a
volt.

I had a couple of other 15 vac wall warts left over from
phone answering machines, so I tested one of them, and it
was providing 15 vac, so I plugged it into the drill.
Battery seemed to recharge for about 30 minutes, with the
wall wart getting warm (as the manual said is normal). Then
it went cold, and when I applied the voltmeter I got about 1
volt.

Same thing with the second spare wall wart.

So, something in my power drill and/or the battery appears
to be ruining the wall wart transformers.

Has anyone here experienced this phenomena? Suggestions to
remedy the problem without tossing the drill and battery and
buying another?

Enlightenment appreciated.

--
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CWLee
Former slayer of dragons; practice now limited to sacred
cows. Believing we should hire for quality, not quotas, and
promote for performance, not preferences.